Volume 143, No. 95 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.
“PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH IMPLEMENTATION OF IMPENDING EPA STANDARDS” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4907-H4908 on July 8, 1997.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH IMPLEMENTATION OF IMPENDING EPA STANDARDS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Taylor of North Carolina). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Mascara] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. MASCARA. Mr. Speaker, I was supposed to join the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Klink] this evening to talk about the problems associated with the impending standards to be implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency.
First of all, I would like to give a historic perspective to illustrate why I have joined so many of my colleagues in the House of Representatives to speak about the national ambient air quality standards. First let me clear the air, no pun intended. I support, as do many Members of Congress, clean air and a sound environmental policy in this country. The key word is ``sound.''
I would like to share with my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, a historic perspective about the 15 years' experience that I had in county government. During that time I served on the Southwestern Pennsylvania Regional Planning Commission and during those 15 years I served as chairman 3 years and also as chairman of the Plan Policy Committee which had the responsibility of implementing ISTEA, which is the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act and the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 which were a companion bill. So I had an opportunity as a county commissioner to see the system from the bottom up and now as a Member of Congress to see it from the top down. I do have some experience in dealing with legislation that applies to clean air and air quality standards.
As a member of the Regional Planning Commission, we covered six counties, including Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Washington, and Westmoreland and the city of Pittsburgh. I also served as chairman of this Plan Policy Committee that had the responsibility of implementing those two pieces of legislation, including the National Highway System Act.
This enabled me to have a better understanding of the problems associated with implementing those standards in southwestern Pennsylvania. I led a group of county commissioners in 1994 suggesting that the nonattainment status in southwestern Pennsylvania was incorrect, and that we as county commissioners and the city of Pittsburgh council requested that an independent testing firm test the quality of air in southwestern Pennsylvania to determine whether in fact we did not reach attainment. We found at that time that some of the equipment that was used in measuring the quality of air was faulty, we found that the air quality samples that were taken were taken on the hottest days of the year. We requested and the Department of Transportation in Pennsylvania and the Department of Environmental Resources agreed to permit a testing company, an independent testing company to measure the quality of air in southwestern Pennsylvania.
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The tests that were done by this independent firm proved our suspicions that the earlier testing was inappropriate and resulted in inaccurate test results. The air quality in the Pittsburgh region had definitely met the air quality standards. The Pennsylvania DER advised the EPA that southwestern Pennsylvania had met its ozone standards, and the EPA sat on the new information and never corrected our status from moderate nonattainment to attainment.
Listen to this. Based on monitoring data between 1989 and 1994, western Pennsylvania's air quality met or exceeded the national standards for ozone levels. Apparently the application got lost in the bureaucratic maze, for it took the EPA over 2 years to respond instead of the mandated 18-month period. That summer, the summer of 1995, western Pennsylvania's ozone readings exceeded acceptable levels on only 9 days. Let me remind you that 1995 was one of the hottest summers on record.
Yes, we paid the price for clean air that we now breathe, and as I said earlier we all support clean air. Southwestern Pennsylvania citizens paid the price, and now they want us to believe the new standards could eventually put the remaining 100,000 miners out of work and impact workers in the few remaining jobs we have in southwestern Pennsylvania.
Mr. Speaker, I remind you that as a part of the 1980's and the decline in the steel and mining industry that we lost nearly 200,000 manufacturing jobs in southwestern Pennsylvania. And these new air quality requirements are without a basis of science, and we are asking the President, and I joined in with several of my colleagues in writing the President asking him to take another look at the air quality standards which will be implemented this year.
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