Ed Whitfield: “I yield myself the balance of my time. Well, I would say to you that EPA adopted this tailoring act because they bit off…”

“I yield myself the balance of my time. Well, I would say to you that EPA adopted this tailoring act because they bit off more than they could chew, initially. That's why a lawsuit has been filed against them, because they violated the clear language of the Clean Air Act that says if anything emits more than 150 tons per year, or 250 tons per year, it must be regulated if they've had an endangerment finding, as they did in this case. And so this amendment would simply gut the entire bill and place the tailoring law there in its place. Under this tailoring rule, they would be able to go down to 50-tons-per-year emissions. But the question becomes, what happens after the year 2013? You have two conflicting parts of this Clean Air Act as a result if we adopt this amendment. One thing we know for certain, EPA is already involved in too many lawsuits. In fact, we're trying to find out now exactly how many lawsuits. We feel like this bill that we are trying to pass in the Congress today, H.R. 910, is simply Congress reasserting itself into the Clean Air Act because for too long decisions have been made by unelected bureaucrats at EPA; lawsuits are being filed. Almost every time anyone applies for a permit EPA runs and enters into a consent decree, and then the Federal judge will award legal fees to the plaintiffs. We think it's time to reassert ourselves into this process. This is a good bill, H.R. 910.…”