Providing for Consideration of H.R. Pfas Action Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Consumer Protection and Recovery Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Averting Loss of Life and Injury By Expediting Sivs Act of 2021
Floor Speech
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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from North Carolina for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, today's rule provides for consideration of a bill to designate perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as PFOA, and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, also known as PFOS, as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, outside the regular rulemaking process. This rule also includes a bill to overturn a recent Supreme Court decision on the Federal Trade Commission's authority to seek monetary relief for consumers, and a bill to ease restrictions and increase the cap on Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans.
H.R. 2467, the PFAS Action Act, has a laudable goal to address the negative impacts of PFOA and PFAS. These are manmade chemicals and have proven useful but potentially harmful. While they are often used in products throughout our world, there is evidence that certain types of PFAS lead to negative health consequences. Although there is bipartisan agreement that Congress needs to address PFAS contamination, this bill does not achieve that goal.
The PFAS Action Act would require the Environmental Protection Agency to designate PFAS and PFOA as hazardous substances under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, known as CERCLA, within 1 year of the bill's passage and then to consider designating the remaining 9,000-plus PFAS chemicals as hazardous substances within 5 years.
The reality is just over 800 compounds have been categorized as hazardous substances since the passage of CERCLA in 1980. Now, we are going to add over 9,000 chemicals in just 5 years, and I submit it will be nearly impossible for the Environmental Protection Agency to implement this.
The agency is actively engaged in investigating the prevalence of PFAS chemicals and has undertaken rulemakings to address some of the provisions in this bill, so undercutting this process by establishing unrealistic requirements on a shortened timeline sets the Environmental Protection Agency up for failure.
CERCLA is an incredibly complex body of law that triggers significant liability if a cleanup is necessary. Creating a blanket designation of all of the 9,252 PFAS chemicals would create a massive problem for consumers who live with FDA-approved PFAS devices. For example, 40 million Americans are currently living with a PFAS-based heart stent.
Are they to be designated as Superfund sites or to have those stents removed?
A blanket CERCLA designation would also hinder innovation in new products. The coronavirus pandemic has revealed the vulnerabilities in our supply chain. It doesn't seem like the correct time to limit the materials available for innovation when the designation as hazardous, for largely useful compounds, is based on rushed science.
This bill also requires the EPA to issue a rule on toxicity testing for PFAS, a rule on PFAS contamination of drinking water, and a rule to designate all PFAS chemicals as hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
Furthermore, this legislation requires the Environmental Protection Agency to establish grants for communities to implement PFAS water treatment technologies.
Republicans offered amendments in the Energy and Commerce Committee and at the Rules Committee that were rejected for various procedural reasons. The Rules Committee did not receive a score from the Congressional Budget Office for this bill until an hour before our Rules meeting yesterday, and the CBO score was indeterminate.
The administration of this bill would cost the Federal Government $280 million over 10 years. It is impossible to know how this impacts Federal spending over the next 10 years. No one knows how much PFAS contamination exists, so no one knows how much liability this bill creates for taxpayers.
Because the amendments offered by Republicans were based on the underlying bill, the amendments were also problematic from a budget perspective. There is no reason to limit consideration of these amendments that affect consumer safety based on the inability to achieve a budget score because the underlying bill is budgetarily suspect.
Ultimately, this bill ignores the societal good that some fluorinated compounds demand. PFAS are in medical devices that save lives. They are used in firefighting foams to put out the worst of blazes, including jet fuel fires. They are in advanced energy products like solar panels and pipelines. They are even in piano keys and dental floss. These compounds are risky if used improperly or irresponsibly, but they are essential when used correctly.
Our second bill, the Consumer Protection and Recovery Act seeks to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in the case of AMG Capital v. Federal Trade Commission. In this decision, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act does not grant the Federal Trade Commission the authority to seek monetary relief as an equitable remedy when engaging in enforcement actions.
Unfortunately, this bill was rushed through the Energy and Commerce Committee without addressing any of the Republican concerns. First, this bill reinstates the Federal Trade Commission's authority to seek monetary relief under section 13(b) and expands the scope to apply broadly to all FTC enforcement authority. This will likely make monetary relief the go-to remedy for every alleged FTC violation.
The Federal Trade Commission already has authority to seek monetary relief for fraudulent and dishonest conduct under section 19 of the Federal Trade Commission Act.
Second, this bill includes a statute of limitations of 10 years, but a 5-year statute of limitations is in line with the rest of the Federal Trade Commission Act, and, in fact, would be more appropriate. It does not make sense for courts to go back for a full decade to calculate monetary relief.
During the Rules meeting yesterday, Ranking Member Bilirakis offered an amendment that would have addressed these two issues. Unfortunately, committee Democrats would not even allow a debate on these amendments on the floor of this House.
Additionally, the expanded scope of the bill would give the Federal Trade Commission new authority to seek monetary relief in antitrust cases. This remedy is currently not needed, because antitrust cases can be brought through private rights of action or, in fact, treble damages, a tripling of the compensatory damages, can be awarded.
This bill is a missed opportunity to develop Federal privacy legislation that is needed to overcome a patchwork of State laws. A key part of protecting consumers is ensuring that the Federal Trade Commission has the tools to enforce a Federal privacy standard. It is disappointing that the Democrats refused to work with Republicans to make this bill actually useful and effective for real consumers.
Republicans support ensuring that the Federal Trade Commission has the necessary tools to protect consumers from bad actors. But it also recognizes that guardrails are necessary to prevent the Federal Trade Commission from exceeding its authority.
The final bill, the ALLIES Act, expands the number of special immigrant visas by 8,000 and eases requirements for Afghan requirements. To qualify, an individual must have been employed in Afghanistan by or on behalf of the United States Government, the International Security Assistance Force, or the Resolute Support Mission.
This bill removes the current requirement that the International Security Assistance Force or Resolute Support employees had been engaged in sensitive and trusted positions. This will make it easier for Afghans who served alongside our Armed Forces to qualify.
Americans first entered Afghanistan in October 2001. Most of us were not in Congress in October of 2001. And this, of course, followed the terrorist attacks on September 11 of that year. Once the Taliban was defeated and Osama bin Laden was caught, the United States worked to establish a legitimate and strong central government in Afghanistan. Now, after 20 years, Americans are ready for their brave sons and daughters to come home.
Despite our efforts and bloodshed, Afghanistan remains plagued by a resurgent Taliban, by dangerous militias, and by a weak central government. The Pentagon recently stated that, for all intents and purposes, the United States withdrawal is, in fact, already complete. Unfortunately, many Afghans who served alongside our Armed Forces and security personnel remain in Afghanistan under serious threat due to their employment by or on behalf of the United States' missions.
We must ensure that we are not putting Americans at risk by not properly vetting applicants as they are brought to this country, but we also must do right by those Afghans who risked their lives to aid Americans throughout the last 20 years.
Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to immediately consider S. 1867, the COVID-19 Origin Act, introduced by Senator Hawley. It has been 55 days since the Senate passed this critical bill without a single dissenting vote.
Declassifying intelligence surrounding the origin of COVID-19 is imperative and key to the House Republican plan to hold China accountable for the pandemic.
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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, to further explain the amendment, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Wenstrup), a valuable member of the Doctors Caucus.
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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, again, I am going to urge defeat of the previous question and consideration of the amendment as previously discussed by Dr. Wenstrup.
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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how many additional speakers the gentlewoman from North Carolina has.
Mr. Speaker, Republicans agree that PFAS contamination must be addressed, and it must be addressed quickly. But requiring a blanket CERCLA designation for a family of over 9,000 compounds is not only untenable; it circumvents the science and the ongoing work at the Environmental Protection Agency.
I do want to point out that yesterday I had posed a question in the Rules Committee if there had been a hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee. I was assured that there had been. But, in fact, those hearings occurred in the previous Congress.
There was a reference to PFAS in the budgetary hearing for the Environmental Protection Agency, and there was likewise a tangential reference in a reauthorization of a water bill, but for an issue that is this involved, it seems that this required its own separate hearing within the committee.
The Chair, who is on the Energy and Commerce Committee, knows that sometimes these things run together. We have worked on this problem for so many Congresses that I asked the question simply because I couldn't remember if there had been an actual hearing on this bill in this Congress. But, in fact, there has not, and I just want the Record to accurately reflect that.
The reason that that is important is there are many Members in this Congress who were not Members of the previous Congress, and we are asking them to take a vote today on a terribly important piece of legislation. We need to provide our colleagues with all the facts, and the way we do that in regular order is through the regular hearing process in an authorizing committee, like the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Unfortunately, in spite of the assurances from the chair of the Rules Committee, that has not happened with this bill.
Another thing really was concerning to me yesterday in the Rules Committee. I had two amendments. I was told: Oh, we can't do those because we don't really know the budgetary impacts of that.
My gosh, you don't know the budgetary impacts of the entire bill.
We got a CBO score right at the hearing time yesterday, and the CBO score says $280 million of direct expenses over the next 10 years. But it has no idea of the downstream effects of passing this legislation or what the resulting expenditures would be for Federal and State governments. We have no earthly idea what the actual cost of this is.
I would just simply submit, to reject amendments brought in good faith by Republicans because you don't have all the budgetary information at hand when the Congressional Budget Office really cannot provide us the proper budgetary direction on the underlying bill, you begin to see the discrepancy and why that yields so much frustration.
As a result, no Republican amendments to try to improve the bill were considered because of the indeterminate budgetary effects. It seems to me that a bill focused on consumer safety should not be limited by procedural issues.
Those very same procedural issues, Mr. Speaker, can be waived by the Committee on Rules. That is what we do. We waive things all the time. But in this case, we couldn't find the additional energy to be able to do that.
Additionally, the rushed bill to overturn the Supreme Court's decision on the Federal Trade Commission's section 13(b) authority to seek monetary relief will only make monetary relief the go-to remedy for every FTC violation, with no guardrails.
Creating new agency authority that affects consumers should not be undertaken so lightly and should not be rushed through committee without full consideration of the issue. This bill does nothing to advance Federal privacy standards that are needed to overcome the patchwork of State laws and increase our ability to negotiate a new data-sharing agreement with the European Union.
Again, I would just stress that an amendment offered by Mr. Bilirakis in committee--and I offered it again yesterday in the Rules Committee-- to try to make this a more bipartisan and reasonable approach was rejected on party lines. That is not the way that we should be governing.
Finally, the ALLIES Act will increase the ability of certain Afghans to obtain Special Immigrant Visas. These Afghans worked alongside our troops for years to make their country a better place, often at significant risk to their own lives and their families' lives. We must ensure that they are properly and thoroughly vetted so that the Taliban and jihadist militias cannot exploit our generosity. We must also not leave behind those who risked their lives to aid our Armed Forces.
Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question, and I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule. I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
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Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
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