Nomination of Regina McCarthy to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Floor Speech

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Mr. COATS. Mr. President, we are about to vote on a new Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency. I have a real problem with the individual who has been nominated to direct that Agency. I will cast my vote shortly, but I want to take the opportunity here to talk about the EPA, an Agency that I think has exceeded the authority given to it by this body, it has overstepped its role and its bounds, and has had an enormous negative impact on my State and on our country.

The overreach, the regulation after regulation and rule after rule that has come out of EPA may have achieved some benefit in some places, but these benefits have come nowhere close to exceeding their costs.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute totals EPA regulations at roughly $350 billion a year, making it the single most expensive rulemaking agency in government. This is particularly relevant now, because a vote on the new Administrator is before us and I think it is important that we focus on what the EPA's impact has been over the last 4 or 5 years and what the EPA rules and regulations have imposed upon our economy.

Whether it is the war on fossil fuels, whether it is the war on the production of energy, or any of a number of other issues that have been brought forward through their rules and regulations, the EPA has had a serious negative impact on our ability to be an energy-secure, energy-efficient, and low-cost Nation.

Our country has taken great strides to improve air quality over the years. To date, the utility industry has spent over $100 billion in capital investment for air pollution controls which have resulted in significant declines in emissions. By singling out these providers and effectively prohibiting coal-fired electricity generation, the administration is putting our economic well-being, grid reliability, and American jobs at risk.

Air quality and energy production don't have to be at war with each other. They don't need to be incompatible. We can, and must, achieve both. But we also must have some flexibility and transparency from this administration and its rulemaking agencies if we are going to accomplish that goal.

I applaud my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Vitter, for his persistence in seeking responses from the EPA. So often this Agency researches benefits and secondary benefits but does not reveal a detailed economic analysis of the true costs associated with their rules. Senator Vitter's work in getting a commitment from the Agency to convene independent economic experts to examine the Agency's economic model is something that I believe needs to be done.

I think the administration should welcome this, because we are trying to find that balance between putting people back to work, getting our economy moving again, and imposing, yes, necessary health and safety regulations but not one at the cost of the other. These can be compatible.

Senator Manchin and I, on a bipartisan basis, have sought not to give the electricity coal-fired plants across our country--and many of which are in our respective States--an excuse not to comply with the clean air laws, but simply to extend the time in which they are mandated to bring new pollution control measures onboard. Some of these industries are halfway through the production process of doing this. They have made the commitment. All we asked for was a temporary waiver--nothing to do with achieving the goal, but a temporary waiver to give them a little more extra time to comply and finish what they were doing.

Some of these coal plants were in the middle of installing extremely expensive air pollution control measures. Yet the hard and fast rule imposed upon them by the EPA--with no ability to give them a waiver for demonstrated good-faith effort to comply--and because they couldn't get all the construction and implementation made by a certain date, they now have to switch to another source of fuel or shut down. Many had to shut down, at significant economic impact not just to my State but to many States, particularly those States that have heavy manufacturing that needs a lot of electricity.

So while I don't want to go into great detail in terms of which specific regulations and rules ought to be looked at and given some flexibility, I want to make the larger point that if we are sincere about dealing with issues and policies that will allow us to achieve economic growth and put more people back to work, we need to have responsible rules and regulations--not this onslaught of rules and regulations that continues to come out of EPA, some of which seem driven by ideology rather than by effective cost-benefit analysis--with the understanding that we are in a precarious economic time. We have a lot of people out of work, and that delay or an advancement of time in which to achieve certain regulations and a sincere evaluation on the basis of what is the real cost-benefit of going forward with this ought to be imposed.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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