Joseph Knollenberg: “Throughout the VA/HUD appropriations hearings this year, I have had occasion to engage both EPA Administrator Carol…”

“Throughout the VA/HUD appropriations hearings this year, I have had occasion to engage both EPA Administrator Carol Browner and Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation Bob Perciasepe in a dialogue about their legal troubles and their faulty standards and their flips and their reversals and their scientific troubles. In light of all that, let me explain a little personal experience we are having with EPA in Michigan. The EPA implemented national restrictive mandates on air using a 1-hour measurement. Then EPA revoked the 1-hour measurement and switched to an 8-hour measurement. Next the courts explained to EPA that their actions were unconstitutional. Then the EPA flipped back again to the first restrictive mandate. As my colleagues can imagine, the States and the regulated community are frustrated and harmed by EPA's failures. Now the EPA is ignoring the most recent air quality data and is instead relying on old, out-of-date designations that were in place at the time the 1-hour measurement was revoked the first time. Now, if my colleagues are lost, so were we and so are we. Now, this bad action by EPA violates the long-standing legal principle of fairness known as 'detrimental reliance.' We can do a whole lot better than this.”