Responsibility and Professionally Invigorating Development Act of 2013
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 2641, the so-called Responsibly and Professionally Invigorating Development Act of 2013.
Contrary to the bill's short title, H.R. 2641 would result in confusion and delay in the review and permitting process for certain construction projects. Most importantly, it would pose serious threats to public health and safety. By carving out a separate environmental review process for construction projects, which this bill doesn't even define, by the way, this bill would effectively create two different environmental review processes for the same project: one that applies to the construction phase of the project, whatever that means under the bill, and one that applies to every other phase of the project.
For instance, the bill's requirements would apply to building a nuclear reactor but not to decommissioning the reactor or transporting or storing the reactor's spent fuel after it has been decommissioned. Worse yet, this measure could jeopardize public health and safety by prioritizing project approval over meaningful analysis. It does this by restricting the opportunity for meaningful public participation, and it imposes deadlines that may be unrealistic under certain circumstances. In doing so, H.R. 2641 forecloses potentially critical input from Federal, State, and local agencies and other interested parties for construction projects that are federally funded or that require Federal approval.
This is why I have offered an amendment ensuring that the public's right to participate in the review process is not cut off by this measure, and if an agency fails to meet the unrealistic deadlines mandated by H.R. 2641, the bill would automatically green-light a project regardless of whether the agency has thoroughly reviewed the project's risks.
These failings of the bill, along with many others, explain why the President's Council on Environmental Quality and more than 20 respected environmental groups vigorously oppose this bill. It is also the reason, yesterday, the administration issued a Statement of Administration Policy, whereby the recommendation to the President, in noting that these new rules would actually cause more confusion, would be to veto the bill if passed by this House and the Senate and once it arrives at his desk.
Last but not least, H.R. 2641 fails to address the real problem with construction projects. The RAPID Act is clearly intended to apply to infrastructure projects. Yet this bill does nothing to address the actual causes of construction delays, which is the lack of funding.
Insofar as the Savannah River port dredging is concerned, the Corps of Engineers approved that project back in 2012. Of course, since 2012, in addition to shutting down the government for 16 days, we have been cutting funds for these kinds of projects. So, today, for politicians to clamor for a spotlight and then denounce the lack of funding for these very important and crucial projects for the Nation's economic well-being, it is really ridiculous that we would stand here and act like it is regulations that are holding things back. No. It is the money.
For example, there is currently a $60 billion backlog of projects authorized under the Water Resources Act. Although every single one of these projects has been successfully approved using existing review procedures under NEPA, not a single one of these projects has begun construction. Why? Because the most recent appropriations for the Corps' construction budget was only $1.2 billion. That is $60 billion in approved projects that would improve the Nation's infrastructure had they not been delayed.
Clearing this backlog would be a force multiplier in creating jobs, spurring innovation, and growing the economy. That is a jobs bill, Mr. Chairman. What is more, the Obama administration is doing everything that it can to improve the performance of Federal permitting and the review of infrastructure projects.
In March 2012, the administration issued Executive Order 13604 to modernize the Federal infrastructure permitting process and cut in half the timeline for approving infrastructure projects. This order incentivized better outcomes for communities and the environment while cutting red tape. Since implementing this order, agencies have expedited permits for over 50 major projects. In one instance, agencies shaved up to 3 years off the timeline of the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project in New York. That is a multibillion-dollar project that is putting Americans back to work. The President then issued another memorandum in June of 2013, further directing Federal agencies to develop an integrated interagency pre-application process for significant offshore electric transmission projects requiring Federal approval.
Mr. Chairman, my Republican colleagues often claim to want to get Americans back to work, so I have to ask:
Why do we need legislation that does not create a single job--a bill that will pick winners and losers and a bill that makes the process less clear and less protective of public health and safety? Why do we need that legislation? Why must we continue to waste this Chamber's precious time on bills that do nothing?
Mr. Chairman, we should work together to address the real causes for delay in the NEPA process instead of debating this dangerous bill. In light of the bill's many serious flaws, I urge my colleagues to oppose the legislation.
I reserve the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I point out to my friend from Alabama that you cannot do construction projects without Federal funding. If there is no funding that has been appropriated, then the projects don't get done. That is what we have had here in this Congress.
Currently, we have a $60 billion backlog of projects authorized under the Water Resources Development Act. Each and every one of those projects has great importance. All of the regulatory work has been done. The projects are cleared. We just simply do not fund them here because this Congress does not want it to be said by the American people that the current administration is responsible for an economic turnaround.
Despite their best efforts and most insistent efforts, the economy continues to move along favorably, though not at the rate that we need it to. So we really need to have legislation that we are considering and debating on this floor that will create jobs and economic prosperity for Americans, as opposed to these anti-regulatory bills that come forth--it looks like about five or six every week are coming by--plus, we have to pepper in a dose of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act every once in awhile. Fifty times we have done that. Not one job created.
That is the problem that we have.
Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, my friend and colleague from Pennsylvania pointed out in the Rules Committee last night that it was the approval process that was holding up the dredging project for the Port of Savannah.
Just yesterday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution refuted this claim. In reality, this project--and countless others like it--are held up by a lack of funding.
To quote the article:
In the old days, a Congress that didn't agree with White House priorities simply loaded its own projects into the budget, in a bit of horse-trading.
But Republicans, particularly in the House, have placed such bargaining out of bounds--a self-imposed restriction on their own influence.
Because, under the House rules, this is an earmark.
The Savannah River Port dredging would be an earmark.
And so for us to place something in the budget which is not in the budget already--it's not allowed.
That is quoting from my colleague, Representative Kingston. Because it is an earmark, in other words, Congress or its representatives would be barred by our own rules from placing funding in the budget for a project.
It is unfortunate that my colleagues from Georgia on the other side of the aisle, aided and abetted by their colleagues on the other side of the aisle from across the country, can't seem to adjust their legislative actions to suit the people that they represent.
This Savannah River Port dredging is very important to Georgia's economy. It is the most important economic development project on the table, and it is ready to go, but the bond between these legislators and the big, bad Tea Party has them afraid to do what is in the best interest of their States. That is a shame.
I yield 5 minutes to my colleague from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, to blame the lack of job creation on the inefficiency of regulations is kind of like--it reminds me of when you are downstairs in the bathroom and something is leaking from the upstairs bathroom and then someone tells you that it is raining. It just doesn't make sense.
Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), my good friend and ranking member on the Natural Resources Committee.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chair, the Federal Government does not create a single job. I don't know exactly how many jobs we are talking about cutting in the Federal Government from the drawdown of the defense, but there will certainly be less federally employed Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine personnel and those who work in the Department of Defense to support their efforts to defend this Nation to keep us strong.
The Federal Government does not create a single job. Delivering our mail provides good-paying jobs, middle class.
But I must rise in opposition to this legislation, Mr. Chair, because it would just sow utter confusion. H.R. 2641 does that by creating a separate, but only partly parallel environmental review process for construction projects that will only cause confusion, delay, and litigation.
As a result of this bill, there could potentially be two different environmental review processes for the same project. Rather than improving the environmental review process, this bill will complicate it and generate litigation.
But more importantly, the bill is yet another effort by my friends on the other side of the aisle to gum up the regulatory process and, thus, undermine regulatory protections.
As with all other anti-regulatory bills that this Congress has considered over the last few weeks, this measure is simply another thinly disguised effort to hobble the ability of Federal agencies to do the work that Congress requires them to do.
Accordingly, I strenuously oppose this seriously flawed bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, this amendment would prohibit an agency from considering the social cost of carbon--social cost of carbon--in an agency's environmental review of a proposed construction project.
This amendment ignores the fundamental reality that climate change is real and we need to do something about it. The social cost of carbon, or SCC, is an estimate of the social and economic benefits of reducing carbon dioxide emissions that began under the Bush administration and has been upheld by the courts. For example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to include SCC in its light-truck fuel economy standards in 2007.
Thomas Sterner, an economist with the Environmental Defense Fund, cited the Obama administration's SCC estimates as ``a welcome step forward, reflecting the latest versions of the underlying models.'' Billy Pizer, a Duke University economist, notes that the ``key thing is we are recognizing the answer is not zero. We know there are negative consequences. And we are trying to put an accurate dollar value on it.''
Even William Bumpers, an attorney with Baker Botts, who typically represents manufacturers in pollution cases, acknowledged that the ``only real cost of carbon that I know is wrong is zero.''
Perhaps most importantly for purposes of this amendment is that there is overwhelming consensus that every ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere has very real costs to human health, ecosystems, and the economy.
The SCC estimates involve extensive analysis of the best available peer-reviewed literature and climate economic assessment models. They include a broad range of costs associated with anticipated climate impacts on society, such as the property damage from increased flood risks, or the additional energy costs associated with climate oscillations.
Since 2009 alone, there have been a series of major climatic events that demonstrate the costly effects of climate change. How many so-called ``hundred-year storms'' have to hit a major city like New York before climate skeptics will wake up?
The 2011 Texas drought alone cost farmers and ranchers over $5 billion. How many farmer's crops must wither on the vine before we face up to the real costs inaction?
I ask my colleagues to oppose this very detrimental amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would make the so-called RAPID Act, which, by the way, I would rename, as our caucus has done, the Regrettably Another Partisan Ideological Distraction Act.
This RAPID Act will apply retroactively to construction projects that are currently under review. As a result, all of the bill's problematic provisions that we have cited, including its arbitrary deadlines for environmental review and restrictions on public comment, would apply to pending construction projects that require Federal approval or Federal permitting.
This amendment, like the RAPID Act, ignores the fact that NEPA is not the problem. According to the Congressional Research Service, which is nonpartisan, project approval delays based on environmental requirements are not caused by NEPA. Rather, CRS reports that these delays are caused by State and local factors like project funding levels, local opposition to a project, a project's complexity, or late changes in the project scope.
This amendment would do nothing to address the underlying problem, and that underlying problem is the lack of funding. So we need to address, Mr. Chairman, the root causes of the delays in the process, not threaten public health and safety by automatically approving projects when agencies fail to meet arbitrary deadlines.
I reserve the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I think it is appropriate that I utter this saying: Show me the money. When the money is there, projects can start being funded and work can begin. Workers can start working and getting paychecks. In that way, we will reinvigorate this economy. We have got to have--instead of anti-regulatory bills, we need job-creation bills.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I thank the Rules Committee for making my amendment in order and urge my colleagues to support my commonsense amendment to protect the right of the public to comment on Federal projects under the NEPA review process.
The purpose of my amendment is simple. It protects the right of the public to comment. This amendment would ensure that H.R. 2641, the so-called RAPID Act of 2013, does not restrict the right of any member of the public to comment on construction projects that may have an environmental impact.
Like the administration and more than 20 well-respected environmental groups, I oppose the RAPID Act. This bill threatens public health and safety by putting a thumb on the scales in favor of private sector businesses in the project approval process.
It is yet another antiregulatory measure whose sole purpose is to grease the wheels of the approval process for projects that are environmentally sensitive.
Aside from creating duplicative and costly regulatory requirements that pertain to only certain types of projects, the RAPID Act would also limit the right of the public to comment on these projects.
The bill does that in two ways: First, by reducing opportunities for public input; and, second, by fast-tracking the approval process through arbitrary deadlines.
The NEPA approval process has protected the environment for more than 20 years, Mr. Chairman, and it is designed to be smart from the start.
Through an open, flexible, and timely process, NEPA empowers the public to weigh in on decisions. That means that the local farmer who owns land that would be affected by a Federal construction project has equal footing as the company that would stand to benefit from that project. My amendment is vital to ensuring that the RAPID Act doesn't shut the public out of this process.
I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join me in ensuring that the RAPID Act does not foreclose public participation.
Accordingly, I urge that this committee make my amendment in order, and I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source