Ed Whitfield: “I would say to the gentlelady from Texas, first of all, that under the regulations of the EPA, today incinerators are…”

“I would say to the gentlelady from Texas, first of all, that under the regulations of the EPA, today incinerators are given 5 years to comply with section 129 standards, and boilers are only given 3 years to comply with section 112 standards. That's one of the reasons that we introduced this bill, because businesses, manufacturers, institutions, and universities all came to Washington, and in their testimony they asked that we have some uniformity on times to comply. That's why we decided to extend the compliance deadline for the boiler industry up to 5 years, which is the exact same that incinerators have today under section 129. They asked that we do that because, one, they said it would provide certainty and that, two, in many instances, they do not have the time, the technical knowledge, and it's not economically justifiable to do it within that shorter time period. So your legislation would basically roll back even the time for incinerators. So for that reason, we would respectfully oppose this amendment. And then I would just make one other comment about the argument that regulations create jobs. I genuinely do not believe that in the history of our country jobs have been created by regulation. Jobs have been created in America because of entrepreneurs spending money and spending capital to develop a product which creates jobs, which helps our gross domestic product, which increases our tax revenues, which allows us to do more in the government sector.…”