Washington, D.C. - Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) delivered the following opening remarks today at a Subcommittee on the Environment markup of “H.R. 3128, New Source Review Permitting Reform:"
The bill before us today is a bad bill that puts polluters before people. If Republicans on this Committee were serious about protecting the environment and human health they would have never brought this bill up for markup.
But that’s not the case, and here we are. As I said at the legislative hearing in May, the threshold test for any legislation to reform the Clean Air Act is whether it will reduce air pollution and protect public health. The Amendment-in-the Nature of a Substitute is far more likely to increase air pollution substantially, and put the health of the American public at great risk in the process.
This bill exacerbates existing loopholes in the New Source Review program to the benefit of old, polluting facilities that have avoided complying with modern pollution control standards. These bad actors have been able to game the system to change operations and expand without ever reducing emissions, and this bill only makes this problem worse. It ensures that anyone downwind of these plants will be forced to continue breathing polluted, unhealthy air every day. Neighboring communities will get no relief from the many health problems associated with chronic exposure to pollution - asthma attacks, heart and lung disease, and cancer.
This bill amounts to a pro-polluter wish list that is so egregious it would be virtually impossible to compel dirty facilities to clean up their act. The legislation essentially grants a permanent amnesty to bad actors, giving some of the oldest and least economical facilities in the country the green light to pollute without consequence.
And, if States try to avoid overall increases in pollution using other Clean Air Act authorities, as some have suggested, those reductions will have to come from businesses in other economic sectors. So, this creates a very unfair situation where some businesses have no obligation to clean up pollution and others are left footing the bill.
The Trump Administration has spent its time undermining public health protections and diverting the mission of the Environmental Protection Agency away from protecting public health to protecting polluters. This bill continues that pattern of prioritizing the needs of polluters over people. It codifies the Administration’s plans to forgo enforcement of the Clean Air Act, and lets polluters off the hook.
I urge my colleagues to oppose it, because the American public deserves better from Congress. It is just another handout to the special interests, and is not worthy of debate in this Subcommittee. In fact, this time could have been better used getting answers from HHS on the progress - or lack thereof- that is being made to reunify more than 2,500 children who were forcibly stripped away from their parents by the Trump Administration’s inhumane immigration policies. I yield back.
