Energy Consumers Relief Act of 2013
Floor Speech
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Mr. WHITFIELD. Madam Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
This evening, we will be debating H.R. 1582, the Energy Consumers Relief Act of 2013, authored by the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Cassidy), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Madam Chairman, one of the major issues that the American people face today is a slow growth in its economy. Our economy has been sluggish for some time. The last quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013, gross domestic product grew by less than 2 percent. And in the last 15 quarters, the growth of our economy in America has been the slowest since World War II. So we need to do everything in this country to promote economic growth, and this bill looks at the impact of regulations as obstacles to economic growth.
I want to just read a few of the regulations that have been adopted by EPA since January 2009:
Greenhouse gas regulations for cars, and these are EPA numbers. It cost $52 billion. Greenhouse gas standards for cars 2017-2025, $144 billion; greenhouse gas standards for trucks, $8 billion; Utility MACT, $9.6 billion annually; Boiler MACT, $2.2 billion annually.
Now, I could go on and on, but I think that that shows that the cost of some of these regulations present serious obstacles to economic growth. So the legislation that we consider tonight is simply a commonsense approach, a way to review the impact of energy-related regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency.
All this legislation does is this:
The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency may not promulgate as final an energy-related rule that is estimated to cost more than $1 billion unless:
One, they make a report to Congress setting out what the regulation does; and
Two, the Secretary of Energy, working with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Administrator of the Energy Information Administration, the Secretary of Commerce, and the Small Business Administration will look at these regulations and look at the impact on consumer energy cost, the impact on employment, and the impact on economic growth. The Department of Energy certainly has the expertise to analyze these kinds of figures, and if the Secretary determines that it would be harmful to economic growth, then the Secretary can actually stop the regulation from taking effect.
Now, the good news is, at that point, EPA could go back and redo the process. But I can tell you, from my personal experience of working with people in my district who are affected by regulations every day, most people genuinely believe that there's not anything wrong with having other government agencies review the impact of the cost of regulations on the economy, on jobs, on the price of fuel. That's precisely what Dr. Cassidy's bill does. I think it's a commonsense approach and something that the American people need as additional protections.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Affordable and reliable energy is critical for our basic necessities, from heating or cooling homes, to transportation and obtaining healthcare. When energy prices rise, it threatens public health because it hurts the poor and disadvantaged disproportionately.
Energy is also critical for a growing economy. When energy prices rise, it can cause job losses that can be devastating to public health.
Given the prolonged weakness in the economy, high unemployment, and rising gasoline and other energy prices, the Nation can ill-afford to be further burdened by billion-dollar energy regulations that destroy jobs and significantly harm the economy.
Today we have an opportunity to help protect families, consumers, and manufacturers from rising energy costs triggered by billion-dollar energy regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. We can do this by requiring greater transparency and more inter-agency scrutiny of EPA's most expensive energy regulations, and that is why I urge all of my colleagues to support H.R. 1582, the ``Energy Consumers Relief Act.''
This additional scrutiny of EPA's costs and benefits analysis is warranted. For example, EPA estimated that only 4,700 MW of coal-fired generation would be lost as a result of its Utility MACT rule. Yet, with 2 years left until the 2015 compliance deadline, nearly 44,000 MW of coal-fired generation have already announced retirement.
Further, we received testimony before the Energy and Power Subcommittee that under EPA's formula used to measure job impacts, the more costly the regulation, the greater the job increase EPA's formula will project. The use of such fuzzy math to calculate employment impacts led one economist to conclude, ``one cannot characterize the current formula favored by EPA as an economic methodology at all.''
It's exactly these types of skewed methodologies and flawed results that H.R. 1582 will help shine a light on. We owe it to the American people to ensure that our federal agencies are not overstating benefits or understating economic impacts to further political agendas.
Such scrutiny will become increasingly critical as EPA and the Administration attempt to justify its forthcoming greenhouse gas regulations on coal-fired power plants with unsound and untested ``Social Cost of Carbon'' methodology.
With more EPA billion-dollar energy-related rules on the horizon, it is imperative that we understand the impacts of these rules on jobs and the economy before they are implemented.
By passing the ``Energy Consumers Relief Act'' we have the chance to protect American consumers and businesses from billion-dollar regulations that significantly harm the economy. And I might add that this Act does nothing to affect existing laws and regulations that protect public health and the environment.
I urge all my colleagues to support this bill.
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Mr. WHITFIELD. Madam Chair, I might say, with all due respect to my friend from California, that he is exactly correct. I was not satisfied with Utility MACT, but primarily because EPA misled the American people. Publicly they were always talking about the mercury reductions and that the benefits would come from mercury reductions. Yet at the hearing, EPA's own analysis showed that the benefits were not there for mercury reductions; the benefits were there from particulate matter reduction. So I don't see why they deliberately misled the American people on that.
I might just make one other brief comment. We were talking about the money involved by the Department of Energy in implementing this bill. At the end of fiscal year 2012, the Department of Energy had over $2.36 billion in excess carry-over balances.
At this time, I would like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana, Dr. Cassidy, the author of this bill.
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Mr. WHITFIELD. Madam Chairman, I would like to remind everyone once again that this legislation applies only to energy-related regulations that exceed $1 billion. That's all that it applies to.
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Mr. WHITFIELD. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Once again I want to thank Dr. Cassidy for authoring this bill and bringing it to the House floor.
I would like to remind everyone that EPA has made great strides. We all recognize the improvements that have been made in our air quality, water quality, particulate matter, et cetera. As a matter of fact, carbon dioxide emissions are the lowest that they've been in 20 years here in America. Yet I would say that EPA is not the Holy Grail. The EPA does make mistakes.
I would like to just read a couple of comments from some witnesses who testified over the last year at the Energy and Commerce Committee's Energy and Power Subcommittee. Dr. Peter Valberg, former member of the Harvard School of Public Health, testified that ``there are major questions about EPA's forecast of serious health effects caused by small increments in particulate matter levels. EPA's statistical approach is fraught with numerous assumptions and uncertainties.''
Dr. Tony Cox of the Colorado School of Public Health testified that ``the use of statistical associations to address causal questions about health effects of regulation is not only technically incorrect, but, as practiced by EPA and others, is also highly misleading to policymakers.''
Then Dr. Anne Smith, an economist with NERA Economic Consulting, talked about the uncertainties and the statistical models used by EPA having serious flaws.
All we're saying is at a time when the economy is struggling--particularly now--and when EPA is the most aggressive that it has been in recent memory--as a matter of fact, even though our CO 2 emissions are down to the lowest level in 20 years, America is the only country in the world where you cannot build a new coal-powered plant. All this legislation does is it says if EPA comes up with a new regulation, energy related, that costs over a billion dollars, they've got to make a report to Congress.
Then the Secretary of Energy, working with the Secretary of Commerce and the Small Business Administration and the Energy Information Agency, they will look and they will see what is the impact of this regulation upon the cost of energy, the cost of gasoline, the cost of electricity; what is the impact on causing jobs to be lost or a plant maybe not to be built and a job will be lost or a plant will close. So it's not dictating anything.
It's the Cabinet members of the same administration simply reviewing all of the evidence, doing its own analysis, and then deciding that if it has significant impact on the economy, then they can rule that the regulation will not take effect, at which point the EPA can go back, make some adjustments, and redo it.
I think it's a good piece of legislation that provides additional transparency and additional review of the regulation, the impact on the economy, the impact on jobs, the impact on prices. And what is wrong with that? What is wrong with the Congress getting a report back from the agency and letting the other Department heads in the government review it? That's all this legislation is about.
I urge Members to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. WHITFIELD. As the gentleman said, his amendment would, in effect, strike the provisions preventing EPA from finalizing rules that the Energy Secretary determined will cause significant adverse effects to the economy, and that's precisely why I respectfully oppose the gentleman's amendment.
All of the debate this afternoon has focused on how EPA is focused totally on health benefits, and health benefits are vitally important. We recognize that.
I think I also pointed out from experts that EPA makes mistakes in their benefit analysis, in their cost analysis when they look at costs. And so once again, what we're trying to do with the Cassidy bill is look at health, yes, but what is the impact on jobs. What is the impact on those families who lose a job because of the regulation? What is the impact on the children of the family who loses the job because of the regulation? What is the effect on their ability to provide the needs for their family, their health insurance, their food, and so forth?
So all we're saying is that the Secretary of Energy in the same Cabinet as the administrator of the EPA would head up an analysis to review the EPA rule that exceeds $1 billion and affects energy alone. And if they decide that it will have significant adverse impact on the economy, then they can stop it. And by the way, under the legislation, EPA would also have to give a report to Congress on the impact on energy cost, how much will gasoline go up, electricity, how many jobs would be lost, how many jobs would be created.
So when we have a struggling economy, the last thing we want to do is to create additional obstacles that really are not necessary at a time when you can do other things and protect health also.
So with that, I would respectfully oppose the gentleman's amendment and ask that Members vote against the gentleman's amendment.
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Mr. WHITFIELD. Madam Chair, I would say, first of all, with all due respect, we have no intent to pollute additionally the waterways that the gentleman referred to in Michigan, and I rise to oppose his amendment simply because he would say that this legislation would not apply to any rule that relates to air quality or water quality. So this amendment would exclude virtually all EPA rules from the transparency and inner-agency review requirements of the act.
I would just summarize, once again, we are talking about energy-related rules that exceed $1 billion. We know that EPA looks closely at health benefits, health impacts; and we certainly favor that. But that's not the only thing that should be examined, and that's what this legislation is about. The Secretary of Energy, with other Cabinet officials in the Obama administration, would look at the impact of the regulation on the cost of electricity, the cost of gasoline, how many jobs might be lost, how many jobs might be created, would it have significant adverse impact to the economy as a whole.
And I would think that everyone would say if it does, particularly with the slow economic growth we have today, the last 15 quarters have been the slowest since World War II, and the last quarter of 2012, the first quarter of 2013, the gross domestic product increased less than 2 percent. So we need to pay special attention to the impact that regulations may have on creating job loss and the impact on those families that lose those jobs, and that's what the gentleman's legislation is all about.
I know the gentleman rose with the very best intentions, but I would respectfully oppose this amendment and ask Members to defeat his amendment.
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