Political Quotes

“This is a bill that for years and years has come up. It was originally designed for refineries that have very large amounts of storage, of oil, of propane, of all that type of material, and it was designed for them to have the necessary safeguards in place. Then, later on, there became a gray area. I ask the question because it has never been answered: Should they now be able to apply this to farms? Farms may have perhaps a little bit of propane over here and over here, someplace else, something else. It might add up to the 1,320 gallons at one time. If that is the case, then they would be under the same requirements as we currently have for refiners. I am talking about them having to do volumes and volumes of paperwork. They would have to purchase new double-lined containers and build berms around their storage facilities. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, and this could be an average-sized farm. The EPA has not done enough outreach to farmers to help them get into compliance. When this came up before, we introduced this same amendment that would give them time, with the assurance at that time that they would do this. In fact, I recall personally visiting with Lisa Jackson and she had every intention to go ahead and make these notifications. So the EPA shouldn't be allowed to enforce the rule against farmers at this time. What this amendment does is asks for an extension to give them time.…”