Mr. BOOZMAN. Mr. President, I come to the Senate floor to discuss an important action this Congress can take to protect manufacturing jobs and strengthen our economy.
Specifically, I encourage Senate conferees on the payroll tax bill to include projobs bipartisan language--such as H.R. 2250 or S. 1392--that would address the EPA's proposed rule on maximum achievable control technology standards for boilers, also known as boiler MACT.
Fixing boiler MACT is important because if the EPA gets it wrong, it will cost tens of thousands of good-paying blue-collar manufacturing jobs. These regulations will be one more unnecessary weight dragging down our economy and making life harder for low- and middle-income families.
Fixing boiler MACT is important also because Congress should provide clarity and certainty to the rulemaking process. The process has been plagued by complications, administrative stays, court orders, and numerous other stops and starts.
For example, employers spent hundreds of millions working to comply with the 2004 boiler MACT rules only to be told they must now spend billions more. The boiler MACT legislation should be included in the payroll tax relief legislation which is intended to provide some help to our sluggish economy by allowing Americans to keep a little more of the money they earn. By addressing boiler MACT on this bill, we can further protect jobs--especially manufacturing jobs--and prevent our country from having to absorb one more sudden regulatory punch in the gut.
Fixing boiler MACT is important because our economy is weak and families are struggling. Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted a weak and perilous economic situation for the next couple years. We see continued high unemployment, including estimates that the unemployment rate will tick up to 8.9 percent this year and 9.2 percent next year. We see projections of $1.2 trillion deficits. On top of all this, we have learned that the GDP growth slowed to just 1.7 percent last year.
I hope these troubling projections are wrong, but given what we know, we should be focused on encouraging job growth and opportunity. American families are counting on us. We should not stifle businesses that want to expand and create jobs. One way to help is to provide some regulatory certainty and to allow employers the time they need to adjust to new, burdensome regulations.
The boiler MACT fix would provide the EPA an additional 15 months to prepare appropriate, justified, and achievable regulations for industrial boilers. Without this time, EPA will be forced to rush the rules out the door only a few weeks after they will receive hundreds of substantive comments and new data on boiler performance.
The boiler MACT fix would also give employers a little extra time to comply with the rules once they are finalized. This is vital because it will minimize job losses that would occur if employers had to rush to implement the new rules. The rules are very expensive and spreading the cost out over a couple extra years will make it less likely that employers will have to lay off employees.
In Arkansas alone, boiler MACT will cost over $230 million and put 3,600 jobs at risk. These are real jobs and real people. I shake their hands and I hear their serious concerns when I visit communities such as Pine Bluff, AR, or Howard County, AR. In our State, the proposed boiler MACT rules will especially harm the employers with units that burn solid fuels such as biomass. The boiler MACT would help by stating that materials such as renewable biomass that have been used for fuel for decades should remain classified as fuel and not reclassified as solid waste.
We should be encouraging the use of renewable biomass, not discouraging it. Sending biomass to a landfill makes absolutely no sense when we can use it to power our industries and create jobs. The potential harm to renewable, carbon-neutral biomass is very bad for Arkansas. But it is not just our rural States with significant biomass that will be harmed; boiler MACT will hit all States, large and small, rural and urban.
For example, in Pennsylvania it will cost over $751 million and put over 12,000 jobs at risk. In Montana it will cost $32 million and put over 500 jobs at risk. In Maryland it will cost over $195 million and put over 3,100 jobs at risk. In Rhode Island it will cost over $19 million and put hundreds of jobs at risk. In Wyoming it will cost over $155 million and put over 2,400 jobs at risk.
Some of the hardest hit States include North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Virginia, Illinois, and Minnesota. Several States will see more than 12,000 jobs put at risk. In Arkansas, the expense and uncertainty created by these rules will force some employers to scale back. Other employers may be able to keep existing jobs but decide that it does not make sense to hire new employees while they face these mounting regulatory costs. Given these serious concerns, the boiler MACT fix will provide clarity and give businesses a reasonable timeframe to comply. The boiler MACT legislation passed the other body with bipartisan support from 275 Congressmen. In the Senate this legislation has the support of a strong bipartisan majority.
Over the last four decades our country has cleaned our air by reducing emissions that cause serious threats--threats to human health and to the environment. I strongly support appropriate, science-based protection for clean air, and we must continue to protect the environment.
The public will continue to support appropriate protections for clean air, especially if this Congress takes a reasonable approach and gives the EPA the time it needs to develop rules that are achievable and that can be implemented in a timeline that will protect important manufacturing jobs throughout our country. For these reasons I urge the Senate conferees on the payroll tax bill to include the boiler MACT fix. I also ask my colleagues to let the conferees know how important this issue is. Together, we can help create opportunities and protect these important, high-paying manufacturing and other blue collar jobs.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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