Opening Statement
Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee
Chairman Dick Lugar, U.S. Senator for Indiana

Date: 7/22/97

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICHARD G. LUGAR CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION AND FORESTRY HEARING ON THE IMPACT OF EPA’S NEW AIR RULES ON AGRICULTURE

The Committee meets to examine the impact on agriculture of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new air quality standards for fine particulate matter and ozone. We welcome Administrator Carol Browner to the Committee. We look forward to her testimony on the justification for the new standards and how the agency will implement them.

Many in the agricultural community have concerns about how the air quality requirements may affect their businesses, despite Administrator Browner’s attempts to reassure them that no draconian steps will flow from the federal standards. A panel of witnesses from the farm sector will discuss their specific apprehensions this morning. I share their concerns that the science behind the regulations is inadequate.

I am a strong supporter of the goals of the Clean Air Act. I was part of a bipartisan leadership group that helped to enact the strong amendments Congress made to this statute in 1990. These amendments called for reductions in emissions of particulates and precursors to ozone from smokestacks and car tailpipes. By many measures -- including the cost-effectiveness of control strategies -- the 1990 law has been successful. It is essential that the Clean Air Act continue to be administered in a reasonable manner so that the current public support for this worthwhile law will not be weakened.

The bipartisan furor over the new rules may jeopardize this public backing.

Over the past dozen years this Committee has compiled a remarkable record in crafting legislation designed to reduce the potential adverse environmental impacts of agricultural production. The farm bill we passed last year included the reauthorization of the Conservation Reserve Program and the establishment of the new Environmental Quality Incentives Program. It also set up a new Agricultural Air Quality Task Force. That act increased the nation’s investment in environmental quality by two billion dollars through the year 2002. That was not merely an increased authorization that is subject to later appropriations. The funds are in the mandatory part of the budget, just as is the case for farm program payments and food stamps.

The 1996 farm bill was the most environmentally responsive, and responsible, farm bill in our nation’s history. This committee does not have a tin ear when it comes to environmental concerns.

But we are also sensitive to the active public debate stimulated by the new clean air standards. Peter Passell, in the New York Times of July 3, 1997, has highlighted these issues in language that I will excerpt for the record. He writes: “The final rules, issued...by the Environmental Protection Agency...will be applied in what the E.P.A. terms ‘flexible and affordable ways,’ with oceans of time to adjust. ‘It will be 2009...before the regulations really bite,’ predicted Paul R. Portney, the head of Resources for the Future, a Washington-based research group.

“The mix of tough standards and long lags in enforcement...does nothing to resolve the difficult question of how clean is clean enough. And it put in place regulations that many economists argue should not be enforced...

“It would greatly expand regulators’ effective power. ‘Since the ozone standard cannot be met in some cities,’ Robert Hahn of the American Enterprise Institute said, ‘the E.P.A. will end up with broad discretion on where and when to enforce the law.’

“The Clean Air Act requires the E.P.A. to set pollutant standards that would eliminate risks to health, and then periodically update them to reflect the latest science... The agency proposed to tighten the screws on ozone, a component of urban summer smog, and to create a standard for tiny soot particles.

“Not surprisingly, the oil and auto industries protested. More striking, the EPA’s independent panel of scientists was badly split on the value of the new standards. And both the Treasury and the President’s economic advisers argued vociferously that the costs would exceed the benefits.

“The two pollutants in question present very different challenges. Little is known about the consequences of exposure to very small particles of soot because they are typically present in high concentrations only when other pollutants are also plentiful...

“By contrast, it is widely conceded that ozone affects health in concentrations well below the old standard of 120 parts per billion. There are two catches, though. The number of people who could be helped is not large: the new standard would reduce hospitalizations for asthma by just 1 or 2 percent. And the costs could be astronomical: The President’s Council of Economic Advisers estimated that the annual cost of cutting ozone to 80 parts per billion would be $11 billion to $60 billion.

“The tighter standard would add an element of farce to enforcement in cities including Los Angeles, Houston and New York, where even radical limits on emissions would not suffice...

“But most of the players in this game will probably not be around to face the political music. ‘States and counties participating in the regional pollution control strategy will have at least until the year 2004 to meet the need standard,’ an E.P.A. news release said.

“The hiatus with soot is even longer. Washington is allowing five years to collect data, three years more for the states to plan controls and 18 months for the E.P.A. to review the plans. Even then, the E.P.A. noted, ‘it will be several more years before many areas will actually have to comply.’

“And then there is a question of governance. Since many localities cannot possibly meet the new standard, the need for E.P.A. waivers will mushroom -- as will the temptation to use them to reward political friends and punish enemies...

“‘One way or another, costs always slip into the deliberation,’ said Richard L. Schmalensee, an economist at M.I.T. who was a key player on environmental issues in the Bush Administration. Demanding that agencies weigh costs against benefits ‘would push the question into the realm of open discourse,’ he added.”

This ends my quotes from Peter Passell

I look forward to the statement of the distinguished ranking member, Senator Tom Harkin, and then to the important and timely testimony of EPA Administrator Carol Browner.