[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT:
EVALUATING PROGRESS AND PRIORITIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-3
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
----------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
78-821 PDF WASHINGTON : 2013
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH M. HALL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia DAN MAFFEI, New York
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland SCOTT PETERS, California
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois DEREK KILMER, Washington
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana AMI BERA, California
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
BILL POSEY, Florida MARC VEASEY, Texas
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming JULIA BROWNLEY, California
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona MARK TAKANO, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky VACANCY
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
RANDY WEBER, Texas
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
------
Subcommittee on Environment
HON. ANDY HARRIS, Maryland Chair
CHRIS STEWART, Utah, SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., JULIA BROWNLEY, California
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
DANA ROHRABACHER, California MARC VEASEY, Texas
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas MARK TAKANO, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
RANDY WEBER, Texas EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Andy Harris, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Environment, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 5
Written Statement............................................ 6
Statement by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Environment, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 7
Written Statement............................................ 9
Witnesses:
The Honorable Kathleen Hartnett White, Distinguished Fellow-in-
Residence & Director, Armstrong Center for Energy & the
Environment, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Oral Statement............................................... 12
Written Statement............................................ 15
Mr. Richard Trzupek, Principal Consultant, Trinity Consulting
Oral Statement............................................... 30
Written Statement............................................ 32
Dr. Bernard Goldstein, Professor and Dean Emeritus, University of
Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health
Oral Statement............................................... 83
Written Statement............................................ 86
Discussion....................................................... 101
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
The Honorable Kathleen Hartnett White, Distinguished Fellow-in-
Residence & Director, Armstrong Center for Energy & the
Environment, Texas Public Policy Foundation.................... 122
Mr. Richard Trzupek, Principal Consultant, Trinity Consulting.... 139
Dr. Bernard Goldstein, Professor and Dean Emeritus, University of
Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.................... 161
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
TEPA's Pretense of Science: Regulating Phantom Risks submitted by
The Honorable Kathleen Hartnett White.......................... 168
Memo, Re: Questionable Claims in Testimony from February 14, 2013
Environment Subcommittee hearing, submitted by Representative
Suzanne Bonamici............................................... 186
THE STATE OF THE ENVIRONMENT:
EVALUATING PROGRESS AND PRIORITIES
----------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Environment
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Andy
Harris [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Harris. The Subcommittee on Environment will come
to order.
Good morning. Welcome to today's hearing entitled ``The
State of the Environment: Evaluating Progress and Priorities.''
In front of you are packets containing the written testimony,
biographies and Truth in Testimony disclosures for today's
witness panels. I recognize myself for five minutes for an
opening statement.
Good morning. Welcome to the first hearing of the
Environment Subcommittee in 2013. It is not only the first
hearing in 2013, it is the first hearing of the Environment
Subcommittee. As you know, the Committee reorganization
separated Energy and Environment Subcommittee into two, and
this is the Environment Subcommittee.
Our hearing today is entitled ``The State of the
Environment: Evaluating Progress and Priorities.'' I first want
to recognize and welcome our new ranking member, Representative
Suzanne Bonamici from Oregon, as well as our new Vice Chairman,
Chris Stewart from Utah. Of course, we all welcome the
gentleman from Texas, the Chairman of the Science, Space, and
Technology Committee, Mr. Lamar Smith. I look forward to
working with all the Members on the Subcommittee on a myriad of
environmental issues in the 113th Congress.
Today we are going to talk about the greatest story never
told. In the last four decades, Americans have witnessed
dramatic improvements in the environmental health of this
country. This is characterized by the improvement in air and
water quality, less exposure to toxic chemicals, and growing
forest areas, to name a few. All the while, the United States
has experienced significant growth in GDP and per capita
income. This progress is due to a number of factors including
technological innovations, state and local efforts, and to some
degree, the rational implementation of federal regulations.
Just 2 days ago would have been the 82nd birthday of Julian
Simon, renowned economist from the University of Maryland. His
most important insights were that the world is getting better
all the time and that energy serves as the ``master resource''
for those improvements. I couldn't agree more. My children are
growing in a much healthier world than the one where I grew up.
However, despite the substantial progress made in environmental
health and quality of life, Americans are constantly bombarded
by the media and this Administration with doomsday predictions.
For instance, we have been told that extreme storms and
increased childhood asthma are indicators that the environment
is worse off than ever. These allegations fly in the face of
the hard facts, that severe weather has always been a threat
and that our air quality has improved dramatically. These
invented crises and the mentality around it prove what another
fellow Marylander and columnist for the Baltimore Sun, H.L.
Mencken wrote, and I quote, ``The whole aim of practical
politics is to keep the populace alarmed and hence clamorous to
be led to safety by menacing it with an endless series of
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.''
So what is the solution to this disconnect between reality
and what we are being told? How do we work together on
continuous to enhance environmental health without needlessly
scaring our constituents or stifling our floundering economy?
First, I believe we must recognize and educate people about
the incredible progress made so far. Since 1980, aggregate
emissions of the six criteria air pollutants regulated under
the Clean Air Act have dropped 63 percent. Over a similar
period, there has been a 65 percent reduction in toxic release
of chemicals tracked by the EPA. Other indicators demonstrate a
similar trend of reduced environmental risk.
Second, we must acknowledge that most of the gains made in
environmental health thus far were changes that were
affordable, or if they had high costs, the associated benefits
were clear, significant, and cost-effective. Future progress
will not likely be so easily identified, will be extremely
costly and benefits may be unquantifiable. For example, the
latest round of increasingly burdensome regulations may result
in the closing of power plants, reducing manufacturing
production and sending American jobs overseas. We are already
seeing employers react to proposed EPA regulations in this
manner. What is not included in the government's analysis is
the added cost of regulations to consumers resulting in higher
energy and food bills or the inevitable hardships that occur
when companies are forced to reduce their workforce. Once these
two tenets are accepted, that the environment is getting better
and that even well-intended actions may harm the economy, we
can begin to prioritize the research and development and
regulatory agenda that actually protects human health and the
environment without crippling the economy.
In light of the President's pledge in this week's State of
the Union that he will ``direct my Cabinet to come up with
executive actions we can take now and in the future to reduce
pollution,'' it is critical that any such actions be based on
good, transparent science and not on imaginary hobgoblins.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how to
balance quality science and need for regulation with true
economic costs and benefits. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Harris follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairwoman Andy Harris
Good morning. Welcome to the first hearing of the Environment
Subcommittee in 2013: The State of the Environment: Evaluating Progress
and Priorities. I want to recognize and welcome our new Ranking Member,
Representative Suzanne Bonamici from Oregon, as well as our new Vice-
Chairman Chris Stewart from Utah. Of course, we all welcome the
gentleman from Texas, Chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology
Committee Lamar Smith. I look forward to working all the members of the
subcommittee on a myriad of environmental issues in the 113th Congress.
Today we are going to talk about the greatest story never told. In
the last four decades, Americans have witnessed dramatic improvements
in the environmental health of this country. This is characterized by
the improvement in air and water quality, less exposure to toxic
chemicals, and growing forest areas, to name a few. All the while, U.S.
has experienced significant growth in GDP and per capita income. This
progress is due to a number of factors, including technological
innovations, State and local efforts, and to some degree, the rational
implementation of Federal regulations. Just two days ago would have
been the 82nd birthday of Julian Simon, renowned economist from the
University of Maryland. His most important insights were that the world
is getting better all the time and that energy serves as the ``master
resource'' for those improvements. I could not agree more. My children
are growing up in a much healthier world than the one where I grew up.
However, despite the substantial progress made in environmental
health and quality of life, Americans are constantly bombarded by the
media and this Administration with doomsday predictions. For instance,
we have been told that extreme storms and increased childhood asthma
are indicators that the environment is worse off than ever. These
allegations fly in the face of the hard facts that severe weather has
always been a threat and that our air quality has improved
dramatically.. This invented crisis mentality prove what another fellow
Marylander and columnist for the Baltimore Sun, H.L. Mencken wrote,
``The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.''
So what is the solution to this disconnect between reality and what
we are being told? How do we work together on continuing to enhance
environmental health without needlessly scaring our constituents or
stifling our economy? First, I believe we must recognize and educate
people about the incredible progress made so far. Since 1980, aggregate
emissions of the six criteria air pollutants regulated under the Clean
Air Act have dropped 63 percent. Over a similar period, there has been
a 65 percent reduction in toxic releases of chemicals tracked by EPA.
Other indicators demonstrate a similar trend of reduced environmental
risk.
Second, we must also acknowledge that most of the gains made in
environmental health thus far were changes that were affordable, or if
they had high costs, the associated benefits were clear, significant,
and cost effective. Future progress will not likely be so easily
identified, will be extremely costly, and benefits may be
unquantifiable. For example, the latest round of increasingly
burdensome regulations may result in the closing of power plants,
reducing manufacturing production and sending jobs overseas. We are
already seeing employers react to proposed EPA regulations in this
manner. What is not included in the government's analysis is the added
cost of regulations to consumers, resulting in higher energy and food
bills, or the inevitable hardships that occur when companies are forced
to reduce the workforce.
Once these two tenets are accepted--that the environment is getting
better and that even well intended actions may harm the economy--we can
begin to prioritize a research and development and regulatory agenda
that actually protects human health and the environment without
crippling the economy. In light of the President's pledge in the State
of the Union that he will ``direct my Cabinet to come up with executive
actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution,'' it
is critical that any such actions be based on good, transparent science
and not on imaginary hobgoblins.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how to balance
quality science and need for regulation with true economic costs and
benefits.
Chairman Harris. I now recognize the Ranking Member, the
gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, for an opening
statement.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Chairman Harris, for holding the
Subcommittee's first hearing on the state of our environment.
This hearing marks an important opportunity to plan for the
future, to set the tone for the new Congress in what I hope
will be a collaborative effort to ensure our long-term economic
vitality and to protect human health and our natural resources.
It is a matter of common sense that we must coordinate
research and technological innovation to enhance air and water
quality to protect the health of our children and future
generations. The 1st District of Oregon, which I represent, is
a leader in this area, as it is in many fields. In fact, in
June of last year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors gave
Beaverton, Oregon, the Mayors' Climate Protection Award, and
later that city received EPA's 2012 Leadership Award. The State
of Oregon has additionally shown that it is committed to
protecting human health by reducing harmful emissions, with a
statewide goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to ten
percent below 1990 levels by 2020, and 75 percent below 1990
levels by 2050.
I have read the testimony of the witnesses and their
biographies, and I am glad you have come to this Committee.
Both the majority witnesses have enjoyed long careers in the
regulatory sector, and I understand from talking to
environmental regulators at both the state and federal level
that the process of implementing regulations can be both
challenging and daunting work. With that said, this
Subcommittee, and this hearing in particular, should focus on
the science that has led to the successful EPA regulations that
are acknowledged by all three witnesses, and those discoveries
that are still unknown that may tell us more about how the
pollution in our air and water is affecting our health.
As technology changes and as our research methodology
becomes more accurate, as industries change and new industries
are created, as populations grow, new problems will continue to
emerge. We will not have all the answers immediately, but as
public servants it is our responsibility to continue to
investigate.
More than 40 years ago, Congress passed several pieces of
landmark legislation to protect our environment: the National
Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water
Act. All of these laws passed with bipartisan support. In 1970,
it was President Richard M. Nixon who is credited with creating
the Environmental Protection Agency, and the EPA became the
lead federal agency with responsibility for implementing these
laws and today works in collaboration with other federal and
state agencies to protect human health and our environment.
Today, we will hear from our panelists and Subcommittee
Members on the costs and benefits of environmental protection.
Although there are serious questions on which we may disagree,
we can all agree that our air and water is cleaner than it was
40 years ago, before the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts became
law. But our work is not done.
As we look ahead to future EPA action, including the
issuance of new and updated regulations, it is worth reminding
ourselves of the source of such regulation and the benefit to
society. In that regard, the Clean Air Act's history of
protecting public health speaks for itself. In the four decades
since it was signed, the Clean Air Act has prevented hundreds
of thousands of premature deaths, not to mention saving
trillions of dollars in health care costs. These benefits to
the public will continue to grow. Especially in tough economic
times, Americans understand the real economic impact. With
fewer cases of chronic asthma attacks or bronchitis, fewer
children and adults have to visit hospitals or doctors'
offices. With the cost of health care widely agreed to be one
of the central drivers of our Nation's fiscal challenges, we as
policymakers would consider this a good result.
The economic impacts of climate change are among the many
challenges we face in these times of budget uncertainty. One of
the most important issues to address will be how these changes
will draw on our resources. If we do not have reliable,
scientific information about the impact of climate change, our
industries, our farmers, our states and our municipalities will
be unable to plan for the future. I know that all of my
colleagues agree that certainty is good for business.
The environmental laws that we are discussing in this
hearing have hardly been the drag on the economy that some
predicted when they were passed in the 1960s and 1970s. When
Congress rewrote the Federal Water Pollution Control Act in
what became the Clean Water Act, one of the biggest threats to
our water quality was municipal wastewater. A bipartisan
Congress took a very important step by including funding
provisions for states and cities to help them build wastewater
treatment facilities. It is widely accepted among environmental
experts across the country, and noted by all of our witnesses,
that cleaning up our Nation's waterways has been one of the
great successes of the Clean Water Act. In fact, both majority
witnesses make mention of economic growth in the face of
environmental regulation in their testimony, using data
provided by the EPA. Over the last 20 years, while emissions of
the six principal air pollutants were reduced by an additional
41 percent, the Nation's Gross Domestic Product has increased
by more than 64 percent. Additionally, GDP has risen by more
than 200 percent since the Clean Air Act was signed more than
40 years ago. We not only got cleaner air, but also entirely
new technology sectors.
Investment in environmental science, research, education
and assessment efforts have been key to promulgating smart,
effective regulation, and good science has been critical to
protecting the environment as well as human health since the
1970s. Air and water pollution continue to threaten our public
and economic health, and we need strong science and research
programs, both at NOAA and EPA, to help us understand the
problems and respond.
I am interested in hearing how Congress and this
Subcommittee can best develop programs that suit the needs of
our federal agencies, academic institutions and other research
and development institutions, while continuing to provide the
necessary information to make informed policy decisions.
President Richard Nixon, who signed the Clean Air Act
Amendments in 1970, said, ``I think that 1970 will be known as
the year of the beginning, in which we really began to move on
the problems of clean air and clean water and open spaces for
the future generations of America.''
Significant progress has been made, and it is now our job
now to build upon this legacy and ensure that we will continue
to improve our environmental quality while bolstering our
economy. This is not science fiction; it is our history. In the
United States, a healthy environment and a strong economy are
not mutually exclusive. Stricter pollutions limits drive us to
push the envelope of scientific innovation and create new
technologies, and it has been proven many times over, that it
can simultaneously improve worker productivity, increase
agricultural yield, reduce mortality and illness, and achieve
other economic and public health benefits that far outweigh the
costs of compliance.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bonamici follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ranking Minority Member Suzanne Bonamici
I want to thank Chairman Harris for holding the subcommittee's
first hearing on the state of our environment. This hearing marks an
important opportunity to plan for the future, to set the tone for the
new Congress in what I hope will be a collaborative effort to ensure
our long-term economic vitality and protect human health and our
natural resources.
It's a matter of common sense that we must coordinate research and
technological innovation to enhance air and water quality to protect
the health of our children and future generations. The First
Congressional District of Oregon, which I represent, is a leader in
this area, as it is in many fields. In June of 2012 the U.S. Conference
of Mayors gave Beaverton, Oregon the Mayors' Climate Protection Award,
and later that year the city received EPA's 2012 Leadership Award. The
State of Oregon has additionally shown that it is committed to
protecting human health by reducing harmful emissions, with a statewide
goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 10 percent below 1990
levels by 2020, and 75 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
I have read the testimony of the witnesses and their biographies,
and I am glad they have come before the committee. They have both
enjoyed long careers in the regulatory sector, and I understand from
talking to environmental regulators at both the state and federal level
that the process of implementing regulations can be both challenging
and daunting work. With that said, this Subcommittee, and this hearing
in particular, should focus on the science that has led to the
successful EPA regulations that are acknowledged by all three
witnesses, and those discoveries that are still unknown that may tell
us more about how the pollution in our air and water is affecting our
health. As technology changes, as our research methodology becomes more
accurate, as industries change and new industries are created, as
populations grow, new problems will continue to emerge. We will not
have all the answers immediately, but as public servants it is our
responsibility to continue to investigate.
More than 40 years ago, Congress passed several pieces of landmark
legislation to protect our environment: the National Environmental
Policy Act, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. All of these
laws passed with bipartisan support. In 1970, it was President Richard
M. Nixon who is credited with creating the Environmental Protection
Agency. The EPA became the lead federal agency with responsibility for
implementing these laws and today works in collaboration with other
federal and state agencies to protect human health and our environment.
Today, we will hear from our panelists and Subcommittee members on
the costs and benefits of environmental protection. Although there are
serious questions on which we may disagree, we can all agree that our
air and water is cleaner than it was 40 years ago, before the Clean Air
and Clean Water Acts became law. But our work is not done.
As we look ahead to future EPA action, including the issuance of
new and updated regulations, it is worth reminding ourselves of the
source of such regulation and the benefit to society. In that regard,
the Clean Air Act's history of protecting public health speaks for
itself.
In the four decades since it was signed, the Clean Air Act has
prevented hundreds of thousands of premature deaths, not to mention
saving trillions of dollars in health care costs. These benefits to the
public will continue to grow. Especially in tough economic times,
Americans understand the real economic impact. With fewer cases of
chronic asthma attacks or bronchitis, fewer children and adults have to
visit hospitals and doctors' offices . With the cost of health care
widely agreed to be one of the central drivers of our nation's fiscal
challenges, we as policymakers would consider this a good result.
The economic impacts of climate change are among the many
challenges we face in these times of budget uncertainty. One of the
most important issues to address will be how these changes will draw on
our resources. If we do not have reliable, scientific information about
the impact of climate change, our industries, our farmers, our states
and municipalities will be unable to plan for the future. I know that
all of my colleagues agree that certainty is good for business.
The environmental laws that we are discussing in this hearing have
hardly been the drag on the economy that some predicted when they were
passed in the late 60s and early 70s. When Congress rewrote the Federal
Water Pollution Control Act into what became the Clean Water Act, one
of the biggest threats to our water quality was municipal wastewater. A
bipartisan Congress took a very important step by including funding
provisions for states and cities to help them build wastewater
treatment facilities. It is widely accepted among environmental experts
across the country--and noted by both the witnesses for the majority--
that cleaning up our nation's waterways has been one of the great
successes of the Clean Water Act.
In fact, both majority witnesses make mention of economic growth in
the face of environmental regulation in their testimony, using data
provided by the EPA. Over the last 20 years, while emissions of the six
principal air pollutants were reduced by an additional 41 percent, the
nation's Gross Domestic Product has increased by more than 64 percent.
Additionally, GDP has risen by more than 200 percent since the Clean
Air Act was signed more than 40 years ago. And we not only got cleaner
air, but also entirely new technology sectors.
Investment in environmental science, research, education and
assessment efforts have been key to promulgating smart, effective
regulations, and good science has been critical to protecting the
environment as well as human health since the 1970s. Air and water
pollution continue to threaten our public and economic health, and we
need strong science and research programs at both NOAA and EPA to help
us understand the problems and respond. I am interested in hearing how
Congress and this subcommittee can best develop programs that suit the
needs of our federal agencies, academic institutions and other research
and development institutions, while continuing to provide the necessary
information to make informed policy decisions.
Quoting Republican President Nixon, who signed the Clean Air Act
Amendments into law in 1970: ``I think that 1970 will be known as the
year of the beginning, in which we really began to move on the problems
of clean air and clean water and open spaces for the future generations
of America.''
Significant progress has been made in the past 40 years, and it is
our job now to build upon this legacy and ensure that we continue to
improve our environmental quality while bolstering our economy. This is
not science fiction; it is our history. In the U.S., a healthy
environment and a strong economy are not mutually exclusive. Stricter
pollutions limits drive us to push the envelope of scientific
innovation and create new technologies. And, as it has been proven many
times over, they can simultaneously improve worker productivity,
increase agricultural yield, reduce mortality and illness, and achieve
other economic and public health benefits that far outweigh the costs
of compliance.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Harris. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
At this time I would like to introduce our witnesses. Our
first witness is the Hon. Kathleen Hartnett White,
Distinguished Fellow-in-Residence and Director for the
Armstrong Center for Energy and the Environment at the Texas
Public Policy Foundation. Prior to joining the foundation, Ms.
White served a six-year term as Chairman and Commissioner of
the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the second
largest environmental regulatory agency in the world after the
United States Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to joining
that commission, she served on the Texas Water Development
Board. She also served on the Texas Economic Development
Commission and the Environmental Flow Study Commission.
Our next witness will be Mr. Richard Trzupek, Principal
Consultant and Chemist at Trinity Consultants. Mr. Trzupek has
worked in the environmental industry for 30 years, first as a
Stack Tester measuring the amounts of air pollutants emitted
from industrial smokestacks and then as an Environmental
Consultant to small and midsized businesses. Mr. Trzupek is the
author of numerous articles and books on environmental issues
and air quality.
The final witness today is Dr. Bernard Goldstein, Professor
and Dean Emeritus at the Graduate School of Public Health at
the University of Pittsburgh. He is a physician board certified
in internal medicine, hematology and toxicology. He has also
served as Assistant Administrator for EPA's Office of Research
and Development from 1983 to 1985.
As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited
to five minutes each after which the Members of the Committee
will have five minutes each to ask questions.
I now recognize Ms. White to present her testimony.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE
KATHLEEN HARTNETT WHITE,
DISTINGUISHED FELLOW-IN-RESIDENCE & DIRECTOR,
ARMSTRONG CENTER FOR ENERGY & THE ENVIRONMENT,
TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION
Ms. White. Thank you, Chairman Harris, for the opportunity
to testify on this I think extremely important but often-
neglected topic on the state of our environment at this point
in time and the remarkable record. I also thank Chairman Smith,
a fellow Texan, and Congressman Weber. I am very proud to call
you Congressman. We miss you in Texas right now but I am very
proud to call you Congressman Weber.
I also appreciate being called to testify as a former state
regulator who for six years main job was implementing federal
regulations that bind the state. When you are in the state, you
are close to the people, the businesses and the real lives that
these regulations affect and where the proverbial rubber meets
the road.
Whenever I look at it, I am again really taken by the
magnitude of the environmental improvement in this country over
the last 40 years, particularly over the last 20. I have a
slide up from, I think, an excellent and rare book called the
Almanac of Environmental Trends. This is from the 2011 edition
by Steven Hayward that I recommend highly to you as a broad
assessment of environmental conditions and trends across
environmental media. This is a slide from that book just
comparing there major social policies: the extent of the
population on welfare, the crime rate and the amount of
reductions in aggregate emissions, the lower green line. You
see the incredible trend there. I would say also this has data
from federal sources until 2007 that you would see a sharper
decline in the last, really last five years. There has been
very significant decline. You would see a very slight uptake in
the crime rate and you would see, unfortunately, a measurable
increase in the welfare rolls.
I am not going to repeat what the Chairman has already said
in terms of the quantity of reduction in the criteria
pollutants, EPA's main job implementing National Ambient Air
Quality Standards, but a look at some of these numbers is
really, really amazing. If you notice, ambient levels are what
are important because that is the level of emissions that
actually impact people: 76 percent in sulfur dioxide, 82
percent in carbon monoxide, 90 percent reduction of lead, some
amazing numbers.
I guess I am repeating what you previously said but the
fact that this amount of air quality improvement went on during
periods of very robust economic growth I think is very
noteworthy. I would add to the achievement with the criteria
pollutants that emissions from our tailpipes have been reduced
by about 90 percent while vehicle miles traveled increased 165
percent as a result of better engine design and fuel
formulations.
Right now, virtually the entire country attains at least
four of the six criteria pollutants federal standard. Some
urban areas still wrestle with ozone and fine particulate
manner but the trends are all positive. But as an example of
improvement, in 1997 EPA listed, I believe it was 113
metropolitan areas that were nonattainment for one of the
criteria pollutants. That number has now fallen to 30. I also
cannot resist a Texas example. Houston, Texas, home of now the
world's largest petrochemical industrial complex with Gulf
Coast meteorology that is the perfect recipe for high ozone
formation did something nobody said it could do, and we
resisted many controls EPA wanted us to put on. We used
cutting-edge science to figure out what is exactly our problem
in Houston, how does ozone form. We did very creative, targeted
controls, very aggressive regulation, but that slide shows you
that what happened, which no one thought, was under the then-
current standard 85 part per billion, Houston attained that
standard in 2009 and 2010. In 2011, historic heat, historic
drought, ozone levels went up again. They are already coming
back down but I think there is a wonderful story about how the
state with a really broad team effort--legislature,
universities, industries, communities--figured out how to do
that.
I want to give just a few examples, although there is not
time in this oral testimony--my written testimony goes in more
detail--but again, the magnitude of improvement. Lead is an
amazing thing--almost eliminated. But consider the health
benefit. In the 1970s, the CDC found that 88 percent of
children between one and five years had lead blood levels that
exceeded the CDC's risk limit. In 2006, that is now 1.2
percent. Lead as a risk to health has been virtually
eliminated. Dioxins, a big family of chemical compounds, which
if exposure is right and concentration is right, can be very
damaging to human health, according to EPA's data, down 92
percent. Mercury: mercury emissions in this country have been
already reduced, and this is before EPA's new mercury rules in
effect, by 60 to 70 percent, and the CDC now finds, and this is
the next slide--whoops, I am a little out of order. There we
go. This is based on CDC's, again, a blood survey of mercury
levels in the blood of women of childbearing years. Those
levels from the most recent survey that goes to 2008 are well
below EPA's new standard that is two to three times stricter
than the mercury standard by the World Health Organization or
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Benzene, which is the
most prevalent of the hazardous pollutants and is a known
carcinogen, has been--as a national average, those are down by
over 64 percent. In Texas--and this is the next slide--it was a
big issue in our petrochemical areas. The upper line, dotted
line, was a previous level and also that is the level the state
sets for when you really need to consider the health effects.
Again, through an intensely monitored air quality monitored
system in that area, the Houston-Galveston area, we have
taken--those are all the black lines are individual monitors,
and not only is it a positive trend for the area overall, you
see how far below. That probably amounts to an average of 87
percent reduction of ambient benzene emissions. I could go on
and on.
I might say that of course EPA regulation played a major
role in this, but were it not for the prosperity in our
country, I think it would be impossible for this achievement.
The creative technologies, the operational efficiencies that
are hallmarks of the private enterprise in the free market were
absolutely necessary for this, and if you compare environmental
progress in developing countries, the difference is
unbelievable. My testimony notes in a World Bank list of the
world's worst polluted cities, in which there are about 100
cities on each list. I will give you just one example, it was a
list for sulfur dioxide. The highest level was in Guiyang,
China, assigned a level, according to that methodology, of
something like 424, and Los Angeles was the last one on the
list with a level of 9, 50 times difference. We are very, very
fortunate to have the prosperity that enables our businesses
and our consumers to absorb the costs of environmental
regulation.
So where are we and what would I recommend as a path going
forward? More robust science. I think we have reached a point
at which what I call the harder sciences that can demonstrate
actual cause like toxicology, medical science, clinical trials
are necessary to support the path going forward. EPA has
recently----
Chairman Harris. If you could wrap it up?
Ms. White. I have submitted also with my testimony a paper
I did on what I consider a troubling, scientifically
unjustified inflation of risks that EPA now used to justify new
regulation and to implausibly calculate monetized benefits. I
think it is time for harder science, for more intense
monitoring, physical measurements and not models.
[The prepared statement of Ms. White follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Harris. Thank you very much.
We will now hear from Mr. Trzupek.
STATEMENT OF MR. RICHARD TRZUPEK,
PRINCIPAL CONSULTANT, TRINITY CONSULTING
Mr. Trzupek. Thank you, Chairman Harris, Ranking Member
Bonamici, Chairman Smith and other Members of the Committee for
the opportunity to testify here today. I would also like to
thank you on behalf of two other groups. One is, as Chairman
Harris noted, the small to mid-sized businesses that I
represent. They were very excited to hear that you were having
me back. They feel like they have been given a voice through me
and hopefully I will be worthy of that voice. The other person
I am thanking you on behalf of is my wife, who will benefit
from a very nice dinner this weekend because I am missing
Valentine's Day, so thank you for her.
I would like to begin by sharing a personal recollection of
the state of the environment in the United States over 40 years
ago. I grew up in the 1960s in the far southeast side of
Chicago in the midst of the booming steel industry that
provided my father with employment. The term ``pollution
control'' in those days was not yet part of the lexicon. The
skies on the south side glowed a bright orange at night and a
fine layer of dust that collected on my father's car each
morning offered new testimony to the tons of pollutants being
expelled into the air. The water was little better. As
children, we were warned the dire, potentially deadly
consequences of swimming in the foul waters of the Calumet
River that effectively served as an industrial sewer.
Those days are long behind us, and, like those of you who
remember them, I am pleased to say good riddance. Thanks to a
lot of hard work and the expenditure of a lot of wealth, we
have done what some back in those bad old days assured us could
not be done. We have restored the air, water and soil of
America to a condition of which we can all be proud.
If the America of the 1960s was analogous to the worst
messy teenager's room imaginable, in the America we live in
today, we find that the old pizza boxes have been tossed, the
floor scrubbed, the bathroom scoured and the furniture
disinfected, and there is even a little hit of lemon wafting
through the air. In the America we live in today, it would take
a stereotypical severe English butler carefully tracing the
tops of dresser drawers with fingers clad in white cotton
gloves to find a problem.
And to the extent that we choose to address environmental
issues, we should recognize that the EPA, according to EPA's
own data, industry, in most cases, is a minor contributor these
days to emissions of pollutants of concern. We thus have a
choice today: either to recognize and maintain the progress
that we have made while recognizing that doing so means we can
scale back our efforts to a more reasonable, appropriate level
commensurate with today's reality or to spend increasing
amounts of wealth and effort for ever-diminishing returns in
search of an unachievable, utopian environmental purity instead
of practicing reasonable environmental stewardship in the
tradition of John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt.
EPA's own data chronicles the remarkable progress we have
made. I have shared some of this in my written testimony. Any
sober, scientific examination of the data clearly demonstrates
that contrary to popular misconception, America has and will
continue to make massive reduction in the amount of pollutants
that we release into the air, water and soil. I would like to
point out that those reductions include reductions in
nationwide greenhouse gas emissions. We are now down to 1997
levels of greenhouse gas emissions according to the last
complete EPA inventory.
The implementation of renewable portfolio standards in over
30 states, coal fleet retirements, the increased use of natural
gas to generate power, and new CAFE standards will ensure that
this trend continues. However one feels about global warming,
the fact is that America is and will continue to do exactly
what those concerned about AGW want us to do.
When I say we are at a crossroads, I believe that many of
those that are invested in the idea that today's environmental
crisis is as bad as it was 40 years would agree but they view
the available path somewhat differently. They would have us
believe that we can only choose between two extremes: if you
don't support every new environmental initiative and every EPA
program, then, according to the prophets of doom, you therefore
support a return to the bad old days of unlimited, unrestrained
ecological damage, or to put in terms of Neil Simon's famous
play, the Odd Couple, they would have us believe that choosing
not to be Felix Unger requires one to be Oscar Madison. There
can be no middle ground.
For my part, I believe there is a desirable center that
lies somewhere between polluter and puritan. Having
accomplished so much, we should not abandon those hard-fought
gains but we owe it to the men and women across America who
have got us to this point to determine how much more we will
require of them and toward what end: for as the working men and
women across America, the people I have had the privilege to
serve for the last 30 years who have got us here, they are the
engineers, the plant managers, the HS professionals who are
told they must keep their facilities in compliance while
keeping them profitable as well. For many American industries,
doing both has been quite the trick and a lot of sweat and toil
has been expended accomplishing these two ends. If we are going
to ask them to do even more with less and less to show for
those efforts, we owe it to them as we owe it to ourselves to
demonstrate that these efforts are necessary, not narcissism.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Trzupek follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Harris. Thank you very much, and we will move on
to Dr. Goldstein. Welcome back.
STATEMENT OF DR. BERNARD GOLDSTEIN,
PROFESSOR AND DEAN EMERITUS,
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Dr. Goldstein. Thank you, Chairman Harris and Ranking
Member Bonamici and Members of the Subcommittee.
I certainly agree with my fellow witnesses that we have
come a long way in almost a half a century of environmental
protection, and I routinely teach that to my students. I know
of no one who teaches otherwise. But it does remind me of the
personal experience of being at the end of a really productive
day when I should take satisfaction in all I have accomplished
but I find that I actually have more to do than when I started.
Like EPA, I am further behind for two reasons. There are
unforeseen challenges and some of the tasks are even more
complex than I thought they were, and I will enlarge on that
just briefly.
New scientific tools have allowed us to identify hazards
affecting our health and our well-being that we cannot see or
smell, but despite our progress, we have new challenges to
meet. When EPA was formed, the term ``nanotechnology'' had not
been invented and the term ``cellular telephone'' would not
have been understood. In my estimations, concerns about GMO
food and cancer due to cell phones are largely unfounded, but I
can say that only because of the science that has been
developed to explore the issues. European leaders would like to
have our measured response to concerns about cell phones and
frankenfoods. On the other hand, nanotechnology and other
emerging technologies present real issues that must be
addressed in order to maximize their promise of bettering our
lives and of economic benefits while minimizing risk.
Improvement in many aspects of air pollution is evident but
science shows that some of the threats, notably from ozone and
from particulates, are worse than we thought and more
challenging to control. For both pollutants, there is ample
evidence of significant adverse health effects at even lower
pollutant levels and affecting more people than previously
appreciated, and not just in the United States but from studies
all over the world. Just one is a recent study of a large
national cohort showing a statistically significant mortality
increase down to levels of fine particulates that are well
below our current standard.
For ozone, the change in standard from 1 hour to an 8-hour
averaging period reflects the regulation that American society
was changing in a way that put more people and particularly
children at risk. We once had geographically well-defined
cities with limited rush hours leading to a late morning ozone
peak, but traffic now extends throughout the day. Urban sprawl
is a fact of our life and daylong ozone problems do exist. More
recently, studies have suggested an independent association of
daily ozone levels with mortality so that ozone is affecting
not just our children but our adults as well.
Secondly, both fine particulates and ozone are not simple
end-of-pipe products but rather are transformed in the air from
multiple precursors coming from multiple sources. It is not
surprising that each source points to another as being the
major cause. We need to control decisions to be made on the
best science, not on the best lobbying skills.
Both pollutants also exemplify the challenge of significant
contributions coming from multiple, small point sources, which
is also a major problem in relation to clean water issues,
which I do not have time to go into. An example is the rapid
increase in shale gas drilling in local areas that are already
near or above ozone or fine particulate standards.
The Clean Air Act requirement that EPA review the
scientific basis for the National Ambient Air Quality Standards
every five years has been highly instrumental in leading to
more effective regulation. Contrary to the repeated, and I
emphasize, erroneous statement that the air pollution standards
are routinely tightened by these reviews, most times the
scientific review has led to no change in the existing standard
and at times has even lead to relaxation or elimination of the
standards. Revisiting standards should be the norm for all
environmental regulation.
Global climate change is clearly a major challenge. It is
occurring. The EPA received its first funding to look at this
issue from President Reagan in 1984 when I was at EPA as
President Reagan's appointee in charge of research and
development. It was clearly predicted then by the National
Academy of Sciences that a rise in global carbon dioxide would
make the earth warmer and set in motion a variety of planetary
climate changes of potentially major consequences to us. This
prediction has been more than amply borne out by the
temperature records, and there is no need to go through the
fact that last year was the hottest year on record. Nine out of
the last ten years have been the top 10 in U.S. temperature.
Among the overall scientific community, only a relatively
tiny handful of climate change deniers exist, and those few as
well as those who give them undeserved credence, need to at
least wonder as they compulsively quibble about the extent to
which they bear responsibility for the consequences for the
American public of our delay. The threshold for action should
not be the overwhelming evidence that is already in place. The
threshold should be sufficient evidence to take out an
insurance policy to protect the American public. We passed that
threshold a long time ago.
Finally, I would like to talk about sustainability. I
chaired a National Academy of Science-National Research Council
committee. We began by recognizing that the increasingly
complex challenges of today require us to make effective
tradeoffs among the environment, economic and with health, and
social issues. We learned much about the actions that are
already taking place, and we have developed a framework, which
I have here and I would be willing to hand out, and it is part
of my written testimony, that we believe will lead to improving
our ability to meet these increasingly complex challenges
across all of the environmental areas.
The goal asked for by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, by today's Environmental Protection Agency, is to be
able to maximize benefit while minimizing risk. We have to be
able to give the tools to EPA to cut across all these various
things working with other agencies to make this happen.
Finally, we can today either be optimistic about how far we
have gone or pessimistic about the challenges of the future.
Optimism or pessimism is classically defined in terms of
whether we see the glass as half full or half empty. For a
sustainable future, where we are now requires us that we must
consider the glass to be twice the size it needs to be. We must
be able to give EPA and other of our federal agencies the
ability to right-size that glass so that we can move forward in
the future and be able to respond to all the challenges we are
addressing now and will meet in the future. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Goldstein follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Harris. Thank you very much, and I want to thank
all the witnesses for testifying. We are going to start the
questioning, and I will start the round of questioning with
myself. I recognize myself for five minutes for questions.
And again, thank you all because I think you all addressed
exactly what we need to address, which is look, where have we
gone and what it is going to cost us to go further. A recent
EPA report entitled ``America's Children and the Environment''
found that a number of health hazards affecting children have
declined including lead concentration, tobacco smoke exposure,
children living in places that don't meet National Ambient Air
Quality Standards, but the report also noted, concurrent with
this decline, you have an increase in the rates of childhood
asthma, and I know asthma was mentioned as one of the maybe
chronic asthma may have gone down but childhood asthma has gone
up despite these improvements. ADHD, autism, these have gone
up. I am not sure these have environmental causes. We have new
information all the time, because they are complex.
But does the EPA have a credible scientific basis to claim
that further regulations, and again, as we go on further with
regulations, they are going to be more expensive as we go on,
we have kind of done all the things that don't cost very much
to claim that further regulations will reduce asthma, which has
been claimed all along for all the regulations that were put in
place, so despite the regulations that we put in place, asthma
has increased, when the record shows that again childhood
asthma is increasing despite what we have done. Do we really
have the data, the scientific data, and I will ask you first,
Dr. Goldstein, as you suggest we need rigorous scientific data.
We may know associations, but as you know and I know,
associations are not causes. They are associations. Do we have
the data on childhood asthma?
Dr. Goldstein. I think we do. Let me go back to a study
that we did in New Jersey----
Chairman Harris. Let me just ask you then, if you think we
have it, why has it gone up despite improvement in air quality?
Dr. Goldstein. Well, again, the study we did in New Jersey,
we were able to clearly identify that ozone was associated with
emergency room admissions for asthma and explained eight
percent of the variability. So if you are dealing with eight
percent of the variability, 92 percent is due to other things.
You can cut that in half, and so many other things are
happening with asthma including changes in our diagnostic
criteria and whatnot, you are not going to see that in these
big, broader trends but you will have, as we have, clear
evidence that ozone is associated with childhood asthma,
particularly during the summertime months when it is increased.
So eight percent of total asthma is important and is a public
health hazard that should be dealt with.
Chairman Harris. But as we have improved ozone, why hasn't
childhood asthma gotten better?
Dr. Goldstein. Well, again, sir, if you went from eight
percent to four percent, you change from 100 percent to 96
percent in something that isn't very stable, that is going up
and down because of physicians' change in diagnosis, change in
pattern. I don't think that is a fair comparison.
Chairman Harris. Okay. Ms. White?
Ms. White. I am not a scientist but I have learned that
there are a number of studies----
Chairman Harris. Can you put your microphone on, please?
Ms. White. There are a number of studies which confound the
association that Dr. Goldstein speaks about in terms--indeed,
that show higher emergency room visits for asthma in the winter
than the summer when ozone levels are drastically lower.
Chairman Harris. Sure. And again, it is clearly a very
complicated thing, and the problem is, is that we have
testimony coming in that says we are going to save these
hundreds of billions of dollars on childhood asthma when in
fact I don't think there is very good evidence that we know
what the real causes are, the complex interactions, and it
seems we are going to spend a lot of money when we don't have
hard evidence.
Now, Dr. Goldstein, you previously served as the head of
EPA's Office of Research and Development, served for a number
of years on the Independent Science Advisory Board, and your
testimony even mentioned the American Cancer Society cohort
studies that have provided the basis for nearly all the Clean
Air Act regulations in the last few years. Do you agree with
the principle that the EPA should not be basing major
regulatory decisions on science or data that is not publicly
available, or phrased another way, shouldn't the EPA be making
all this data publicly available if they are going to base
major regulatory actions?
Dr. Goldstein. It depends what you mean by publicly
available. Certainly the peer-reviewed literature should be
available and should be shown. If you are talking about the raw
data----
Chairman Harris. Well, we have had issues about peer review
here in front of the Committee so, you know, peer review is the
eyes of the beholder who appear. As I know, I have been a peer
reviewer, as you have been. Do you think it is not unreasonable
to say if a major regulatory action is promulgated, that we
should have access to the raw data?
Dr. Goldstein. Sir, I would----
Chairman Harris. Most of these studies are federally funded
so I am not sure what the reticence would be.
Dr. Goldstein. I would strongly oppose having the
requirement that raw data on something that is peer-reviewed
be----
Chairman Harris. Thank you. My time is limited.
Ms. White?
Ms. White. I think of course it should because of all kinds
of reasons to look at it because of the extent to which the
EPA's use of that data in the study to found regulatory
decision of national consequence and they rely very heavily on
those two main cohorts, Pope and Laden, and actually dismiss
toxicological studies that show a very different outcome.
Chairman Harris. Sure. I imagine just as the FDA requires
seeing the actual data.
Mr. Trzupek, should the EPA release the data or make it
publicly available?
Mr. Trzupek. From my perspective, yes, of course,
especially since my clients are required to be as transparent
as humanly possible. I think at a minimum, the EPA should be
required to----
Chairman Harris. And most of your clients, I take it,
aren't federally funded?
Mr. Trzupek. That is correct.
Chairman Harris. Okay, whereas the studies are. Thank you.
Ms. Bonamici, you are recognized for five minutes for
questions.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
all for your testimony.
Dr. Goldstein, in your testimony you mentioned, and I
quote, ``the consequences to the American public of our delay
in addressing the important issue of climate change,'' and you
stated ``but the threshold for action should not be the
overwhelming evidence that is already in place; the threshold
should be sufficient evidence to take out an insurance policy
to protect the American public, a threshold level that we
passed a long time ago.'' And you go on to discuss the three
levels of prevention: primary, to cut back on the causes of
greenhouse gas emissions, secondary, to prepare to mitigate the
consequences when they occur, and then you added that we want
to avoid the tertiary prevention such as paying billions of
dollars to help clean up after extreme storms. So we have heard
a lot about cost-benefit analysis in this hearing, so will you
please discuss and expand on why it is important to consider
the costs of all three levels of prevention you mentioned in
your testimony when weighing the costs and benefits of
environmental regulation?
Dr. Goldstein. Thank you. What I have said about an
insurance policy is basically what Mayor Bloomberg said after
Hurricane Sandy and what the insurance industry has been saying
for quite some time. The insurance industry is now requiring
people to consider, as they give out insurance, to consider
potential issues related to greenhouse gas. There is no
question that it is occurring and there is no question that we
need to look at it.
Primary prevention is always the best. We have lots of
economic figures. I have always been amused by the fact that
they usually come out with a 16 to 1 ratio, which is equivalent
to an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We need to
be able to prevent and we need to prevent by basically cutting
down on greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is cost-
effective. We can do it, we should be doing it but we need to
really push hard to make it happen, and Congress needs to be
involved.
Secondly, we need to improve the resilience of our
communities. We need to be able to be responsive to these
issues. I chair a piece of the BP settlement, which at the
request of the BP lawyers and the plaintiffs' lawyers that is
providing--it is the Gulf Region Health Outreach Program, which
is aimed at improving resilience on the assumption that there
is going to be another major disaster in there and the
community and the physicians and everyone else should know
better to be able to deal with this. These are the kind of
efforts that we need, but we shouldn't have to wait for a major
disaster to cause litigation to fund it. We need to be able to
build resilience now so that people can respond.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much.
Mr. Trzupek and Mrs. White, you both have been on the
regulatory side of environmental issues for a long time and you
both suggest in your testimony that the regulations that EPA is
currently pursuing are onerous, not shown to yield many
benefits, and both of you assert in one form or another that
the EPA may be exaggerating some of the health benefits and
basically incorrectly evaluating the value of statistical life
and health benefits. So I wonder if you could consider the high
cost of health care in this country and the impact that that
has on our deficit. Won't the cost of reducing air and water
pollution yield savings to the health care sector and save this
country money?
Ms. White. I would be happy to respond. If you conclude, as
I do, after an attempt to really scour how EPA builds their
cost-benefit analyses, if you believe that they are imputing
health risks at levels so low, way below the National Ambient
Air Quality Standards, that there are probably not any
measurable health benefits. Then the cost is not justified. And
I give you an example. From the mercury rule, Utility MACT, as
it is often known, EPA has acknowledged that it is probably the
most expensive rule, single rule, that they have adopted to
date, something like that I believe at adoption--at proposal
they said it would be $11 billion in compliance costs, and
adoption, I think they took that down to 10.6 or something like
that. When you look in the Federal Register, not
interpretation, but you look at the numbers where they get very
technical, EPA acknowledges that .004 percent of what they
calculate as benefit come from reduction of mercury and the
others, all the other, which is, what, 99 plus plus plus, come
from coincidental benefits from reducing fine particulate
matter. Then I don't see how--what EPA calls the most expensive
rule to date, which the National Electric Reliability
Commission and others have said has most risk of electric
reliability across the country because of the rule may lead to
a rapid closure of a significant part of the older coal-fired
power plants, then to me, the costs far outweigh the benefits.
Ms. Bonamici. And I am afraid my time has expired, so if I
could ask Mr. Trzupek to respond perhaps in writing?
Chairman Harris. We will probably have a second round of
questions.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Harris. Thank you.
I now recognize the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Stewart, the
Vice Chairman.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for taking the time to be with us today, Mr.
Trzupek. I am envious that you will get off your Valentine's
with only a simple dinner. I am afraid mine will be much more
expensive than that.
I am a former Air Force pilot. I would like to come at this
at a 30,000-foot level, if we could. I actually would love to
talk to you about the relationship between state and federal
regulators. That was my original intent here. But I would like
to follow up on Ms. Bonamici's question and re-attack this, if
we could, again from a very broad perspective.
I think most of us recognize that in a perfect world, we
would be able to live without any environmental impacts at all,
that we wouldn't contribute to those, that we wouldn't have any
negative impacts, but of course, the real world, that is not
the case. There is a tradeoff between our economic vitality
between our way of life that we have come to expect and the
great benefits of that and the environmental impacts of that.
So the question I have, and of course, the great challenge that
we have is balancing these tradeoffs between the economic and
the environmental impacts, and I would like to ask you again in
a big-picture sort of way, do you think we do a very good job
at that, measuring the true economic impacts? Dr. Goldstein,
you talked about the insurance. Well, if you have a $100,000
house, but it costs you $150,000 to insure that house, what is
the true benefit of doing that? So do you think we do a good
job of looking at the economic impacts? Has it become overly
politicized, and ultimately, how can we do better at that? And
Ms. White, could we start with you then?
Ms. White. I don't think we do a very good job of that, and
it is difficult to do. I think specifically in estimating
costs, there should be a broader number of variables other than
just compliance costs. But even more, I think we do a poor job
of evaluating the benefits because ultimately when EPA
promulgates a regulation, they are making a decision about
unacceptable risk, which has so many different parts of it.
Science, of course, is primary but science cannot give you a
transparent point at which risk is acceptable. That to me is
really a policy decision, and I think when Congress made those
decisions--there is parts of the Clean Air Act that are very
specific, and that is, I think, how we got lead virtually
eliminated, the incredible success of the acid-rain program.
That was when there were more prescriptive terms in the statute
that bound EPA, that was the result of very heated debates by
our elected representatives but they set implicitly or
explicitly that risk level, and I think that is very, very
important as in my judgment, the regulations that EPA is
promulgating over the last four years have a measurably higher
cost.
Mr. Stewart. Mr. Trzupek?
Mr. Trzupek. I think there are two things. One, all of the
costs, benefits that the EPA claims are spreadsheet costs. They
are theoretical costs. Nobody can put a witness in front of you
who says my life was saved because I had one less microgram per
meter of fine particulate ingested in my body. It is all on
paper. The other thing is, it does not--none of these cost-
benefit analysis factors in lost opportunity costs. There are
great swaths of our industrial sector that have virtually
disappeared from this country, not solely because of the EPA
regulations but in large part because of them. We sell, for
example, state-of-the-art, cleanest, most efficient coal
boilers in the world to China but we don't build them here, we
don't install them here. We don't have that industry burgeoning
here, which makes no sense for the environment or the economy,
and there is many, many examples of that.
Mr. Stewart. Yes, sir?
Dr. Goldstein. Well, looking at it as a non-economist, I
look at this from the point of view of what kind of numbers are
coming that are believable and not believable. So what we have
got is a number of 230,000 over 30 years as pointed out by Ms.
White as being something that she doesn't believe. She feels it
is an overestimate of what the fine particulates is responsible
for deaths, 230,000 over 30 years. Ms. White has told you that
benzene is a major problem. I have published over 100 papers on
benzene. Yes, I like to hear that. But Ms. White, using the
same methodology, EPA has looked under section whatever of the
Clean Air Act as required to do cost-benefit, did the same
methodology for cost-benefit on benzene, looked specifically at
the Houston area because of all the great things that have been
done there of how many lives have been saved over that 30-year
period. We have heard from Mr. Trzupek that EPA likes to
exaggerate, so what number did they come up with? They came up
with three: three lives over 30 years using the same
methodology, going through the same science advisory board that
basically beats the hell out of them each time about are you
doing this right, and they came up with three. So frankly, they
are not exaggerating. They can't possibly have come up with
three for them and for Houston and for 230,000 probably work
out to 3,000 lives would be their estimate for there. You have
got 1,000-fold difference and yet you are saying that we ought
to focus on benzene, which I would like to see, but also we
want to focus on benzene rather than on fine particles? Makes
no sense at all.
Mr. Stewart. Doctor, if I could, just very quickly in 5
seconds, I am assuming from your answer that you believe that
they do do a good job of evaluating those economic impacts?
Dr. Goldstein. I do believe--I don't believe the number
230,000. I don't know whether to believe it or not, but I do
believe that it is a lot bigger than the benzene number, and I
do believe that one cannot accuse EPA of routinely
overestimating if it says that for a 30-year period or
equivalent to a 30-year period for the entire Houston-Galveston
area three lives were saved from its benzene actions when that
is using exactly the same methodology that it has used for fine
particles.
Mr. Stewart. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Harris. Thank you very much.
I now recognize my colleague from Maryland, Ms. Edwards.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to the Ranking
Member, and also thank you to our witnesses.
You know, I said I read all of your testimony, and I will
just say for the record, I am a proud member of the Sierra
Club. I was on the board of the League of Conservation Voters,
both in Maryland and nationally. I love the work of the
National Resources Defense Council. I worked with the
Chesapeake Bay Foundation. I care deeply and passionately about
my environment, and not because of a prophet of doom, not
because I am a socialist, not because I am an alarmist or an
extremist, not because I shriek, not because I am ecoradical or
a hysterical enviro type, and not because I am part of a green
tyranny, and so I would hope that we could actually have a
conversation about the environment and the importance of the
government's role in regulating our environment for our clean
air and our clean water because people like me who have been
advocates for our environment come from it because we are
concerned citizens in our community.
I look at the work that I have done over the years living
in the metropolitan Washington area that is not anywhere near
my colleague's district on the Eastern Shore and yet I care
deeply about protecting our Chesapeake Bay from stormwater
runoff that is created here in the metropolitan area because we
have such huge impacts. Now, that doesn't impact my community
but it does impact my state where hundreds of thousands of jobs
are at risk, where our bay could have been dead had it not been
for the great work of the Environmental Protection Agency and
our state in making sure that we preserve and protect our bay,
and where billions of dollars of commercial interests are at
stake if we don't protect that bay for jobs and our overall
economy. And so I hope we can get way from the name calling and
really focus truly on what it is going to take from all of us
in business, industry, in the private sector, in our federal
and state governments and our local communities to preserve and
protect our environment, to clean our air and our water.
When I was a young working mother, I caught a bus on the
side of a road, a highway, and every day I would stand there
with my son in a stroller while the emissions were pouring out
of every single vehicle going across the highway, so do I think
it is a great idea that those emissions are now regulated, that
our air is getting cleaner? It is not quite there yet. Do I
think it is a good idea that we have made investments in clean
fuel transportation so that people like me, young moms standing
on the side of the road to catch a bus, are they and their
children breathing in that air? Absolutely I do, and the role
of the Federal Government is to make sure that it protects
citizens like me.
And so with that, I want to ask Mr. Trzupek a couple of
questions. In your testimony, you stated that the environmental
industry agree that we are at a crossroads but solutions
operate at two extremes. You state further that if you don't
support new environmental initiatives and every new EPA
program, then you therefore support a return to the bad old
days of unlimited, unrestrained ecological damage. What exactly
is the other extreme of that argument that you posit, and have
you heard such an argument ever presented in this Committee or
this Congress?
Mr. Trzupek. By this Committee and this Congress, no, and I
believe I qualified that statement, that there are certain
environmental extremists who are invested in this kind of
culture of doom and that that is the message that we hear, I
hear from that end of the spectrum.
Ms. Edwards. And so who are those people exactly?
Mr. Trzupek. Who are those people?
Ms. Edwards. Yes.
Mr. Trzupek. I hear that from environmental activist
groups. I have heard that from Sierra Club members. I have had
that debate with the Illinois chapter of the Sierra Club. I
have heard that from NRDC and others.
Ms. Edwards. Well, as I said, I mean, I am a member of one
of those groups and I am neither an extremist or an alarmist
but I am concerned about our environment.
Also in your testimony, as you said, you have provided a
fair amount of criticism to the Sierra Club, the NRDC,
researchers, academia and industry. You said that, ``the
relevance depends on them discovering, quantifying and
publicizing sources of risk.'' Do you think that they are
making it up?
Mr. Trzupek. I think they are vastly exaggerating it. We
live in a world of risk. There is risk associated with the
emissions from our own breath. You can find a few parts per
billion the pollutants that people would say that is a
carcinogen in your own breath. I think it is the magnitude of
risk that is routinely exaggerated.
Ms. Edwards. Well, I mean, what you have just described is
actually way more extreme than I have ever heard in any of my
Sierra Club meetings. You have also stated that it is the
advantage of some commercial sectors to create a climate of
fear. What do you mean by that?
Mr. Trzupek. I mean that there are people, and you will see
the commercials like for example, an indoor air purifier that
uses ozone to purify the indoor air, the very pollutant that
Dr. Goldstein and others have said we need to protect ourselves
from, and--but people sell those kind of products, taking
advantage of that kind of climate of fear, that your air is bad
inside so you need this protect.
Ms. Edwards. I know my time has expired. Can you just tell
me your scientific background and your scientific research
background that qualifies you to make those statements?
Mr. Trzupek. I am a chemist. I don't have a scientific
research background, and my experience has wholly been in the
field of air quality for the past 30 years. I have participated
in EPA committees. I have taught a number of classes at
different universities and for different organizations.
Ms. Edwards. And for the record, you have also challenged
climate science as pseudoscience but you haven't done any
climate science research, right?
Mr. Trzupek. I haven't done any climate science research.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you.
Chairman Harris. Thank you very much.
I now recognize Mr. Weber for 5 minutes.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Kathleen, good to see
you.
A quick question for each three of you. Is it possible to
have too much clean air or clean water?
Ms. White. That is often said, why do we worry about
regulation because you can't be clean enough. In a perfect
world, if we were not constrained by space, time and resources,
that would be true, but I find human life is--and my father
used to say nobody gets out of this alive--is fraught with
dangers and all kinds of risks that we make all kinds of
decisions about. I think when--again, what I call the most
robust sciences that can really demonstrate causation, the
impact of a certain pollutant level on the way the lungs and
heart work. When that is absent from the manner in which EPA
sets regulatory limits or calculates benefits, and I will give
you an example, and we have talked on and off and we have been
answering questions about fine particulate matter. EPA gets to
this number of 230,000, if that was the number, Dr. Goldstein,
lives at risk of early deaths, the phrase they use, by going
way below the National Ambient Air Quality Standards by law the
Clean Air Act requires those are set to protect public health
with a margin of safety regardless of benefit, very
conservative standards as they are stipulated in federal law.
EPA finds risks way below that in these epidemiological studies
that show a correlation between a change in death rate and a
fine particulate matter level way below that lowest measure of
the study down to zero, and when they did that, what
statisticians call extrapolation, you go from where you have
data, you assume, well, if I have it here, I bet that goes to
the unknown, that increased the number of so-called early
deaths from 88,000 fourfold to 320,000. That I do not think
justifies regulation that impacts the whole economy.
Mr. Weber. So Mr. Trzupek, I will get you to weigh in on
it. Let me ask the question this way. It is probably not
possible to have too much clean air and too much clean water
but it is possible to have too much or too many regulations
which negatively impact our productivity in such a way that the
benefits are far outweighed by the costs. Would you agree with
that?
Mr. Trzupek. I would. At some point you hit a point of
diminishing returns. Since we are talking fine particulate, I
will highlight the recent boiler MACT regs that were finalized
by EPA, which affect industrial boilers. Fine particulate
reduction attributable to boiler MACT is 0.3 percent of all the
fine particulate yet we hear what a massive benefit this would
be. Well, if that is true, the majority of fine particulate in
the air, according to EPA's own data, the vast majority comes
from what they call miscellaneous sources. Those are non-
transportation, non-industrial sources. Those are natural
sources and consumer products and everything else. Well, if
that .3 percent reduction is really as incredibly worth it as
EPA says, we should go after that 96-plus percent from natural
and other sources, and obviously we are not going to do that.
That makes no sense. We have gotten all the low-hanging fruit,
and there is very little point for going for those things that
have such a monumentally small benefit.
Mr. Weber. Thank you, and I will ask you the same, Dr.
Goldstein.
Dr. Goldstein. I think Ms. White basically has given the
answer. Eighty-eight thousand deaths above the threshold is a
very major public health problem. We have to meet that problem.
But of course, sir, there is certainly no need to get the very
last molecule of benzene out of the air. We can have one
molecule.
Mr. Weber. So you can have overregulation?
Dr. Goldstein. Of course.
Mr. Weber. The best way to have a perfect clean air and
water in the world, you talked about, Kathleen, was maybe to
move to the Pacific Ocean on an island. Now, your quality of
life may be really reduced but you will have perfect clean air
and clean water.
You know, in Texas, we have got 1,300 people a day moving
there. I think they are voting with their feet. We have done a
good job of cleaning up our air and water, and Kathleen White
would know that firsthand. We believe that the TCEQ, our
environmental regulatory agency, the second largest one in the
world, who was proactive--actually, it was train wreck, or
TNR----
Ms. White. TNRCC.
Mr. Weber. TNRCC, we called it, Texas Natural Resource
Conservation Commission, and then the Texas Water Quality Board
before that back in the 1960s, was it, Kathleen, 1970s?
Ms. White. Sixties--well, and this is a state issue, but
the legislature combined our health and human services agency
with the water agency.
Mr. Weber. So we were environmentally friendly. What is
that old country and western song? ``I Was Country before
Country Was Cool''? Texas was actually environmentally friendly
before it was fashionable, before being green was fashionable.
Ms. White. We had a state clean air act before the federal
clean air act.
Mr. Weber. And our economy shows that. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Chairman Harris. Thank you very much, Mr. Weber, and we
have time, I think, for a second round of questions, and I will
open that second round and recognize myself for five minutes
for that.
Ms. White and Mr. Trzupek, an important check or important
checks on EPA science are independent scientific advisory
panels like the agency's Science Advisory Board and the Clean
Air Scientific Advisory Committee. In your view, are these
bodies independent and objective? Because obviously we want to
have independent, objective bodies, panels reviewing data
before we come up with costly regulations. Are they?
Ms. White. It is very difficult for anyone to be 100
percent objective, but from what I have learned on many of
these panels, unfortunately, the majority, if not all of them,
sometimes derive a significant portion of their income or
almost all of their income or the institute at which they work
from EPA studies, and so it seems to be--in fact I think on
some of those panels, people from a state like me would love to
see like state regulators and a much broader group from that
and also people from more diverse scientific disciplines, which
has also been recommended by the National Academy of Science.
Chairman Harris. Mr. Trzupek?
Mr. Trzupek. I would agree. From my perspective, everybody
has their own particular blinkers on, and I would include
myself. We all do. But in my opinion, CASAC especially is very
heavily weighted on the academic, environmental advocate side
with very little checks in CASAC on that particular
perspective, and I would like to see them particularly
reformed.
Chairman Harris. Dr. Goldstein, you have helped to appoint
and serve on these scientific advisory bodies, and my
observation in medicine is not every good doctor is in an
academic institute. Some actually are in private fields and
they bring something to the table there and they add to the
subject, so would you object to the inclusion of qualified
scientists or more qualified scientists from the private sector
serving on these panels addressing Ms. White's complaint that
it appears there is a little inbreeding going on?
Dr. Goldstein. Yes, as long as I can qualify it by saying
that Ms. White is, I think absolutely wrong by saying that the
EPA is funding most of these scientists if the majority of the
funding comes from EPA. I think the head of Research and
Development at EPA would love to have the kind of funding hat
would allow them to give the majority to CASAC members. In
fact, CASAC's members are folks who are funded to a large
extent by the--to the extent that they are academic, by the
National Institutes of Health and others.
I will tell you that CASAC, at least when I chaired it, had
a requirement from Congress that it have at least one of its
seven members be a state official involved with air pollution
and another be a physician.
Chairman Harris. What about particularly private sector?
Dr. Goldstein. I don't think there is a requirement for
private sector----
Chairman Harris. Do you think that there ought to be?
Dr. Goldstein. I don't know if there should be a
requirement but we always had someone from the private sector
on there, and I would strongly support that.
Chairman Harris. Let me ask you two follow-up questions,
something we have heard before, because the question was, well,
are they radical environmentalists who propose some of things.
Well, look, we had Josh Fox in his hearing room, who published
Gasland. Dr. Goldstein, you are laughing. I am going to ask
you, have you reviewed the EPA findings on Pavillion and Parker
County and Dimock and all the rest? I mean, they come back and
say basically there is no scientific basis for saying what we
have said, walking it back. Do you think there is a sound
scientific basis for their initial findings at Pavillion? I
don't know, you may not have read the report and it may not be
a fair question. Have you read the report?
Dr. Goldstein. Not the final report.
Chairman Harris. Okay, because it has a lot of benzene
mentioned in it actually. But, when we talk about the huge
costs of going to the next step in some of the Clean Air Act
requirements and regulations, the $10 billion cost mentioned
for the mercury rule, you know, the opportunity costs that Mr.
Trzupek mentions are true because if we take those $10 billion
instead of investing it in that, we invest it in research to
address why childhood asthma, you know, what are those other 96
percent or 94 percent, I mean, what is the real cause, it is
very complicated. I mean, we could boost the NIH research
budget 20-fold probably for asthma or maybe 40-fold. I don't
know. There is an opportunity cost loss when we decide that we
are going to go down one pathway to regulate and spend and not
use that money to perhaps more carefully define a complex
scientific basis for solving our air and water quality. What do
you think, Dr. Goldstein?
Dr. Goldstein. Well, I agree with you up to the point of
saying that first of all from the 1960s since I have been
involved in it, I have heard over and over again these same
arguments and then industry retreats from them, as it turns out
that in fact they can do it at far less cost. And second of
all, I have yet to see an example where Congress has moved
money from one separate branch that is controlled by one
committee to another branch. I have yet to see that kind of
thing happen that you described.
Chairman Harris. That is a valid argument, very valid.
I recognize Ms. Bonamici.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
We had a lot of discussion about the role of industry in
developing innovative technologies to reduce emissions, and I
know, Ms. White, in your testimony you talked about prosperity
and the importance of prosperity and how Los Angeles did a
better job than China. I just wanted to suggest that perhaps
that is because we do have strong environmental laws and
regulations that motivate that innovation.
I wanted to ask Dr. Goldstein to follow up a little bit
about lead because Ms. White said a couple of times that lead
has been virtually eliminated, and I wanted you to discuss the
studies about that and also isn't there still work to be done?
Dr. Goldstein. Well, yeah, ``virtually eliminated'' is
simply too strong a term, I think, for what happens still in
communities that have a lot of lead burden in their homes.
Again, as a teacher, when I teach about environmental justice,
I usually make the point that if something that was affecting
the IQ of America's children was built into, say, suburban
housing post war, say, the Formica tops, the tables, we would
have gotten all that out by now. We haven't done that with the
lead yet, and we still have homes with lots of lead. We still
have kids who are affected. We have--I put in my testimony
HUD's cost-benefit analysis of the tremendous value of taking
the lead out of childhood homes. We simply haven't done it yet.
So to say it is virtually eliminated, that is true for me, but
it is not true for important segments of our population.
Ms. Bonamici. And just to follow up, how much certainty was
there in the science about reducing lead in the 1970s when the
studies began?
Dr. Goldstein. Well, in the 1970s and the 1980s, people
have forgotten that the Reagan Administration took the last
lead out and was based on a cost-benefit analysis that OMB
bought and that it was costing more to have lead in than
before, and that is at a time that CDC did not have as
stringent a requirement as it has now based upon the new data.
So that the lead issue, we were late on that as we have been
late on a lot of these issues that we recognize now were
causing significant adverse effects as I think I have testified
that we are late on the global climate issues as well.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Harris. Thank you very much.
I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, when you gave your opening statement, I like
your turn of phrase, ``the greatest story never told,'' and of
course, you were referring to a number of ways in which the
United States environmental metrics have been going the right
direction. We still need to do better in a lot of areas but
there is a lot of good news out there and sometimes that good
news is ignored.
Ms. White, I guess I can say Director White or Commissioner
White, I wanted to address my first question to you, and you
went into more detail in your written statement and I think you
mentioned water qualify briefly in your oral statement, but I
would like to go back and ask you if you feel that our water
quality is important and how you can quantify that?
Ms. White. And that is a difficult question. I think there
is far better federal data on trends in air quality than there
is in water quality, and for somewhat understandable reasons, I
don't know what the extent of--how many hundreds of thousands
of miles of every stream, small stream and then big river but
there are a couple markers which I think again underlines a
positive trend, a job not over, a regulatory job not over but
very positive trends. We regulate public drinking water systems
for, I think it is over 100 different contaminants, which is a
good thing. We have very, very safe, and I believe as far as
the last data I saw from EPA, 94 percent of all the public
water systems in this country have perfect compliance with all
the standards.
Chairman Smith. How does that compare to, say, five years
ago or ten years ago?
Ms. White. Ten years ago, I think it was something like 70
some were full compliant so there has been a 20 percent----
Chairman Smith. Can you get me the data on that----
Ms. White. I would be happy to.
Chairman Smith. --compared to today's 94 percent compliance
with, say, five years ago, ten years ago, whatever it might be?
Again, I like the trend, which is encouraging. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Trzupek, I wanted to ask you about air quality. You
mentioned that that has been improved. The EPA actually says
there has been great progress, although they say almost half
the American people live in counties where there is an
unacceptable level of air pollution. I wonder if this is a
situation where both statements are accurate or if you
challenge the data that the EPA is using.
Mr. Trzupek. Well, that statement is possible only because
of redefinition of the term ``clean air.'' Over the last 40
years, there has been 18 instances where the EPA has looked at
National Ambient Air Quality Standards. In 10 of those, they
have either reduced the standard or added additional standards
that effectively did the same thing. So when you say you have
all of these counties where people are living with unhealthy
air, it requires that continual redefinition to make that
happen.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you.
And Mr. Goldstein, you mentioned, and we have heard about
it many times recently including in the State of the Union
address by the President, that several of the last few years
are the warmest on record. Also, of course, if you look at the
last 15 years or so, you see that the temperature has flatlined
and has not gone up during that time despite predictions that
it was going to do so. But my question to you is this, and I
don't know the answer myself--I have asked it to a number of
people and gotten a number of different answers. This goes to
global warming, and to what factors do you attribute global
warming? And if you can break it down as a percentage, that
would be great too. You have human activity. You may have the
influence of solar activity. You may have the influence or the
historical cycles of temperatures going up and down, and of
course, when we say it is the warmest on record, it depends on
how far back you are going in the record too because it has
been warmer before as well. But to what do you attribute global
warming? Can you break it down and quantify it, or not break it
down but give me what percentages is attributable to human,
maybe to solar, it may be cyclical, or is it even possible to
get to an answer?
Dr. Goldstein. Everything I read gives the overwhelming
amount to humans. We have had, I think in the last--if you look
at the temperature records in the United States from, I guess,
we are well over 150 years now, we have got the 10 highest of
those 150, nine of them are in the past decade and the other
one was in the 1990s. Something is happening.
Chairman Smith. Well, that is true but as Mr. Trzupek just
pointed out, if you change the standards or the methodology,
you might end up with different results than you would have
otherwise.
But let me go back to my question again. Can you break
down--I mean, you feel that most of it is attributable to human
activity. Is it 51 percent, is it 91 percent? Does anybody
know?
Dr. Goldstein. Sir, I am not sure. I do know that to the
extent that it is due--if it is due at all to a natural cycle
involving the sun, we can't do anything about that. To the
extent that it is due to human activity, and it is a very large
extent, then we can do something about that part, and so
whether it is 83 percent or 72 percent or----
Chairman Smith. Well, is the human contribution from the
United States--everything I read is that it is below one
percent, it may even below a half a percent. Is that generally
accurate?
Dr. Goldstein. No, I don't think so at all, sir.
Chairman Smith. What part of it would----
Dr. Goldstein. I would say I would not--I am not an expert
on that, but the----
Chairman Smith. So we don't know how much people in the
United States contribute to global warming?
Dr. Goldstein. Well, by ``we'', if you are asking me
individually if I can tell you right now, the answer is I
can't, but if I could go and look at the literature and look at
what the various groups that have looked at this from, as I
say, during President Reagan's day, the National Academy of
Sciences in 1984. We can give you what is the range of----
Chairman Smith. Like I said, I have read it is below one
percent, but I will wait to see if you feel differently.
Dr. Goldstein. I would be happy to send----
Chairman Smith. Your answer is you don't know right now?
Dr. Goldstein. I am willing to bet it is not one percent. I
would be happy to review it and send you the materials, sir.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Harris. Thank you very much.
I recognize Mr. Stewart from Utah.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Once again, I would like to maybe shift gears just a little
bit, a little bit of focus, and bring in some examples and then
maybe a question from that. I have worked for many years in the
energy sector in environmental consulting. Energy development,
I think most of us would agree it is a wonderful thing for us
on many levels. It has the potential to revolutionize our world
both economically and from a national security perspective as
well. In recent years, the EPA has taken a fairly aggressive
approach to some of the technologies that have allowed us to
take advantage of some of our resources and has initiated
lawsuits that were quite troubling to many people and some of
these accusations made in their environmental impacts, and then
of course, in virtually all these cases with fracking, the
courts have not sided with the EPA and have decided that the
science that they had based that on was not reliable.
Another example of the point of my question is, Ms. Jackson
has been quoted, and of course, this has created a lot of
emotion for people, talking about some of the pollutants and
the best advice--she said the best advice I can give you is
don't go outside, don't breathe the air, it might kill you.
These types of actions or public statements, again, people look
to these people as leaders. They look to them as affecting
public policy and they take seriously what they say. And I
would ask you, do you think it harms public policy? Do you
think it harms our confidence in these leaders, these
environmental leadership when they take actions or when they
make statements like this that create fear and concern in the
public and yet prove not to be true?
Ms. White. I say this from the perspective as a former
chief of the state's large environmental agency. I think a
fundamental responsibility in that job is to meaningfully,
accurately communicate to the public and not to use a kind of
rhetoric that invokes nothing but fear and people may credibly
disagree about the degree of pollution and its impact on health
and all of that, but you never, I don't think--to say it more
appropriately, you rarely ever hear senior EPA officials try to
communicate to the public the extent of the progress we have
made, and again, not that we are finished with it, not that
regulation does not play a role, but I think it is--I give you
the example of mercury, which, as I think is a great concern to
women who are having children or have young children because
they are the most vulnerable, and when you have--again, it
doesn't mean caution. It is an area where I would use the
precautionary principle of course but when you have now like
the Center for Disease Control study that shows in a national
blood survey--again, they are never perfect but a national
blood survey that the average levels are way below what is even
the EPA's extremely strict standard. Those kind of things
should be communicated to the public.
Mr. Stewart. Dr. Goldstein, understanding that there is
some disagreement among the witnesses, and we respect that,
perhaps some of us here. When you hear these types of
statements or when you see these types of actions initiated
through the courts, which are not borne out, does that make you
cringe a little bit? Do you think it hurts the advocacy, or
what is your reaction to that?
Dr. Goldstein. No question, we need to be based upon the
best science and there is no question that there are
bureaucratic things that are inappropriate. I can sit down over
a drink and we can compare the U.S. EPA with my university as
to which have the most bureaucratic inefficiencies built into
it. So I don't doubt that you can reason by anecdote----
Mr. Stewart. You are going to have to buy a lot of drinks.
Dr. Goldstein. I have been to a lot of universities.
But, the issue of the EPA's aggressive approach on
fracking, from where I sit in southwestern Pennsylvania, I
don't see any slowdown whatsoever based on anything that the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has done. So in terms of
getting things right, I do not see the slightest bit of impact
of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on how people are
going about fracking except their concern that if they do it
wrong, they are going to cause regulation to occur.
Mr. Stewart. Yeah, exactly, and I agree with you, and the
concern wasn't the impacts because it turned out there wasn't
reason to slow that. My biggest concern was the public
perception and the public concern and fear that was created by
some of their statements and some of the accusations that they
had made.
Dr. Goldstein. Sir, we recently have a paper accepted for
publication where we looked at what people were complaining of
who believe that they have been adversely affected, and that is
not an unbiased sample, but what are they complaining of and
what is stressing them the most and 5, 10, 20 percent are
saying they are being stressed by the noise, by seeing the
trucks and whatnot. About 60, 80 percent, I don't remember the
exact number, are saying they are being stressed by the fact
that they think industry is lying to them. They think that
things are being kept secret from them by industry. So we have
got a situation in which--and I can tell you that the chemical
industry folks that I speak to say that they think that the
drilling industry and how they have gone about this, they are
aghast at how poorly they have handled this. So what I see are
people who believe that there is a problem because of what
industry and state government is telling them, not because of
what the federal government is saying.
Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Harris. Thank you very much.
I recognize Mr. Weber.
Mr. Weber. I want to follow up on what Mr. Stewart said,
Dr. Goldstein, and I know that Kathleen Hartnett White will
remember this, and you may too. There was a Region 6 EPA
administrator who made the statement that in dealing with
industry, you do like the Romans do when they invaded a
country, you crucify the first five and then the rest of them
will fall in line. Do you think that hurts the credibility? Do
you think that adds to the public's perception that something
is very, very bad wrong in this country? Do you think that
furthers EPA's, if you will, mandate? I hate to use that word.
Dr. Goldstein. No, sir, I do not.
Mr. Weber. Okay. All right. Well, I am glad to get you on
record as saying that.
Let me go back to my earlier comments about it is not
possible to have too much clean air and clean water but we can
overregulate and we can negatively impact our quality of life.
You know, we have got a study, for example, that shows in China
it is no news to anybody that they are growing leaps and bounds
and they are manufacturing coal plant, coal facilities. I think
it was Mr. Trzupek that said we manufacture that clean-air
technology over here but then we export it to China. And China
has on the drawing board over 500,000 megawatts of coal
generation in the coming years, and of course, you can take it
over to India which also has over 500,000 megawatts. You drop
back to the United States, which has only 20,000. Do you really
believe, Dr. Goldstein, that if we negatively impact our
industry and we put stringent requirements on them that those
countries abroad are going to follow suit?
Dr. Goldstein. I really don't know how to answer. I don't
know what is going to happen. I do know that all of the studies
that have been done in countries that have gone through rapid
development, for instance, in Korea, show that in retrospect,
they would have preferred to have more environmental controls.
It costs them more money.
Mr. Weber. Let me----
Dr. Goldstein. Forget the health. It costs them more money.
Mr. Weber. Let me help you. You can answer it yes or no. Do
you believe they are going to follow suit? I think we would
have to agree no, they are not going to follow suit. We are
going to negatively impact our industry over in this country.
Mexico is not going to follow suit. If you believe that those
emissions waft over here from Mexico--I was on the
environmental reg committee in the State of Texas and was
aghast to hear some of the rules that the EPA was promulgating.
And Mr. Trzupek, I will direct this question to you. In the
Texas legislature, we passed a bill that said before the TCEQ
could promulgate rules on the industry, that they had to do
what we would call an industry impact analysis to take into
account. Would you think that would be good legislation on the
federal level?
Mr. Trzupek. I think that would be excellent legislation on
the federal level, and I think Texas's success and their
remarkable economic growth and while protecting the
environment, it is one of the best states for people in my
business to do business in.
Mr. Weber. You bet.
Mr. Trzupek. And I think that would be great to take to the
federal level.
Mr. Weber. Thank you.
And I will direct my last question to Ms. White. The EPA
took over our flex permitting. Was that last year or the year
before last? About two years ago.
Ms. White. About two years ago.
Mr. Weber. Can you explain that to our panel here, Ms.
White?
Ms. White. Okay, and I will try to do this very briefly,
and this has to do with--in my testimony, what I think as far
as priorities for moving forward is the importance of, as I
said, more vigorous science but targeted regulation that does
not go too far.
Texas developed a permitting program for major air
emissions sources called the flexible permits, which gave the
facility an emission cap for the whole facility instead of a
cap on every emission point, which is EPA's traditional way of
doing their major air quality permits called prevention of
significant deterioration permits, and it was stricter as one
standard but it enabled the operator to figure out how he was
going to run that where maybe there were days he needed to ramp
up----
Mr. Weber. Some fluctuation?
Ms. White. Yes, ramp up production, but monitors showed
most of those big industries in Houston that reduced emissions
were under flexible permits. After 15 years EPA had never
formally approved it but they had never----
Mr. Weber. And they were required bylaw to do that, were
they not?
Ms. White. And they were required by law. And in about 2009
or 2010, I think, they decided to disapprove it, and long story
short, we legally challenged that decision and Texas prevailed.
But here is the sad part of that. Many of those industries--
because when EPA disapproved it, it also sent a letter to 120
of our major industries that said you are out of compliance
with the law being in compliance with the law, if you are out
of compliance, you can't even operate. So most of those
facilities deflexed. They went back and got a version which is
actually the traditional, more shackling EPA permit, and we
will see how that works out.
Just one last point that I think is a very interesting one.
In reading all that I do about these issues, someone noted that
EPA regulation, as it gets more and more complex and layers and
layers, makes business operate like a bureaucracy. You're
certifying your certification of your certification instead of
really trying to run your business tight and efficient so you
reduce emissions becomes what you have to do, and that might
sound like just a general statement, but I think that is
really----
Mr. Weber. Scary.
Ms. White. --scary, and how you design regulation, how you
target, how you draw upon the creativity and motivation of the
business owner to get the job done has, I think, greater
environmental results.
Mr. Weber. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Harris. Thank you, and I am going to recognize the
Chairman of the Full Committee for a brief question.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congressman Weber's questions remind me of a couple
questions I would like to direct to Dr. Goldstein, and this
goes to EPA regulations as well. Would you favor, Dr.
Goldstein, the public release of the cost of regulations before
they are actually implemented so the American people would know
what the economic impact would be before they are actually put
into effect?
Dr. Goldstein. Yes, very much so.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Good. And secondly, if there were a
number of ways to implement a regulation, would you favor
implementing it in the least costly way possible if the same
goal was achieved?
Dr. Goldstein. Yes, of course.
Chairman Smith. Okay. Good. The Judiciary Committee in the
House of Representatives last year passed two reg relief bills
to do just what I described, and they were opposed by the
Administration, and they seem to be commonsense approaches to
regulations, and so I thank you for your support of them. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Harris. I thank you very much.
Before we close, I am going to recognize the Ranking Member
for a request.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It has
been an interesting discussion. I am not certain that the
testimony presents to the full extent of what I believe we were
here to discuss, the state of the environment, especially the
impacts on public health of certain environmental laws, so I
will be reviewing the testimony and where appropriate may be
noting for the record where I believe clarification or
additional explanation should be made. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Harris. Thank you, and I will reserve the right to
object to inclusion of the material until my staff and I have
had the time and opportunity to review it.
I want to thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony
and the Members for their questions. The Members of the
Subcommittee may have additional questions for you, and we will
ask you to respond to those in writing. The record will remain
open for two weeks for additional comments and written
questions from Members.
The witnesses are excused and the hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:39 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by The Honorable Kathleen Hartnett White
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Mr. Richard Trzupek
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Responses by Dr. Bernard Goldstein
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
EPA's Pretense of Science: Regulating Phantom Risks
submitted by The Honorable Kathleen Hartnett White
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Memo, Re: Questionable Claims in Testimony from
February 14, 2013 Environment Subcommittee hearing,
submitted by Representative Suzanne Bonamici
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]