EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011

Floor Speech

Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. I rise today in support of H.R. 2250, the EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011.

Excessive regulations are threatening jobs across the Nation. We all recognize the need for reasonable regulations to protect the public. There are good regulations that ensure public safety and protect our environment. But there are also unnecessary and unreasonable regulations that hurt jobs in some of our Nation's most critical industries.

Recently, a representative from Celanese, a chemical company in the Ninth District of Virginia, which I'm proud to represent, testified that the EPA's Boiler MACT rules, as written, could force them to significantly scale back or change operations at a plant in Giles County that employs hundreds of people in the Ninth District. Giles County and communities throughout southwest Virginia are already facing job losses resulting from other excessive EPA regulations.

The Boiler MACT rules are a very complex area of law and regulation. We are talking about hundreds of pages of rules in the Federal Register. These rules would affect boilers used by thousands of major employers and smaller employers, including hospitals, manufacturers, and even our colleges.

By the EPA's own estimates, compliance with its Boiler MACT rules will impose $5.8 billion in upfront capital costs and impose new costs of $2.2 billion annually. However, the Council of Industrial Boiler Owners estimates that the capital costs alone of the final rules will exceed $14 billion and could put more than 230,000 jobs at risk, including 10,000 jobs in Virginia.

The EPA Regulatory Relief Act would provide the EPA with 15 months to repropose and finalize new, achievable, and workable rules to replace those that were published earlier this year. The legislation would extend the compliance deadlines from 3 to at least 5 years to allow facilities--like Celanese and others--enough time to comply with these very complex and expensive standards and to install the necessary equipment. It also directs the EPA to ensure that new rules are in fact achievable by real-world boilers, process heaters, and incinerators, and directs the EPA to impose the least burdensome regulatory alternatives under the Clean Air Act, consistent with the act and President Obama's Executive order.

Despite what opponents may say, this bill recognizes the need for reasonable boiler regulations. This is not an attempt to forego the rules entirely. Under H.R. 2250, the EPA must issue replacement rules and must set compliance dates. The bill simply provides sufficient time for the government to get the rules right and come up with a more reasonable and achievable approach that protects the public without imposing unnecessary costs on businesses that employ thousands of hardworking Americans.

Protecting jobs is an issue that transcends party lines. This commonsense bill represents a compromise. Like any compromise, the language of H.R. 2250 is not what I might have done if I were acting alone. However, this bill brought together a group of legislators from both sides of the aisle with a reasonable approach and reasonable language. The EPA Regulatory Relief Act has 126 bipartisan cosponsors.

America's job creators are also speaking out in support of this bill. The EPA Regulatory Relief Act has received hundreds of support letters from businesses, unions, and trade associations. Understand, the investments required by these rules are irreversible. For those businesses that decide to stop producing their product at a particular location, the job losses are also irreversible.

The good news here is excessive regulations are reversible and fixable. We must fix unreasonable regulations like the Boiler MACT rules and keep the focus on protecting valuable American jobs.

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Mr. GRIFFITH of Virginia. Mr. Chairman, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting the EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011. I appreciate this opportunity to carry this important legislation, which will protect jobs not only in the Ninth District of Virginia, but across these United States.

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