Politics in Action: H.R. 2578 and S.J. Res. 37

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

H.R. 2578 – Conservation and Economic Growth Act

(Rep. Denham, R-CA, and 4 cosponsors)

The Administration opposes H.R. 2578, which is an omnibus lands bill incorporating fourteen separate House bills.  The Administration has worked to protect and manage the responsible use of America's natural resources and to support and ensure that the Nation's spectacular landscapes, unique natural life, and cultural resources and icons endure for future generations.  The Administration is working, through balanced and community-based decision-making, to maximize the benefits of the outdoors for all Americans.  The Department of the Interior advises that hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation alone contribute an estimated $730 billion to the economy each year.  Enactment of H.R. 2578 in its current form would not advance, and in many cases would set back, these priorities.

Overall, H.R. 2578 contains a number of provisions that would undermine the responsible balance of interests and considerations in the stewardship of the Nation's lands and natural resources.  Further, various provisions would disregard and shortchange public input on a range of community interests, including natural resource protections, and preclude agencies from considering less environmentally detrimental alternatives.  Most significantly, H.R. 2578 would:  (1) undermine recent months of productive talks on a revised proposal to satisfy Alaska Native land claims and consider the natural resource and other values of timberland in Alaska's Tongass National Forest; (2) reverse course on the science-based National Park Service plan, developed after a lengthy public engagement process, that provides an appropriate balance of off-road vehicle access and protection of sensitive seashore areas in North Carolina; (3) weaken important National Environmental Policy Act and public involvement provisions for actions affecting resources such as grazing on lands managed by the Department of the Interior; and (4) thwart successful efforts by agencies to collaborate on border security while protecting our natural and cultural resources on Federal lands along U.S. borders by waiving thirty-seven environmental and administrative laws.  All of these provisions present a false choice between natural resources protection and the economy or national security.

The Administration recognizes that portions of this multi-title legislation are noncontroversial; a few are unworkable as drafted, but many could be amended to address concerns, including those outlined in Executive branch testimonies delivered in congressional hearings over the past number of months.  Thus, the Administration urges the Congress to address these identified policy, programmatic, and management concerns, and looks forward to working with the Congress on them.

STATEMENT OF ADMINISTRATION POLICY

S.J. Res. 37 – Disapproving EPA's Mercury Air and Toxics Standards

(Sen. Inhofe, R-OK)

The Administration strongly opposes S.J. Res. 37, which would overturn long-overdue national clean air standards limiting power plant emissions of toxic air pollution, including mercury.  As a result, this resolution would cause substantial harm to public health and undermine our Nation's longstanding commitment to clean up pollution from power plants.

Since it was enacted in 1970 and amended in 1977 and 1990, each time with strong bipartisan support, the Clean Air Act (CAA) has improved the Nation's air quality and protected public health.  Since 1970, the economy has grown over 200 percent while emissions of key pollutants have decreased more than 60 percent.  More than forty years of clean air regulation has shown that a strong economy and strong environmental and public health protection go hand-in-hand.

S.J. Res. 37 would undermine more than forty years of CAA progress by blocking the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, the first national standards to protect American families from harmful power plant emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollution like arsenic, acid gases, nickel, and chromium.  By addressing the largest remaining source of mercury emissions in the United States, these standards will reduce our children's exposure to this neurotoxicant which can impair their ability to think and learn.  Because technology to control toxics also reduces fine particle pollution, the standards will help America's children grow up healthier, preventing 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms and over 6,000 cases of acute bronchitis among children each year.  EPA further estimates that emissions reductions resulting from meeting these standards will prevent as many as 11,000 avoidable premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks, annually.  The annual value of these health benefits alone is estimated to be as much as $90 billion.  In addition, the standards will reduce the risk of numerous other non-monetized yet devastating health effects, including illnesses of the central nervous system, damage to kidneys, and cancer.

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards will ensure that the Nation's power plants install modern, widely available technologies to limit harmful pollution – leveling the playing field for power plants that already have such controls in place.  The standards are achievable; pollution control equipment that can help meet them already is installed at more than half of the Nation's coal-fired power plants.  Numerous studies, including analysis by the Department of Energy, have projected that the standards can be met without adversely affecting the adequacy of electric generation resources in any region of the country.

Finally, if a rule is disapproved under the Congressional Review Act, an agency may not issue a rule that is “substantially the same.”  In this case, because EPA has adhered closely to its narrowly circumscribed authority under the CAA in promulgating these standards, the enactment of S.J. Res. 37 could effectively prevent EPA from ever limiting mercury and air toxics pollution from power plants.

If the President were presented with S.J. Res. 37, his senior advisors would recommend that he veto the resolution.