Rick Allen: “one of the times that I raised this, the gentleman may be interested to know, was at a hearing before the House…”

“one of the times that I raised this, the gentleman may be interested to know, was at a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality, and Jeffrey Holmstead, the Assistant Administrator For Air, came before the committee. I asked him this question. I said, have you done the modeling to do the MACT standard? In other words, have you done the scientific and technical analysis to come up with a mercury standard that is based on Maximum Achievable Control Technology, not on some idea that is dreamed up by the political people? And here is what he said, and I quote: ``We are doing all the analysis that we need to do to propose a MACT standard, to do a proposal on time by December 15, so we are on track to do everything we need to do, including the evaluation of options, to get the MACT standard out. Well, guess what? They did not. They did not have a MACT standard by December 15; they just had that old Clear Skies proposal which is, in my opinion, illegal under the Clean Air Act. And on Tuesday, Mr. Leavitt, the new EPA administrator, told the L.A. Times the process is not complete, nor is the analysis. Well, as my kids might say, duh, if you waste the year not doing the analysis, you will not have the analysis when it comes time to do the rule.”