Volume 143, No. 89 covering the 1st Session of the 105th Congress (1997 - 1998) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“SUPPORT H.R. 1984 TO LIMIT POWER OF EPA” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4213-H4214 on June 23, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
SUPPORT H.R. 1984 TO LIMIT POWER OF EPA
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Klink] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. KLINK. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to beg of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in an effort, and I have spoken on this during the last several weeks. We have a bill called H.R. 1984. That is the number. I thought it was very unusual that we end up with the No. 1984, because there are those of my colleagues who remember the George Orwell novel about Big Brother peering into our lives. This really is to deal with Big Brother peering into our lives in the form of the Environmental Protection Agency.
All of us agree with the goals, I believe, of the EPA and, that is, that we should have clean water to drink and to use and we should have clean air to breathe, and we have all been working to that end. However, many of us are concerned that at a time when States across this Nation are working to clean the air, when the Clean Air Amendments of 1990 and the Clean Air Act itself are showing themselves to be working, than here comes the EPA, about to change the finish line in the middle of this race. We fear that they are about to propose a tightening of the standards for something called particulate matter. Particulate matter is a fancy word for the soot that comes out of the smokestacks of this Nation or for the dust that blows off of fields in agricultural areas. And also for changing the standards for something called ozone which is nothing more than smog.
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Now you see the problem is that industries in this Nation, that locales and States are implementing plans aiming at hitting the targets that have been set since 1987 in some instances, and now at a time when we are about to come into compliance, when many counties across this great Nation are beginning to come into compliance, the EPA is about to take a action we feel that will throw 400 counties out of compliance.
Now what happens if your county, Mr. and Mrs. Congressman, is one of those counties or the counties in your region are those counties well, what happens is first of all that your State that is about to implement a plan to clean up the air says wait a minute, we are going to stop, we are not going to take the action to clean up the air, and as a result we will have dirtier air for a longer period of time. The other result is if you are out of compliance the day these new regulations will take effect it will be harder for the local governing body, whether it is the county commissioners, whether it is a city, a township, a bureau, would not be able to issue building permits to industries that want to expand or new industries that want to locate in your region, and so the dramatic impact, even if they said let U.S. Put these new regulations on the book but we are not going to enforce them today, does not matter because the day those regulations are put on the books industries and local government leaders are going to have to begin to react to them in ways that will cost jobs across this Nation, in ways that will cause local governing bodies to spend more money, industry to spend more money.
And so this bill that I am talking about that I would like to encourage my colleagues to join me on is a bipartisan bill. The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Upton] on the Republican side, myself on the Democratic side, along with the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Boucher] have introduced H.R. 1984 that says simply this: Rather than spending billions of dollars and really ending up having dirtier air for a longer period of time and costing a million jobs or more, let U.S. Authorize the expenditure of $75 million a year over the next 5 years, and during that period of time we will ask that we build the new PM monitors that will measure the air across this Nation.
Right now for this particulate matter there are only 50 monitors that exist across the whole country. Let U.S. Build enough monitors that we can get the scientific data and that we can then analyze it.
The reason the EPA is moving in this direction is that they were sued by the American Lung Association that said every 5 years under the act you are supposed to go back and take a look at this. Does not mean you have to change the standards, does not mean you have to tighten the standards, but every 5 years you have to go back and review the standards, and they said, EPA, you have not done this since 1987, and now we are in 1997, so it has been 10 years. And what we are saying is that until you build those new monitors, until you deploy those monitors across this Nation, gather the data, another 5 years will pass.
Why do we want to spend billions of dollars changing the target of clean air in the middle of this race to achieve it? It makes no sense at all.
And so, Mr. Speaker, I would request that our colleagues join me and say for 5 years let U.S. Not implement the new regulations, let U.S. Get good science, let U.S. Study the issue, let U.S. Deploy these monitors, and then after 5 years we will take a look at this issue again and the health and the air of this Nation will be much better for it.
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