Providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title United States Code, of the Rule Submitted By the Environmental Protection Agency Relating to ``Air Plan Approval; South Dakota;

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. 290, S.J. Res. 86.

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, coal is America's dirtiest energy source. Coal pollution from powerplants befouls our air, pollutes our water, and leaches into our food. Coal pollution causes acid rain. Coal pollution causes severe health issues, even death.

Between 1990 and 2020, pollution from coal-fired powerplants killed 460,000 Americans--23,000 deaths per year on average. Despite how massive that death toll is, the trend has been in a good direction. Coal plant-caused death rates have decreased in the last 15 years as more and more coal plants have either shut down in favor of cleaner and cheaper energy sources or--often in answer to Clean Air Act programs-- adopted broadly available pollution reduction technologies which significantly reduce but do not eliminate the health-harming emissions and pollution.

One such Clean Air Act program, the Regional Haze Program, addresses haze and visibility impairment in national parks and wilderness areas. Unsurprisingly, coal plants are the Nation's most significant source of haze. The same coal pollutants that drive severe health issues and deaths nationwide, including particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds, also drive haze formation. Haze is a pollution marker. The Clean Air Act's regional haze provision requires States to reduce emissions from haze-causing sources through controls or retirements where necessary to make reasonable progress toward natural visibility conditions.

The EPA provides guidance regulations that help States develop appropriate regional haze plans which are due every 10 to 15 years. The Clean Air Act presumes that additional controls or retirements will be necessary for reasonable progress. They are thus required each time new haze plans are due unless the State can demonstrate that no action would be the reasonable course.

South Dakota took no action in its latest regional haze plan to address haze pollution over the long term. It made no updates to significantly out-of-date controls at its three major emitters--a coal plant, a cement plant, and a lime plant--and it failed to demonstrate that that inaction was reasonable. The Trump EPA approved the plan anyway.

The resulting pollution will blow downwind toward Midwestern and Eastern States. The EPA's approval puts forward a reading of the Clean Air Act that is blatantly at odds with the text, the context, and the purpose of the act, and that encourages the spread of harm to the downwind States from these polluting plants. Well, there is something we can do about it here.

In 1996, Congress enacted the Congressional Review Act to give Congress the opportunity to vote on administrative regulations. During the Biden administration, Republicans in the Senate forced 35 rollcall votes to try to kill rules that sought to protect consumers' public health and public lands--35 to 0. It was an astonishing record. Now that the Trump administration is in power, it has engaged at breakneck speed to tear down the protections of Americans' health and safety and our environment.

I know it is an uphill struggle in our polluter-funded Congress and particularly with this polluter-controlled Trump administration, but I nevertheless urge support for this commonsense Congressional Review Act resolution and hope that we can make it a brighter day as well as a clearer day for the downwind States.

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