Motion To Instruct Conferees On H.R. 2996, Department Of The Interior, Environment, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. LATHAM. I thank the gentleman from Idaho, and I thank the Speaker for the recognition.

Mr. Speaker, the Senate included a one-sentence provision in the 2008 omnibus spending bill requiring the EPA
to develop and publish a rule that mandates the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions for all sectors of the U.S. economy. That one sentence reads, ``Of the funds provided in the Environmental Programs and Management Account, not less than $3,500,000 shall be provided for activities to develop and publish a draft rule not later than 9 months after the date of enactment of this act, and a final rule not later than 18 months after the date of enactment of this act, to require mandatory reporting of greenhouse gas emissions above appropriate thresholds in all sectors of the economy of the United States.''

Mr. Speaker, this one sentence, incidentally, I will say--and I will say again later--never had a hearing. It was snuck in in this bill. That one sentence resulted in 1,302 pages, 42 volumes of regulations, and I hold here the 1,300 pages. The preamble of this regulation is 500 pages long. This is what this is, another 500 pages. So we've got 1,800 pages, and the Regulatory Impact Analysis of more than 200 pages. Mr. Speaker, here is another 200 pages. So, in total, this one sentence that was snuck in this bill has resulted in over 2,000 pages of new regulations for our country at a time that we're in a recession and people are hurting out there. This is the cost of more government.

The proposed rule generated about 17,000 comments. According to the EPA, this rule will cost employers $115 million for the first year, and estimates about $70 million each year after that just to comply with the new 2,000 pages here. Mr. Speaker, as a former small business owner and farmer, I would suggest these numbers are exceedingly low. And there is no estimate as to how much has already been spent by businesses trying to figure out whether or not they fall under the regulation, and if they do, how they're going to follow these new rules.

Congress tucked this sentence into an appropriations bill, again, without holding a single hearing. Let me reemphasize, not a single hearing goes into these 2,000 pages of regulations that are now being put on top of our economy. Consequently, the language provided no limitation or guidelines for the EPA and gave the agency unlimited authority to draft the new rule.

The EPA did its job; 1,300 pages in regulations are a testament to the Congress using the Appropriations Committee to shortcut the authorizing committee process.

The language we are debating today impacts the livestock industry. Within these 1,300 pages, the regulation requires a reporting of greenhouse gases from animal agriculture, which, on the surface, seems harmless enough. However, I want to stress that this regulation has a cost and, more importantly, it will do nothing to improve the environmental health of rural America. It doesn't make manure lagoons smell any better. It doesn't protect water wells or native species. It doesn't do one thing to improve the standard of living in rural Iowa or any part of this country. It has, however, improved the standard of living of people in metropolitan Washington, D.C., because this one sentence has kept a bunch of bureaucrats at EPA busy for the last year and a half.

Farmers work very hard day to day to try to preserve their environment, from learning how to keep their topsoil from washing away, to improving the quality of our water, to eliminating odor and turning waste products into energy. The health of the environment is critically important to the success of a farming operation.

American farmers have done a great job in finding ways to protect the environment without sacrificing their families' farms' incomes; but at a time when our Nation's farmers are facing some of the most difficult economic times in the last decade, we are introducing a new and costly Federal mandate. This regulation will generate additional input costs for an industry that can ill afford it.

Dairy has lost about $12 billion in milk receipts from 2008-2009, about a 33 percent loss; pork, a loss of about $2 billion, or 10 percent in receipts for hogs, and the industry is expected to lose another $800 million this year; cattle, a loss of about $5 billion, or 10 percent of its receipts; and poultry producers are going bankrupt.

If you're in livestock today, you are losing money. The EPA estimates the cost of reporting will be $900 per facility. However, one instrument used to measure methane can cost about $15,000, and it requires trained personnel to maintain, which adds further costs. So these farmers are going to have to hire an expert to sit there and monitor the machines. To me, that adds up to a little more than $900 per facility.

To add further costs to production is simply foolish and irresponsible on the part of this Congress. This language should never have been added to a spending bill. That's why we have an authorizing committee and why Members representing agriculture are concerned about this climate change legislation.

You think about it. One sentence tucked into an appropriations bill generated 1,300 pages of regulations, 500 pages of preamble and 200 pages of regulatory impact analysis, and it regulates all sectors of the economy, agriculture just being a small slice.

We have cap-and-trade bills that have thousands of pages of legislative language alone that Members of Congress want signed into law. This Congress intends to give the EPA a huge increase in spending this year, and I guess they're going to need it. Why? Because the EPA is going to have to hire a heck of a lot of new people to write those regulations, and regulations with equations like these have real costs to our economy.

Let me just show you what this regulation looks like. This is true. This is why farmers love Washington--when you have a paragraph that puts one of the formulas in these regulations that farmers have to comply with. Let me just read.

It says, ``For all manure management system components listed in 98.360(b), except digesters, estimate the annual CH4 emissions and sum for all the components to obtain total emissions from the manure management system for all animal types using equation JJ-1.''

Well, this is equation JJ-1. You figure it out. We're going to have to have a bunch of mathematicians on the farm along with the EPA, apparently.

The regulation, as written, is onerous. The cost and scope is in serious question, and agriculture cannot afford another Federal mandate on this economy. Manure management is a serious issue. I know. I grew up and I live in Iowa, but this rule does nothing--and I emphasize again nothing--to improve the way farmers manage their manure.

Ladies and gentlemen, we stand up here every day, and we talk about the economic problems outside the beltway and about how much we want to work to provide assistance. When will it dawn on us that here in Washington we are part of that problem? Washington mandates costs on a daily basis, whether on farmers who feed us or on our constituents in low-income areas who have to pay more of their hard-earned dollars each month to cover the costs of our well-intentioned handiwork. We need to think about the impacts--$200 here, $1,000 here, $200 million over there. Pretty soon, our employers are struggling to keep up with the government-generated cost-of-living increases.

I ask my colleagues to please support this motion to instruct. It is absolutely critical, not only in agriculture but for our constituents back home.

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Mr. LATHAM. I thank the gentleman.

I don't know how you can say you have 99 percent when the amendment is eliminated. The fact of the matter is that we are going to be spending millions of dollars whether you are large producers or small producers to figure out who qualifies under this.

That's one of the major problems here is that nobody knows for sure who it is and who it isn't. You are going to have to spend as a large producer, small producer, whatever, a whole bunch of money to figure out whether or not you actually qualify.

The fact of the matter is, any of these costs are going to be passed down to the consumers. Now, I know, maybe another 30, 40 bucks a week out of a grocery bill isn't much for folks around here. But I tell you what, there are folks hurting at home, and that's a lot of money.

The idea that somehow this isn't going to affect the price of food, that it isn't going to affect the cost of agriculture; and to do nothing, just have no improvement as far as the environment, no improvement as far as waste management, as far as air emissions, it will do nothing except add cost to the end consumer. I'm sorry, but my producers out there know what this is going to cost them, each and every one of them, because they're going to have to go through a whole process to figure out what they can do and cannot do; it's going to add cost, and we're going to end up with the families today paying the bill at the grocery store because of onerous regulations exactly like this.

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