Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act of 2011

Mr. Speaker, we've all been back in our districts for the last month, and we've been talking to friends and neighbors back home about what America is truly concerned with, what is most important in the eyes of all Americans, and that is getting America back to work.

Our economy is stagnant. This administration is throwing up barriers, which is freezing assets because the folks that normally would invest in growth and hiring people are frightened about what's around the next corner, and they're sitting with all their money and they're not growing.

I met this morning with around somewhere between 12 and 14 of my neighbors in just a sit-down cup of coffee, where we sat around and we talked about the way that folks in central Texas view what's going on with the job market.

You know, in Texas we've been blessed. We haven't faced the kinds of unemployment numbers that other States have had. But we now are certainly seeing unemployment creeping up in our State also.

We had small businessmen and -women there, and they talked about the things that concern them. But yet we've had meetings with bankers who've explained to us that you can look at their deposits and see that American local investors are sitting on the sidelines and keeping their deposits in the bank and not investing in growth and not investing in capital structure, not building buildings, and certainly not hiring people. And so part of the discussion this morning from some very intelligent small business folks was, we think we know why; why do you say this is happening?

The answers I got were answers that we hear on the floor of this House every day.

But the one that I've been talking about now for almost a year, probably maybe even over a year, is the fact that we are seeing the administration doing through government regulations, which are basically laws passed by the regulators which change the playing field for people and our economy across the board at every level. It's not done by acts of this Congress. It's done by acts of bureaucrats in the Obama administration as they make rules and regulations that fit their view of the world and how they think the world should work. And these regulations regulate the drivers, the force builders that employ the American people.

Many of these regulations have become such a shock to the conscience of people who are in business that they say, ``My Lord, I'm not about to get invested in growth until I know whether I'm going to even have my business once the regulators are through with me.''

And then sitting on the sideline is the giant regulator program, which is the health care bill that this House passed last year and the Senate passed. We call it ObamaCare. Its 2,000 pages are multiplying very rapidly as the regulators, the people who are able to pass rules to set up the regulations that govern that bill, are imposing more and more burden on the individual employer and on those people seeking health care.

So what I heard today from some people who are presidents of small businesses, run small businesses--a Thomas Barrett, a very intelligent lawyer who is both a financial adviser and a lawyer for small and other sized businesses all over central Texas and is highly sought after for his opinion--they said it's the unknown that's driving the investment off the page in the United States. It's the unknown. We don't know what's going to happen next. Our taxes. What are taxes going to do? We've got taxes that will last for a while and then go back to a different tax automatically unless this House acts.

Then most importantly, and what we talked mostly about today, was all the new regulations that are coming up.

In the next 3 or 4 months, the Republican leadership in this House is going to do everything it can to turn back some of the craziness that's gone on in the regulatory world. I brought the Members here tonight just a few examples of some of the regulations, many of which we've been talking about all year. We've spent a lot of time talking about the cement industry; we've talked about Boiler MACT; we've talked about a lot of other things we're going to talk about tonight.

But it's just a general outline of some corrective measures that this Republican-led House is going to try and going to pass through this body to just start slowing down and changing the direction of what we think are some ill-conceived regulations by the executive branch, the Obama administration.

I want to start off with this poster right here, which just gives you a small example of what we're talking about. In July of this summer-- this is what we've called the ``regulatory summer''--these are regulations that have been proposed by various agencies. Many of them are household words like the Environmental Protection Agency; but there are plenty of others, the Labor Department--you could go on and on.

In July, 229 proposed regulations went into effect, 379 final regulations, and the cost estimated of these proposed and final regulations: over $9.5 billion to the economy in the month of July. That meant business, the job creators, took a hickey of $9.5 billion in 1 month, the month of July 2011. We have just finished August--270 proposed regulations, 347 final regulations: over $8.2 billion in August. So for this summer, just July and August, the 2-month total: $17.7 billion in costs to the people who create jobs.

Now, is it any wonder that the people who create jobs are sitting on the sidelines and saying, holy cow, how do I hire somebody? And I think the American people know why people in business hire somebody. They hire somebody because they think that person will make their business more prosperous, will make it work more efficiently, will make it do the job the business was set up to do. If you are in the roofing business and you put roofs on houses, you hire more roofers because you think you will be able to produce a better quality product faster and more efficiently, therefore enhancing the profit that those who have invested their capital and labor into that business--they can make a profit so that that business can thrive. You don't hire roofers when you don't need to put roofs on houses. I mean, that doesn't make any sense, and everybody with any kind of common sense knows that.

Now, if you've got a person who's got some business, whether it be big or small, and they literally don't know what the government is going to do to them tomorrow or, let's just say, in the next 2 months, following this track record, they could be looking at another almost $20 billion worth of additional costs to their business that could be coming up in September and October. Based upon the last 2 months, it's arguable that it's pretty close to $20 billion of additional costs that they were not anticipating and never thought was going to happen to them; and all of a sudden out of the clear blue, it drops in their lap.

Now, you will hear arguments like, wait a minute, there are these things that are environmental and other ways and people have known all along something about this was going to be done. And that may or may not be true. But the ramifications of what the regulators actually did are turning out to be horrendous costs to industries that right now are trying to get the ground under them stable so they can start hiring people again.

If you're on balancing ground sort of like this earthquake we had up here in Washington, which I am very fortunate that I wasn't in, when that ground is unstable, you don't know which way to turn. Well, the same thing goes for business. When the foundation underneath your business is unstable, you don't know which way to turn. Are you going to go out and hire somebody, give them a job, when this is what your life is right now and someone is creating that problem, that are actually by their actions making it unstable?

I would argue that questionable regulations, the imposition of additional costs, the unknown of what taxes are going to be tomorrow-- all these things create an unstable environment for the people who hire people. So this last regulatory summer is a perfect example of the earthquake that has shaken the foundation of the small businessman and the job creators in America.

The President of the United States promised us, the White House promised us, to save $10 billion in redtape, which is kind of the slang term for bureaucratic regulations, in 5 years. But the White House has put forward $17.7 billion worth of redtape in 2 months. The message has been lost somewhere. Where is it? When did what we were promised change into a three-for-one worse situation? We were promised a $5 billion savings for the job creators; and, in fact, we've created a $17.7 billion expense and uncertainty to the job creators, and we wonder why we are not creating jobs.

Mr. Kucinich was talking about his view of the world. He and I don't see

the world the same way, but the facts are when he was talking about we need to create jobs, we darn sure need to create jobs.

The role of the Congress today is finding ways to get this country back to work. If we put this country back to work, 90 percent of our problems will be much, much better. So the real goal of the Republican House this year, to finish this year out, is going to be trying to correct at least some of this instability created by these regulators, these unelected regulators. These are appointed people, not elected people. The heads of these agencies are appointed by the President. They are under the wings of the White House, if you will. They are part of the executive branch of government. And the legislature, this branch, the Congress, is going to, in the next several months, try to put some reins on these out-of-control regulators and hold them back. And we've got just some of them I am going to talk to you about that some of my colleagues are putting forward in the future.

The week of September 12, which is next week, I suppose, we're going to take up the Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act, by Tim Scott of South Carolina. Now, the facts of this situation are very unusual in my way of thinking, and I think most of the people in the United States, when they heard this on television, they said, they can't do that, can they?

It seems the Boeing Corporation has a big operation up in the Washington State area, and they were wanting to build an additional plant to build whatever Boeing builds, whether it's aircraft or whatever it is--they wanted to do it in South Carolina. They have been negotiating and working in good faith with the citizens of South Carolina and the government of South Carolina. They have looked at alternative locations around the country to make a determination of what is best for their business in their situation today, and they determined that they were going to build a very important plant in South Carolina.

But the National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB, issued a complaint against the Boeing Company for the alleged transfer of an assembly line from the Washington plant to South Carolina. Yet not one union employee at the Boeing's Puget Sound facility, that's the Washington plant, has lost his or her job as a result of the proposed South Carolina plant.

Still, the NLRB is pursuing a restoration order against Boeing that would cost South Carolina thousands of jobs--these are new jobs in South Carolina--and deter future investment in the United States. This is the government telling Boeing how they can run their business at the base level of you can't move unless we tell you you can move; and if you choose to go to a right-to-work State instead of a union shop State, we're going to tell you, no, you can't do it.

What happened to the freedom of movement that our Founding Fathers created in this country? I mean, part of what makes us great is if you can't prosper in Texas, you can maybe prosper in South Dakota. In fact, people are right now, as we talk right now, people are taking businesses from one part of the country and going to another part of the country because of maybe newly discovered resources, maybe a better work environment, maybe a more intelligent workforce, maybe a better investment community, maybe better opportunities, maybe better tax structure. That's the free right of every American, is seeking prosperity for their company and for their family to go seek these places.

If we're going to tell Boeing they can't build a plant to create jobs in South Carolina, next they may be telling Sam Smith in Oklahoma, I'm sorry, but we need you to stay in Oklahoma, we don't want you to move to Texas, or we don't want you to move to South Carolina to go to work in the Boeing plant, which we just canceled. Is that the kind of world we have and we want this government to have? I would say no.

Do we want the people of South Carolina to have 1,500 new jobs? Yes. Is anybody talking about hurting the people employed at Puget Sound? No.

It's the issue of union membership that drove this whole thing, and we have given our States the right to choose whether they have a right- to-work State or they have a union State, and every State in this country has some difference in how they view that. It's part of the environment that State creates to bring business into the community.

What in the world is wrong with that, and when did that become Big Brother's job to tell somebody where they can and can't offer you a job? So are we now saying that the people of Washington State--and I have many friends there and I love very much, and I don't mean to be in any way defaming Washington State--but we have got a group of bureaucrats that are saying those are more important people than the people in South Carolina who want to work for Boeing for a good salary, because the government's telling them they can't do it.

The gentleman from South Carolina, Tim Scott, has got this bill, H.R. 2587, we're going to take it up next week, I understand, which is going to protect these jobs from this government interference. It would take the common-sense step, and it would prevent that National Labor Relations Board from restricting where an employer can create jobs in the United States.

Who would have ever thought we would have had to even address this on the floor of this House? This world that we have lived in, and, in fact, President John F. Kennedy in writing one of his dissertation papers at Harvard came up with a term ``The Great Frontier,'' which the whole concept of America was if you failed in one place, the great blessing of America is you can pack up and move to another place. At one time that was the frontier.

Now that frontier is in technology; that frontier is in science. That frontier is not just moved from one place to the other; it's moved from one idea to the other. That's the greatness of America. To have the government tell you where you can and can't locate is an abomination to the very spirit of the American Dream.

This one, we need to do it right away; we are going to do it. We hope our friends in the Senate are going to help.

We have the administration's new Maximum Achievable Technology Act, MACT, standards and Cross State Air Pollution, CSAPR, for utility plants, will affect electricity prices for nearly all American consumers. In total 10,000 power plants are expected to be affected. I can't tell you the number in other States, but Texas surprisingly fell under this act, which no one anticipated, and we actually had no input whatsoever--but that's a different argument which I have made before, but I know that we are talking about 17 to 19 plants just in Texas are being closed down.

These are coal-powered plants. We're talking about coal-powered plants in most instances here. The result to middle class America is an annual electricity bill increase in parts of the country anywhere from 12 to 24 percent, just by this one regulation that has been proposed dealing with coal-powered plants and greenhouse gas emissions. Well, Representative John Sullivan of Oklahoma has come up with a solution for this, H.R. 2401, the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation.

One of the things that we think any regulator should be looking at as he is doing this type of work is how does this impact the jobs of the American people, how does this impact the economy of the area. If you have a State that has 20 power plants and the results of your mandatory and arbitrary ruling is going to shut down 12 or 15 of those plants, it doesn't take a genius to figure the price of electricity is going up.

Even if they go in and they make a conversion to some other form of power at great cost and expense, billions of dollars of additional money happen to be spent, even if they do that, you are still going to have down time when electricity is going to be scarce and the risk of blackouts and brownouts is going to be increased. Quite honestly, it hurts every industry and every person that depends on that electricity.

Has anybody looked into this and said here is how we figure this out and told us with transparency what effect this has? No.

So what Mr. Sullivan is trying to say is that we need to call a time- out;

and it would require a cumulative, economic analysis for specific environmental protection rules and specifically delay the final date for both utility MACT and CSAPR rules until full impact of the Obama's administration regulatory agenda has been studied.

Some of this stuff is done with computer projections, but the facts are it's kind of a shock and surprise to everybody that's in the business, and it's time that we call time out and rather than cost this country jobs, give these people a chance to continue to have good jobs for the American people to work in.

This is a good bill, and we're going to take this bill up the week of September 19.

The next bill that this Republican Congress is going to go take up is H.R. 2250 to deal with what's called boiler MACT. From hospitals to factories, colleges, thousands of major American employers use boilers that will be impacted by the EPA's new boiler MACT rules.

These new stringent rules will impose billions of dollars in capital and compliance costs, increasing the costs of many goods and services. College kids will tell you how expensive going to university is today. They don't need any more cost increase there, but it will increase the cost of higher education; and it will put over 200,000 jobs at risk, just what they have done under the boiler MACT rules.

So what are we doing with H.R. 2250? Representative Morgan Griffith of Virginia has proposed this. It's called the EPA Regulatory Relief Act and would provide a legislative stay for four interrelated rules issued by the EPA in March of this year. The legislation would also provide the EPA with at least 15 months to repropose and finalize new achievable rules that do not destroy jobs and provide employers with an extended compliance period.

In other words, if it's a problem, let's fix the problem without costing people jobs. Let's fix the problem with a reasonable amount of time for compliance so that it's not a knee-jerk reaction that is required by everybody to try to keep from going out of business because of EPA-imposed rules.

So basically, just like the last bill we talked about, this is saying stop this craziness, take a new look, let the people you're regulating have some input into the cost and the compliance and the job loss, and then let's restructure. If we've got to fix this problem, restructure it in a manner that makes common sense to keep the American men and women of this country working, keep the factories open and producing and the colleges and universities open and producing and not impose a short-term, heavy burden of an additional capital infusion in order to meet regulatory changes. Give them a reasonable amount of time that common sense says it would take to fix the problem instead of imposing this rammed-down-your-throat series of rules. October 3 is the week the Republican Congress will be bringing that before the American people and before this House.

This is one I've been working on for quite awhile. I hope through part of our efforts during these evenings when we've talked about the cement MACT issue, the imposition of new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions for the cement factories, and the fact that we've had the opportunity to very effectively drive cement production out of this country and offshore to China, India, and maybe Mexico where they don't regulate at all the emissions, and then we think that somehow it's going to fix greenhouse gases. It's kind of insane that cleaning it up over here and driving people offshore to where they don't clean it up at all is going to help anything. It's going to hurt something, but that's a different argument.

In the week of October 3, the cement MACT and two related rules are expected to affect approximately 100 cement plants in America. The cost is estimated to be somewhere between $3-4 billion for a $6-8 billion industry. Just do the math. That's a tremendous burden if these rules come into effect. These stringent requirements will be cost prohibitive, and the American cement industry, quite frankly, could be at risk across the board. We could wake up finding ourselves importing from other countries, by necessity, a product that we now lead the world on.

You know, concrete is the second most used building material on Earth. The only thing that's used more than concrete is water. So Portland cement, which is the base ingredient in creating concrete, is as important to the building of infrastructure buildings, and basically everything that we live with, as anything on Earth. And we are in that business and we produce cement in various States in this country. We produce the Portland cement process, and these regulations would shut down factories and basically cause these international companies-- because all companies, whether they are based here or not, trade internationally--to move someplace else. And you wonder why jobs are going overseas. Well, in this case, in the cement industry, jobs will be going out of the country for one specific reason--government regulations beyond reasonableness.

The Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act sponsored by Representative Sullivan, my good friend from Oklahoma, will provide a legislative stay of these rules--hold off, brother, we need to look at these things--and provide the EPA with at least 15 months to repropose and finalize new, and here's the magic word, achievable rules that do not destroy jobs and provide employers with an extended compliance period. Once again, quit cramming it down our throat. Quit saying you've got to do it tomorrow. Give us time to implement reasonable rules. And as we look at these rules, let's analyze what they are going to cost us in the way of jobs and in the way of our economy, and take that into consideration as you plan out the reasonable way forward. You'll find that many of the things that we'll be taking up in the next couple of months, right there is the secret key ingredient. We're going to come up with rules that you can achieve without destroying jobs that will still, over a long term, if you give time to comply, will meet the requirements that are necessary that people think to clean things up if they need to be cleaned up.

October 3 is when we are going to take that up. Sometime in the month of October or November we will take up another bill.

Oh, by the way, when you're talking about jobs in these Portland cement factories, these jobs are good jobs. These are labor jobs, but they are trained labor jobs. They are good jobs that pay somewhere between $65,000 and $85,000 each. Now, that's a good American job that ought to be done by an American, not by someone from China or from India because we have driven these industries out of our country.

Coal ash. H.R. 2273, these are anti-infrastructure regulations commonly referred to as coal ash rules that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to fix, according to the existing regulations, affect everything from concrete production to building products, like wallboard. The result is an estimated loss of well over 100,000 jobs.

So, you know, at the end of this last month, we had no job gains. Not one job was created. That's what the report said. Well, just in the things that I've read to you so far as a result of these regulations, if all of this took place next month, just the numbers we've given, we're talking about 500,000 jobs so far that these bills that this Republican Congress is going to take up and try to get some reasonableness in this regulatory process.

It's time for this Congress to not surrender the lawmaking-- rulemaking is lawmaking--authority to regulators without overseeing what they are doing and making sure that they are not harming our economy and harming what is going on in America and the jobs that everybody needs. We can't afford to lose more jobs. We have to keep the people working who have jobs, and then we've got to enhance these businesses in such a way that they feel that they are not going to be threatened by surprise regulations; and, therefore, they are willing to say, I have got stable ground under my feet and I can start to expand and hire again and start to invest my capital which right now is sitting in the bank into new and better products, services, factories, et cetera.

So this coal ash bill that will cost this country 100,000 jobs, H.R. 2273, the Coal Residual Reuse and Management Act, sponsored by Representative David McKinley of West Virginia, will

create an enforceable minimum standard for regulation of coal ash by the States, allowing their use in a safe manner to produce products and protect jobs. It's just basically saying let the people who have this coal ash--and it's in certain States more than other places--use this coal ash and regulate this coal ash in such a manner that it does enhance the environment without destroying American jobs.

Once again, the Congress has got to act, and the Republican Congress is prepared to act.

Now, here comes my favorite of the crazy regulatory acts. The EPA is now proposing rules to regulate dust. Now, I live in Texas. We've got more highway miles than any other State in the Union, plenty of paved roads, but we've also got what we call farm roads and ranch roads. And in the western part of the State, those farm roads are covered with what we call caliche, which is a pulverized limestone, and over in the eastern part, they're covered with certain types of gravel. Some of it's river gravel and other things.

When a farmer drives up to his house on his driveway, it's usually got some kind of gravel or caliche on it and it kicks up dust. The EPA is now saying you can be fined for driving home every night on your gravel road. Now, what is your solution? Well, it's easy. Go out and spend $20,000 and pave your driveway--5 miles of driveway. So put pavement on it. Oh, but make sure you put a certain kind of pavement because it's got to have pavement that doesn't kick up dust. Arguably, if you use asphalt, it won't kick up dust, or concrete won't kick up dust--or not as much--but you might kick up a little more dust if you do what they call ``squirt top,'' which is what most farm roads are, which is tar with gravel spread on it. Until that gravel sets, it kicks up dust.

So even if you went to the expense to build a farm road that was a paved farm road, your paving method might kick up enough dust to get them to fine you and take money out of your pocket anyway. And the EPA now wants to regulate dust. California does this already. I asked one of my California colleagues, How do you keep from getting fined in California while having the dust regulations? Here's what they said: Water down your roads every day so it doesn't have dust. Mud is okay. Dust is bad.

Okay. Now that may be great for California. I don't know what the water situation is in California. But it hasn't rained in Texas. Some kids are about to go off to school and haven't seen rain in Texas, it hasn't rained so long. But seriously, I landed at the airport and looked out at this waterfall up here on the east coast, and said, Holy cow, we don't know what that looks like back home. Why don't they move all this water on the east coast down to Texas, where it hasn't rained, to my knowledge, in 6 months. And half of my neighboring county of Bastrop is burning to the ground because it's so dry and so hot, and we haven't had a rain in so long. We may be the only State in America that's praying that a hurricane will hit our coast so we can get some rain.

Are you going to tell that farmer that the only way he's getting that water that he's feeding his animals is through shallow wells that may have gone dry on him, or deep wells he has to drill to get to additional water under the ground, or windmills that are pumping that water, if you are out West, which are not that deep, and a lot of them have gone dry--his precious water that his livestock and his family needs to survive, he's got to take it out and squirt it on his road so he can get home at night?

Now, does that make economic sense to the American people? I don't think so. But then if you sit in the big EPA building in Washington, D.C., and have never even seen one of these roads and probably never been outside this Beltway, it may make perfect sense to that person in this paved world that we live in inside the Beltway. But it doesn't make sense to the average person that's trying to make a living all across the rural parts of the United States. And not just rural, but all across the United States where, unfortunately, we kick up dust. By the way, plowing kicks up dust. So then you can only plow when the fields are wet. Did you ever plow when the fields are wet? The only person who would sit in the EPA office and think that the farm products magically appear at their grocery store would know that you can't get off in a muddy field and plow effectively. Yes, you can turn up some moisture at the right time, and you can keep dust down, and farmers do. They don't want their top soil blowing away like it did in the Dust Bowl. They've learned their lesson about that, and they're doing the best they can, and I would commend them for doing it.

I went to school in Lubbock, Texas, back in the 1960s, at the end of what we call the Dust Storm era. And because of modern farming methods and so forth, they still have dust storms up there, but they're nothing like what they had in the fifties, nothing like what we had in the sixties, and I would argue that because of good modern farming methods, we keep the dust to a minimum. But we still sometimes have half the State of New Mexico blow through the panhandle of Texas.

Now, who are you going to fine? The State of New Mexico? The New Mexico farmers? The Texas farmers where it lands? Who's going to be responsible for all that dust that's out there in the air? Well, the EPA says somebody is, because they set regulations, and that would be a violation of these regulations. The biggest shortage of anything in this town is common sense. This is the most nonsensical rule of anything that's come down.

One of our new freshman Congressmen, Kristi Noem, is a smart lady. She knows rural America. She knows the ridiculousness of this set of EPA rules. She's come up with a farm dust bill which we will take up this winter to make EPA start using some common sense. The President was asked a question about this in one of his meetings here recently at a town hall. He sent this farmer on a bureaucratic wild goose chase and he never got anything in return. So as a result of that, that farmer, his efforts which--that wild goose chase produced nothing that was satisfactory--Representative Kristi Noem of South Dakota has H.R. 1633, which would protect American farmers and jobs by establishing a 1-year prohibition against revising any national ambient air quality standards applicable to coarse particulate matter--that's dust--and limiting Federal regulations of dust which are already regulated under State and local laws. In other words, let the States take care of it.

Let me tell you something. This is not one of those Texas brags. We had dust storms when I went to school where girls didn't wear dresses in the spring because it would pick up pea gravel the size of a dime with those 60-mile-an-hour winds coming across the plains and it would blow that gravel so hard against their bare legs, if they had on dresses it would literally cut them off if they tried to walk to class. Now that's an act of God. Nobody created that wind. And certainly pea gravel is about as big a particulate matter that would be flying around anywhere. But the Federal Government doesn't control the wind, and it never will. We've got to get some reasonableness back into what's going on.

Finally, because I've been talking about this now for over a year, and in my office we are tracking every regulatory agency, and every day we're seeing new and bizarre concepts of what we need to do from regulatory agencies--we're seeing bugs shut down major highway projects. When the President laughed and he said he learned that shovel-ready jobs are not really shovel-ready jobs, he should have gone on to tell you why many of those shovel-ready jobs weren't shovel ready, and it was because of regulations created by the regulatory agencies that stopped legitimate road and bridge projects that were funded. I have one in my district right now that is funded and the dozers are on the ground, ready to move, and that project is shut down by one of these many, many regulations. It's the same across the country.

We can't do today what FDR did. It's great to talk about what FDR did. I don't think it accomplished a whole lot in getting us out of the Depression, but that's my opinion. But the facts are you couldn't build a Hoover Dam today. Just up and go out there and start building a Hoover Dam. My Lord, just to build an electric power plant,

the number of regulatory agencies and permits that you would have to have would cover the walls of this Chamber before you even get to break ground. I've seen those rules put on walls. It's an amazing number of rules. We are a world of government control of everything. That's what these regulatory acts are about.

Finally, this Congressman, John Carter, because of looking at this stuff now just for the last year or so, I really and truly think the best thing we can do to give the stability to the employers who employ people is to basically ban the implementation of any new Federal regulations from now through January 31, 2013, guarantee a 2-year window for businesses to hire without any fear of new costs from regulations, and certain exceptions would be allowed for the military or foreign affairs or internal agency management and personnel rules. So they'd still be able to have regulations that fit in those categories and make sure that we keep our foreign operations and our military operating. They have to make rules to operate under. We would exempt those particular things. But the rest of them, we would say: Timeout. Continue your studies. Continue your discussions. I would encourage you to extend an arm out to business to say, This is what we're looking at. Let's hear what you think.

Let's start putting ourselves together with the idea that people are part of this environment, too.

People are really what makes up this country. Without people, we're just a barren land. People, to live, need to have a job, and the people who create jobs need to have a reason for hiring people and giving them a job. People who have ideas--the great driving force of America, the new idea. We just have so many examples of new ideas just in the high- tech industry and the communications industry, the revolution that has taken place just in the last 10 years of new ideas. Those new ideas come from the freedom to think and the belief that you can take that idea and put it into reality without somebody stepping on your toes and preventing you from doing it.

These regulations and this control from Washington, D.C., this cradle-to-grave mentality that seems to be running inside this beltway and the creation of these regulatory rules is putting the brakes on our economy and putting fear in the hearts of American entrepreneurs and businesspeople and employers who want to make their business better by hiring those good people that we're graduating from our colleges and universities, those good people that are trained in trained skills that we need to put to work in America, and we'll put them to work in real jobs, not government-created jobs with borrowed money but real jobs that produce something and create wealth and make us and continue to keep us the most prosperous Nation on Earth.

It doesn't come from government; it comes from the people. The people are the wealth of this Nation--their ideas, their entrepreneurship, the investment of their own personal capital, and their willingness to take a risk on America because they know America is great. And to people who don't think we're great or think that they're smarter and can be inside this beltway and make rules that can do a better job of telling you how to run your life or how to drive home on your farm road than you know, I say, Get out of the way.

That's what this fall is going to be about. We're going to be bringing these things up. And these are things that are going to be discussed and talked about and voted on this fall because we Republicans believe that the right path to create jobs and create wealth in America is to get the regulators to start thinking in terms of creating jobs, not destroying jobs; enhancing businesses, not negating businesses; and to put America back to work.

And if we put America back to work, all the rest gets better: the debt goes down; the tax revenues go up; the country has more to pay back the people we owe, which ought to be our first priority. We can get our financial house back in order. We can get our credit rating back that was taken away from us, and we can start operating like America has always operated. The business of this country is business; and as much as that was criticized back in the twenties, that statement is true today just like it was then. It's the American people that give the American people jobs, not the government.

Let's put the brakes on these regulatory things. We're going to do that this fall. I look forward to it. Pay attention to it. Members of this House and anyone around the country who has an interest, pay attention to it. Give us your input because we are bound and determined to level out and stabilize that playing field that business creates jobs on so that we can put America back to work.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Virginia, the majority leader, for the purpose of inquiring about the schedule for the week to come.

I thank the gentleman for his information.

If I can clarify, and I understand that we are coming up to the end of the year. There is a lot of business which needs to be done in the time remaining, and so I understand his urging to be flexible.

My Members have asked me, I'm sure Your members have as well, Friday the 9th is scheduled on the calendar to be a nonwork day, as a matter of fact, the 8th was the target date. Either side very rarely meets its target. But in your flexibility--clearly we've told our Members the following week, the week of the 12th, that undoubtedly we're going to be here. But can you give them some sort of confidence level with respect to the 9th, or is that not possible?

I yield to my friend.

Reclaiming my time, thank you for that.

Let me posit a possibility here. Thursday at 3 o'clock we clearly, I don't believe, aren't going to finish the business that we need to finish before we leave. Therefore, my presumption is we will be back in the following week. Therefore, Friday would not be the last day and therefore we could do whatever we have to do on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and we should plan on a five-day week at least for the following week.

Is that correct?

Further on the schedule, just so our Members have pretty clear information, the week of the 19th, which is the following week, can you give me some thought on what you are advising your Members with respect to the week of the 19th?

I yield to my friend.

I want to tell my friend that there is overwhelming bipartisan unanimity on the gentleman's hope; but for the purposes of my Members, I will say that I would hope our Members would take the flexibility beyond the week ending on the 16th and make sure, at least on the 19th and 20th and 21st, that they're flexible as well. I think none of us want to be meeting that week, but we have a lot of work to do, as the gentleman knows.

The gentleman has announced that we may go to conference next week on the MilCon bill that was passed by the House and the Senate. It is the only bill that, I think, is in that status.

Do you anticipate other bills being added in that conference? Of course, we all know there are nine appropriations bills which still remain unpassed, a number of which have not passed the Senate and some of which have not passed the House, itself.

Will the gentleman clarify the situation that may result or may be effective as it relates to such a conference with respect to the other appropriations bills.

That doesn't clarify it very much, but I understand the gentleman's problem with respect to what is being done. Let me ask the gentleman:

If we can't get agreement, in light of the gentleman's focus on the 16th as the date of adjournment, is the gentleman saying that we might consider a CR for some period of time, either a balance-of-the-year continuing resolution or a continuing resolution for some other time?

I thank the gentleman for that information.

I am pleased to hear that he is going to be sticking with the level of funding that we agreed upon. I think the gentleman's observation is correct: there are many people on my side who believe that is lower than is necessary to meet the responsibilities they would like to see met, and on your side it's too much in terms of the fiscal situation that confronts us; but I am pleased to hear that we're going to be consistent with the 1.043 discretionary number that was set forth in the Budget Control Act.

My friend knows that, in the Budget Control Act, we also provided for some headroom for emergency spending as a result of disasters. The gentleman well knows our region in the Northeast was hit very hard by a hurricane. We've had an earthquake. We've had tornadoes and other natural disasters. That gave $11 billion of headroom.

Will we continue to honor that part of the agreement as well?

I thank the gentleman for that.

I was profoundly disappointed that the so-called supercommittee, or the special committee on deficit reduction, either was unable to reach an agreement on at least a $4 trillion agreement to reduce our deficit or, as I had urged individually, to extend its life for a period of time, 60 to 90 days, which would have allowed us further opportunity to reach such a deal.

I think that it is absolutely essential for our country. I think it would be an extraordinary plus for our economy if we were to reach such an agreement. I think it would raise the confidence of the American people and raise the confidence of the international community and, not inconsequentially, that of the rating agencies as well. We didn't reach an agreement. We didn't extend the life of that commission. I would like to see us set up another process which would give us accelerated consideration of such an agreement.

Having said that, we built into the Budget Control Act a disciplinary consequence of that failure, which was the sequester--a $1.2 trillion across-the-board cut, divided equally between defense and non-defense discretionary spending. The Speaker had said that we are morally bound to accept the defense cuts if the supercommittee failed.

I wonder if you support the Speaker in that commitment.

I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I appreciate Mr. Panetta's quote. I believe Mr. Panetta's quote is an accurate quote and, I believe, substantively correct.

Let me give the gentleman another quote from the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen. I know the gentleman knows Admiral Mullen, who served so ably as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He said, ``The most significant threat to our national security is our debt.''

He went on to say, ``And the reason I say that is because the ability for our country to resource our military--and I have a pretty good feeling and understanding about what our national security requirements are--is going to be directly proportional--over time, not next year or the year after, but over time--to help our economy.''

So I would agree with the gentleman that we need to reach a bipartisan agreement. I would hope the gentleman would share my view that we need to reach a bipartisan agreement on a big deal. A little deal, as the Speaker and I have discussed, will simply push off until next year a decision and the year after in just doing it incrementally. That will not give confidence to the markets. It will not give confidence to the business community. It will not help our economy either domestically or internationally.

So my concern, I tell my friend, is if we now walk away from the sequester, as we have walked away from too many agreements in the past, we will again remove the discipline, remove the incentive, remove the imperative, as the gentleman points out, for coming to a bipartisan agreement, which is Bowles-Simpson, Rivlin-Domenici, the Gang of Six.

As the 100, the 40 Republicans and 60 Democrats, as the 46 equally divided between Republicans and Democrats have said, we need to reach a balanced deal: a deal which will restrain and cut spending, a deal that will deal with entitlement sustainability over time, and a deal that will provide a revenue stream that will allow us to fund what we believe to be absolutely essential, of which, as the gentleman points out, and he and I agree, national security is one.

So I would hope that we would not walk away from that disciplinary incentive to, in fact, have Republicans and Democrats come to an agreement.

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for his comments.

I think that both sides have shown some flexibility in some respects. Certainly a number of Republicans and Democrats showed flexibility on the Bowles-Simpson Commission.

Now, none of the House Members on the Republican side showed that flexibility, for reasons that I've heard them articulate. I understand they had reasons. But, unfortunately, we didn't get to the 14 votes in a bipartisan way on the Commission. As you know, I was not on the Commission, but I supported the Commission's report, would have voted for the Commission's report, as did Mr. Durbin, the majority whip in the Senate.

Let me say to the gentleman, with respect to small business, nobody wants to put taxes on small business. As a matter of fact, we want to reduce taxes for small business. We offered that on the floor in the United States Senate yesterday. Every Democrat but one voted for that yesterday. Unfortunately, it did not pass. Your side, as you know, offered an alternative, an alternative which didn't even enjoy the support of the majority of your party.

So we need to get to bipartisan support, but I wish the gentleman would, when we talk about trying to ask some of the wealthiest people in America to pay a little more--not a lot more, but a little more--to meet the obligations so our country is fiscally sound, would not keep putting forth this, what I believe to be, windmill of small business.

We are for small business. This tax cut would reduce substantially taxes on small business. Your party, the majority, voted against it in the United States Senate. It hasn't been brought to the floor.

We would hope that we would extend the tax cut for middle class working people and not restore that tax, and that that would affect both individuals and, as the gentleman knows, small business. So we have a tax cut that we're recommending. The President has gone all over the country and talked about it, but it hasn't been brought to the floor. We think that's regrettable. We would hope you would do that.

Furthermore, frankly, the millionaires' tax, the billionaires' tax is, as you know, a net taxable income level. It's not going to hurt small business at all. It's not going to hurt job creators at all. And, very frankly, I will tell my friend, we continue to follow an agenda which I don't think you can quote me an economist that will tell me that your regulatory bills that we've been spending time on, day after day, week after week--which I know sounds good to your people. We need regulatory reform. We need regulatory simplification. We need to make it in America. One of the ways we need to do so is make it profitable to make it in America. I agree with that 100 percent. But I don't have any economist who has told me that that's going to create jobs. As a matter of fact, Bruce Bartlett, an economist for the Reagan administration and Bush administration, said specifically it will have little, if any, effect.

Do you have an economist who said that that's going to grow jobs?

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for his comment. I take from his comment, however, that he doesn't have an economist who has said that these bills are going to grow jobs. I agree with him that economists certainly believe that over the long term certainty is a good thing. We all agree on that. I hope all of us agree on that, and I would like to accomplish that. That's one of the reasons I'm for a big deal.

But let me give you a quote from Ben Bernanke as it relates to your saying we want to raise taxes. Nobody wants to raise taxes. I will tell my friends, I've been in office now for a long period of time, some 40- plus years. It takes zero courage, zero courage, to spend money and not pay for it. We believe we ought to pay for things. That's the difference.

Taxes are the money we collect to pay for things: taxes that we collect to pay for our national security, taxes we collect to pay for researchers at NIH, taxes we pay for FBI agents to protect us from terrorists, both domestic and foreign. Those are what our taxes are. Taxes are to help our kids get a college education so we can be competitive in the international community. It's paying for things that we're for.

And I will tell my friend, I'm glad to see you come to the point where we're going to pay for things because very frankly, as the gentleman knows, we're collecting revenues at a far lesser rate than your budget asked to spend, than

your budget, the Ryan budget, which, as you well know, did not balance the budget within the next 20 years and was all on the cut side, and the gentleman well knows was not a viable document. It did pass the House of Representatives; it did. I'm not sure it would have passed the Senate even if the Republicans had been in control of the Senate.

But notwithstanding that, let me give you a quote from Ben Bernanke because I agree with you--and you and I have talked about this privately, and we're now talking about it publicly. We ought to come together. We ought to sit down. We ought to reason together. We ought to be courageous together. We ought to have the will to address the extraordinarily dangerous fiscal crisis that confronts us.

Ben Bernanke said this: We aim to push our elected leaders to face the Nation's long-term fiscal challenges with civility, honesty, and a willingness to sacrifice their own reelection. This means not kicking the can anymore. That's why, if we abandon the sequester, that will be kicking the can. If we abandon trying to get a big deal, that will be kicking the can. This means--as he said--means reaching a deal on debt, revenue, and spending long before the deadline arrives this fall. Well, it came and it went and we failed. It means considering all options from entitlement programs, and the gentleman knows I've given a number of speeches on having to deal with the entitlement programs. We need to do that, but we also need to deal with taxes and revenues so we pay for what we buy, and we ought to tell the American people we can't buy that if you don't want to pay for it.

Now, very frankly, I think in the short term, given the economic crisis, lack of jobs, and the struggling economy, raising additional revenues in that timeframe, as Bowles-Simpson and Domenici-Rivlin both said, is not good policy, and they would not propose that, and it has not been proposed, as the gentleman knows. But I would tell my friend that paying for things--and as the gentleman knows, one of the reasons we've gotten into this problem was we didn't pay for things in the last decade. We have bought a lot of stuff, and we didn't pay for it. We asked our children to pay for it because it's a delayed effect.

We didn't pay for the wars, and we didn't pay for the prescription bill, and we didn't pay for the tax cuts. Simply giving up revenue, voting for tax cuts, and continuing to buy things is, frankly, I think not only not courageous but it is a disservice to this generation and generations yet to come

And I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman for his comment, and I agree with it. Some progress is progress, however you describe it.

Let me clarify, because I want to make sure in terms of coming together and reaching some progress; you mentioned the--I'm not sure that every Republican agreed to it, maybe the gentleman knows, but there was--Mr. Toomey put a proposal on the table which offered $300 billion in additional revenues. Of course, that was offset by an $800 billion increase next year in tax cuts or a net reduction of $500 billion in revenues for next year, excuse me, for January 2013.

Let me ask the gentleman, in reaching that, the gentleman mentioned entitlements. I agreed with him on entitlements, but the gentleman then said he's not for any increased revenues. All three of the bipartisan commissions, the two commissions and the Gang of Six, all three have said that revenues must be part of that picture. That's taxes--a fancy word for taxes. Does the gentleman agree with that, because that certainly was the basis for bipartisanship in all of three of those fora?

I yield to my friend.

I thank the gentleman. I didn't get an answer to my question, however. He's gotten an answer to his ``solve the problem'' issue. And what he means by solving the problem is we have to deal with the sustainability of entitlement programs. I've adopted that premise myself in speeches that I've given on numerous occasions on this floor and in other fora around the country.

What I'm asking him is, does he also agree--that proposition was adopted by all three of the fora that we have discussed--does he also agree, as Mr. Bernanke points out, that revenues, or taxes, however you want to call it, resources to pay for what we believe are priorities-- for instance, the gentleman correctly believes we need to invest in our national security. I feel very strongly about that.

For 30 years I have voted on behalf of the national security of this Nation--to pay for it and to pursue weapons systems, personnel levels, strategies to assure our national security. So I have no qualms with saying that is a priority. If it is a priority, if it is important, it is important to pay for it. Paying for it is through revenues. If we don't pay for it, if we borrow--we're going to borrow over a trillion dollars to protect our country in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places around the

world, but particularly those two. That's important. That's important to do. He and I agree. But I think it's important to pay for it and not have my children and grandchildren pay for it, who are going to have to pay for their security in their time. And if we leave them only a legacy of deep debt, they will not be able to do so. That is an immoral policy, in my opinion, as well as a fiscally irresponsible policy.

So I ask my friend, I understand we've got to fix the problem. What you're talking about is make sustainable demographics of change, costs of change. We have to make sustainable entitlements. But does the gentleman agree that a component of the solution has to be dealing with revenues as well?

I thank the gentleman for his comments.

We ought to come together on jobs. I would urge the gentleman to bring the President's jobs bill to the floor with such amendments, such changes, such improvements, such deletions as the gentleman feels necessary.

The President put out a jobs bill which every economist has said will grow the economy, will grow jobs; and it has been languishing in this House since September while people are losing jobs.

Now, the good news is we had some improvement in the economy. By the way, the Recovery Act worked, as the gentleman knows. I want to comment on his going into deficits as a result of the Recovery Act. As the gentleman knows--and he voted for--George Bush suggested $700 billion in unpaid spending to staunch the financial crisis brought on by the meltdown on Wall Street in September of 2008, when President Bush was President. He offered a bill. He didn't offer to pay for that. And we didn't pay for it.

You and I both voted for it because we thought it was the responsible thing to do to stabilize the financial structure of this country. I believed we were absolutely right at that point in time. It was a very unpopular bill but, nevertheless, I think absolutely essential.

So in terms of some 5 months later, confronted with the deepest economic crisis since Herbert Hoover, we acted. We acted with the Recovery Act. And the Recovery Act has worked. It was not as big as some asked it to be, but it created some 2 million jobs over the last 36 months. It has not been as robust because we lost 8 million jobs. So if you add 3 million back, you lose 8 million, you haven't gotten to where you need to be.

But I tell my friend that we ought to come together. We ought to reach agreement. We ought to reach a balanced agreement. Your side thinks when we talk about balance, we're talking about revenues. He's right. But when we talk about balance, we're also talking about fixing the problem the gentleman talks about. We're talking about a balanced deal.

I would urge my friend in these coming few days that we have left, where we're apparently going to do either a CR or an omnibus appropriation bill--and we were criticized greatly for not doing every appropriation bill individually. You have an appropriation bill, as the gentleman knows, that hasn't even passed subcommittee much less full committee or the floor of the House. But we need to get those bills done because it will give certainty and confidence to the American people that we can work together. I'm hopeful that over the next few days that we can, in fact, do that.

I would urge my friend to let us keep the discipline of the sequester in everybody's mind because we don't want that alternative. But we want to have that as the alternative to people so that we can give incentives to work together to summon the courage, to summon the judgment to reach an agreement which will get our country on the right track and give our citizens the confidence in their government that we wish they would have.

But they will only have it if we do, as the gentleman suggests, come together and work constructively toward a balanced package not only in terms of a fiscal package, but appropriations.

Let me say as well on appropriations, this side of the aisle did what your side of the aisle didn't do over the last 4 years when we were in charge. We made sure those bills passed. Your bills had your levels that we agreed on. And we congratulate you on sticking with the agreement we reached. I will tell my friend we will do so again if you do not put in the riders that Mr. Boehner and your Pledge to America said ought not to be in must-pass bills.

You will recall, I'm sure, that Mr. Boehner said we ought not to have extraneous controversial items which are not germane in bills that must pass. We ought to consider those on their merits. And I will tell my friend that if you do that, as the whip, as I have done on the two CRs we passed, on the debt limit extension we passed, and on the omnibus, or the ``minibus'' that we just passed, I will help you get those through. We will work together, and America will have greater confidence in us if we do that.

I yield to my friend.

I will assure the majority leader that we will maintain our flexibility on schedule.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

I rise today to support my amendment. I call my amendment ``Can We All Get Along?'' It is an amendment simply to ask that all of those who are impacted by this proposed legislation have an expanded time to be able to present their views.

It is a ``can we all get along?''-type amendment because it is important to note again that those of us who come from different States, whether it's Illinois or Texas, recognize that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air Act were formulated under a bipartisan Congress and were signed, as my colleague reminded us, by President Richard Nixon. Republicans and Democrats voted for the Clean Air Act and for the Environmental Protection Agency's jurisdiction.

It's important to note that there is not only a value in what the EPA does but that there are organizations, such as the American Lung Association, the American Thoracic Society, the Physicians for Social Responsibility, the American Public Health Association, and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, which need their input and are concerned about this legislation.

So my concern as we move forward on the transparency and regulatory analysis of impact is how much time has been given for the public comment. My State, in fact, has been impacted for the lack thereof of public comment. I believe that there are civilians who are not businesses who should be protected and given the opportunity to have input.

For example, it's important to note that the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule, which I don't think my colleagues can in any way dissuade me from believing, has been the basis of preventing 17,000 premature deaths, 11,000 heart attacks, 120,000 cases of aggravated asthma, 12,000 hospital and emergency room visits, 11,000 cases of bronchitis, and 850,000 missed days.

The idea of putting a superlayer over the already existing regulatory

scheme, to me, sounds like we are adhering to the supercommittee concept, which many of us, by way of absolute necessity, voted on during the debt ceiling debate; but we realize that the responsibility of the purse strings is in the United States House of Representatives. Well, the law has given authority to the EPA and to the Clean Air Act as its authorizing aspect to be able to control and balance.

I believe we should create jobs; but the question becomes whether or not the TRAIN Act, in the format of adding another layer of review, actually does that--or does it create another level of bureaucracy that we neither want nor need? At a time when these regulations will both decrease health costs and can create thousands of jobs, why would my colleagues propose a bill that would only slow job growth?

It has been 260 days. I think we should, as I started out, get along, try to create jobs, recognize the value of the EPA, find a way to be able to resolve the present conflict on the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule but not eliminate the authority and the oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency.

What I would say to my colleagues is that the EPA has protected all of our constituents. Therefore, I think it's important to pass this amendment because it's about constituents. It's about constituents no matter what side of the aisle they're on. This is an amendment that moves the public comment from 90 days to 120 days. There may have been some who wanted to comment who cannot comment because they did not have the amount of time.

So I would ask my colleagues to support this ``can we all get along?'' amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Let me indicate to the gentleman first of all that I thank him for accepting the amendment, and I conclude my remarks by saying that my asking for a roll call vote is not in any way a reflection of my lack of acceptance, but I am just so gratified for this timeframe that I hope that the gentleman will encourage those to support the amendment.

Therefore, let me say to the gentleman--I finish on this note--there is some thought that we are putting in another regulatory scheme, but I think the important point from my perspective is that there was value when Richard Nixon signed the bill on how do we find a way to make this work so that we save lives and we create jobs.

I think my amendment provides the opportunity for that kind of input, and I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of my amendment #4 to H.R. 2401, ``The Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act,'' which extends the public comment period from 90 days to 120 days.

The Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation (TRAIN) Act establishes a committee to conduct studies and review the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations based upon the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard Rule (MATS) and the Cross State Air Pollution (CSAP) Rule promulgated. This committee is composed of Administration officials from different federal agencies and under H.R. 2401 will analyze the effect of the regulations on the economy, U.S. competitiveness in the global market, employment, and energy production and cost. In effect this is creating more regulations and more bureaucracy at time when Republicans are calling for all of us to tighten our belts. So now before us is a Super Committee for the Budget and again we are going to have a Super Committee for Clean Air. We already have an agency charged with protecting our air. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been up to the task for 40 years. According to the EPA, the pollution reductions required by the rule they have proposed will yield health benefits of $120 to $280 billion per year, which is 150 to 350 times the cost. I have always been a stalwart for a firm balance between the needs of the energy industry and our environment. But then there is just plain common sense. The TRAIN Act goes overboard. It is a extreme response that does not add value to ensuring Clean Air.

The argument proposed by some of my colleagues has been that this will cost jobs. Implementing regulations will create jobs. Old power plants and other utilities will have to hire workers in order to fulfill the requirements of the regulation. The EPA has determined that this will not be overly burdensome to the industry. We as a body must ensure that the regulations issued by the EPA will not destroy any industry but at the same token TRAIN is too extreme. It creates the very bureaucracy that we neither need nor want. At a time when these regulations will both decrease health costs and can create thousands of jobs, why would my colleagues propose a bill that will only slow job growth. It has been 260 days and the Republicans, who have been in the majority, have not presented a clear and consistent job growth package. Instead time and time again they have put forth measures to cut Medicare and social security at a time when so many of our constituents are dependent upon those resources to cover health costs and living expenses.

The TRAIN Act, which I could easily consider a bill like a steam train and it steams right through the power of the EPA to regulate clean air, requires that the committee publicly publish its initial findings and then provide the public with 90 days to comment. If this flawed bill is going to pass at least my amendment is an attempt to take into account the number of interested parties who may wish to give their input and extends the public comment period from 90 days to 120 days. I have offered this amendment to ensure that everyone who wishes to comment will have ample opportunity to do so.

My home state of Texas was not initially included in the Cross State Air Pollution Rule. When my state was added, there was no time provided for public input, a courtesy that was extended to the other 6 states included in the Cross State Air Pollution Rule. Stakeholders throughout Texas were afforded no opportunity to discuss the impact of including Texas at the last minute. Had there been opportunity for public comment, the EPA and stakeholders would have been able to work together towards a consensus.

The proposed regulations have different impacts on different stakeholders, and it is extremely important that everyone's point of view is considered. An open dialogue that encourages frank and productive communication can foster compromise.

As the Representative for Houston, the country's energy capital, I am committed to creating an environment in which the energy industry and regulating agencies can work together.

For more than 40 years the EPA has been charged with protecting our environment. There has been a consistent theme of chipping away at the ability of the EPA to protect our air. We have to consider the long term costs to public health if we fail to establish reasonable measures for clean air.

Outdoor air pollution is caused by small particles and ground level ozone that comes from car exhaust, smoke, road dust and factory emissions. Outdoor air quality is also affected by pollen from plants, crops and weeds. Particle pollution can be high any time of year and are higher near busy roads and where people burn wood.

When we inhale outdoor pollutants and pollen this can aggravate our lungs, and can lead us to developing the following conditions; chest pain, coughing, digestive problems, dizziness, fever, lethargy, sneezing, shortness of breath, throat irritation and watery eyes. Outdoor air pollution and pollen may also worsen chronic respiratory diseases, such as asthma. There are serious costs to our long term health. The EPA has promulgated rules and the public should be allowed to weigh in to determine if these rules are effective.

The purpose of having so many checks and balances within the EPA is to ensure that the needs of industries and the needs of our communities are addressed. Providing a time for individuals to support or oppose any regulations is a meaningful first step. This bill is a step in the wrong direction.

The EPA has spent years reviewing these standards before attempting to issue regulations. In terms of the Mercury and Air Toxics

Standard (MATS) Rule the new standard will significantly reduce mercury and toxic air pollution from power plants and electric utilities. The EPA estimates that for every year this rule is not implemented, mercury and toxic air pollution will have a serious impact on public health. Think for a moment about the lives that can be saved. We are talking about thousands of health complications and deaths. What more do we need to know. According to the EPA this rule would prevent the following: 17,000 premature deaths; 11,000 heart attacks; 120,000 cases of aggravated asthma; 12,000 hospital and emergency room visits; 11,000 cases of bronchitis; and 850,000 missed work days.

The second rule that is targeted by this bill is the Cross State Air Pollution (CSAP) Rule. As a Representative from the State of Texas, I have a few reservations about the rules implementation in my home state; however, the rule can be more fairly implemented.

This rule will significantly cut sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions released into the atmosphere. The regulation impacts 27 states where power plant emissions cause poor air quality that affects neighboring states. It is important to know that the EPA designed this rule again by keeping the lives of our families, our children, our communities and the environment in mind. According to the EPA this rule when implemented will prevent up to 34,000 premature deaths, 15,000 heart attacks, and 400,000 cases of aggravated asthmas.

Sometimes we can get caught up in the numbers and forget the people behind each. If these rules are allowed to be implemented there are 51,000 more people who will be able to spend another day, week, month or year with their families. These are our friends and family members who with the implantation of these rules can enjoy another cup of coffee.

The prolonged or indefinite delay of these life saving regulations threaten the very air that Americans, our constituents, breathe. I cannot speak for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but I certainly do not want to repeal regulations that protect the 18th Congressional District's access to clean air.

The analysis required by this legislation is focused solely on the impact of EPA regulations on economic competitiveness, fuel prices, and employment without taking into consideration the public health benefits of the regulations. The Mercury and Air Toxics Standard Rule will significantly reduce mercury and toxic air pollution from power plants and electric utilities.

The Cross State Air Pollution Rule will significantly cut sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions released into the atmosphere. The regulation impacts 27 states where power plant emissions cause poor air quality that affects neighboring states.

My amendment will not affect the intent of the bill; it merely ensures that should this ill conceived measure pass that there is plenty of time given for our constituents who live in states affected by mercury and toxic pollution and cross state air pollution to weigh in on the public health aspects of these regulations.

I have offered this amendment not only to benefit those who live in states that would be affected by these regulations, but also to ensure that the industry being regulated has ample time to provide their input. Throughout my tenure in Congress, I have worked tirelessly to foster better relationship between the energy industry and regulating agencies. With an open dialogue and productive communication, we can forge compromise that will protect the environment without harming economic growth, and the intent behind this amendment is to do just that.

As the Representative of the 18th Congressional District of Houston, Texas, I can attest to the importance of a healthy energy industry. My district is the energy hub of Texas and is recognized worldwide for its energy industry, particularly for oil and natural gas, as well as biomedical research and aeronautics. Renewable energy sources--wind and solar--are also growing economic bases in Houston.

I understand the economic impacts of regulation, but we must also act responsibly. We cannot ignore the public health risks associated with breathing polluted air, nor can we pretend that these emissions do not exacerbate global warming. Alternatively, we certainly do not want to hinder job creation and economic growth.

Lest we forget that since 1999, Houston has exchanged titles with Los Angeles for the poorest air quality in the Nation. The poor air quality is attributed to the amount of aerosols, particles of carbon and sulfates in the air. The carcinogens found in the air have been known to cause cancer, particularly in children. The EPA is the very agency charged with issuing regulations that would address this serious problem. This bill may very well jeopardize the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, our public lands, and our public health by deep funding cuts in priority initiatives.

The least that can be done is to extend the opportunity for the committee formed by this bill to hear the concerns of the public. I am sure this will certainly go a long way to encourage robust discussion on health, job creation and economic improvements without putting the environment or the American people at risk.

I encourage my colleagues to support the Jackson Lee amendment in order to strike a balance between the EPA and the energy industry, forge compromise that will protect the environment without harming economic growth by extending the public comment period from 90 to 120 days. My amendment does not change the intent of the bill, it creates the opportunity for communication and consensus.

September 21, 2011.

Dear Representative: On behalf of the undersigned public

health and medical organizations, we write to state our

strong opposition to any efforts under consideration by the

U.S. House of Representatives that hinder the Environmental

Protection Agency's (EPA's) ability to protect health through

the implementation the Clean Air Act.

Majority Leader Eric Cantor's August 29, 2011 memo to House

Republicans specifically called for passage of bills

including H.R. 2401, which would indefinitely delay the EPA's

proposal to reduce mercury and other toxics from power plants

and would block implementation of the Cross-State Air

Pollution Rule, a finalized rule that is expected to prevent

the premature deaths of thousands of Americans each year and

to make it easier for states downwind of pollution sources to

achieve healthful air for their residents. The memo also

signals plans with H.R. 2250 and H.R. 2861, which would delay

EPA efforts to reduce mercury and other toxics from

industrial facilities and cement plants. Further, it signals

plans to thwart EPA's ability to propose a health standard

for particulate matter, calling for passage of HR 1633, a

bill that would block the completion of the review of the

health effects associated with deadly soot or particulate

matter and prevent EPA from even proposing a standard and

receiving public comment on that standard.

We urge you to oppose this plan and ask that you, instead,

support protecting public health. This Rep. Cantor-led effort

would impact EPA's ability to implement the Clean Air Act: a

law that protects public health and reduces health care costs

for all by preventing thousands of adverse health outcomes,

including: cancer, asthma attacks, strokes, emergency

department visits, hospitalizations and premature deaths. A

rigorous, peer reviewed analysis, The Benefits and Costs of

the Clean Air Act from 1990 to 2020, conducted by EPA, found

that the air quality improvements under the Clean Air Act

will save $2 trillion by 2020 and prevent at least 230,000

deaths annually.

Additionally, the public supports EPA's efforts to

implement and update the Clean Air Act. A recent bipartisan

survey, which was conducted for the American Lung Association

by the Republican firm Moore Information and Democratic

polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research indicate that

those pushing riders or otherwise interfering with EPA are

out of touch with voters. The survey shows that over seventy

percent of voters do not want Congress to stop the EPA from

setting stricter pollution limits and sixty-six percent of

voters would prefer that EPA set pollution standards, not

Congress.

We believe that in an ironic twist, the Majority Leader's

memo lays out an agenda that will expose the public to levels

of air pollution that can make them sick or kill them. This

agenda will certainly drive up health costs for all as people

continued to be exposed to life-threatening air pollution. We

ask you to support full implementation of the Clean Air Act

and oppose all efforts to weaken, delay or block progress

toward the continued implementation of this vital law.

Sincerely,

American Lung Association.

American Thoracic Society.

Physicians for Social Responsibility.

American Public Health Association.

Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman from Maryland, the Democratic whip, for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday the House will meet at noon for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. However, no votes are expected in the House.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning hour and noon for legislative business.

On Thursday the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. We currently expect last votes for the week no later than 3 p.m. on Thursday, but Members are advised to keep their plans flexible as we continue to work towards adjourning for the first session.

Similarly, Members were informed yesterday that we now expect to be in session and voting the week of December 12. The exact voting schedule is not known and will depend on the progress of our legislative business.

Next week the House will consider a number of bills under suspension of the rules on Monday and Tuesday. A complete list of these bills will be announced by the close of business today.

For the remainder of the week, the House will consider two bills which are part of the House Republican jobs agenda: H.R. 10, the REINS Act, sponsored by Representative Geoff Davis of Kentucky; and H.R. 1633, the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act, sponsored by Representatives Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Robert Hurt of Virginia.

In addition, we may be able to go to conference on a couple of year- end items, and we may consider legislation related to expiring provisions of existing law.

Mr. Speaker, as I've said earlier, it is our intention to finish legislative business for the week next Thursday at 3 p.m. and again to remain flexible while we monitor the progress of all of the discussions going on with the gentleman's side of the aisle, both in this Chamber and the one across the way.

Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman again the request is for Members to leave their schedules flexible. As I indicated we do expect to be in session the week of December 12 but the exact voting schedule is unknown at this time and will depend upon the discussions surrounding the issues that we need to address prior to the Christmas holiday.

Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman I join with the Speaker in saying that we want to be out of here by the 16th, and it will all depend on whether we get the work done. It is not our desire to be here the week running up to Christmas. And I would say to the gentleman that it is my hope that we can finish our business by the end of the week of the 12th.

The gentleman is asking about the shape or form of an appropriations package and what it is we'll be voting on. As the gentleman knows, the committee on both sides of the aisle is engaging in discussions to try and finish up our work, and I look forward to that happening, again, within the time frame in which both of us would like to see it happen.

Our hope is, again, to be able to avoid that so that we can have a full appropriations package to dictate the priorities that we can agree upon for spending in the rest of the year.

Again, as the gentleman knows, we are operating within the context of the Budget Control Act, the agreement that was put into law at the end of the debt ceiling discussions at the beginning of August of this year. The amount of spending reductions is not enough for many of us on our side of the aisle and perhaps may not be enough or too much on his side of the aisle; but we are operating under the

deal that was agreed upon, and the hope is to try and finalize all bills; and we're working towards that end at this point.

I thank the gentleman for the question.

As I said earlier to the gentleman, our intention is to operate and abide by the terms of the Budget Control Act.

I'd say to the gentleman that I don't know the quote from which the gentleman pulls as to the Speaker's statement. I know that I share with the Speaker a commitment towards fiscal discipline and that there will be the requisite cuts to go along with the increase in the debt ceiling that will occur by law at the end of this year.

It is my hope that we can act in a bipartisan way to find a way to implement cuts that can replace the across-the-board cuts that will do what, I believe, is irreparable damage to the Defense Department and our ability to defend this country.

If I could, Mr. Speaker, quote from Secretary Panetta, who said as recently as Monday, ``If Congress fails to act over the next year, the Department of Defense will face devastating, automatic, across-the- board cuts that will tear a seam in the Nation's defense.''

He went on to say, ``The half-trillion in additional cuts demanded by sequester would lead to a hollow force incapable of sustaining the missions it is assigned.'' Furthermore, ``the Pentagon's ability to provide benefits and support for U.S. troops and their families also would be jeopardized if the automatic cuts,'' as designed, ``are allowed to go into effect.''

Mr. Speaker, he ended his statement by saying, ``Our troops deserve better and our Nation demands better.''

I'd say to the gentleman that it is my hope that we can work in a bipartisan fashion to try and do that which eluded the supercommittee and the other efforts along the way this year to try and come up with the requisite cuts. Again, I hope that we could do so and make sure the cuts are there, not avoid the cuts, but also not allow them to eviscerate our ability to defend this country.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, no one is talking about walking away from fiscal discipline, and I share in the gentleman's desire to try and address the real problem here, which is Washington spending.

As the gentleman knows, the Republican majority in the House has the only plan on the table that actually is a big deal that fixes the problem. Unfortunately, there's just not an agreement on those very big issues.

As I've said and indicated earlier, there have been at least three attempts this year to chase the so-called big deal, and the problem is there's no agreement. There's no agreement on doing what's necessary to fix the real problem. And so if we've been there--and the President, himself, has said that there may be some issues that have to be disposed of or resolved in next year's election, but it doesn't mean we can't make some incremental progress.

I disagree with the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, that somehow if we make some progress, that that somehow takes away from our ability to solve big problems. We have already demonstrated around here the bar is pretty low when it comes to fixing big problems, and that's unfortunate, but it doesn't mean that we can't work incrementally together to address priorities.

I'm with the gentleman. I know that the response from the markets and otherwise are not going to be as positive if we don't fix the problem through a so-called big deal. But the point of contention is, one, the unwillingness to fix the real problem, because it's we in the majority that have put forward the only fix, long term, as CBO would say; and then the other point of contention

is we don't believe that now is the time to raise taxes on small business men and women.

And it's not the millionaires and billionaires; that's not the point. We don't believe that when you want to grow the economy, when you want to create jobs, that we should be putting a higher burden on the small business people of this country to create the jobs we want.

So if we know that there's that divide--we have already seen it play out for 8 or 9 months--let's try to work incrementally together in a bipartisan way, the way most people do that have differences, come together where you can set aside the differences.

Mr. Speaker, let me respond to some of the gentleman's questions, first about Bowles-Simpson.

I think maybe some of the position that was taken by the House Members on Bowles-Simpson reflects the fact that it didn't fix the real problem. Again, it didn't fix the entitlement problem we have in this country given the demographics, and so that's the real problem.

And so if you don't fix the real problem and you go raise taxes, which the Bowles-Simpson plan suggested and gave you options to do, it's like throwing good money after bad. And I think the American people are tired of it. We have to fix the problem, and that's what we want to do.

And as far as the sequester is concerned, I want to reiterate that we're not talking about, and I'm not suggesting, on not doing all the cuts, because we believe--and this is the change that we put in place here when we became the majority. We believe you shouldn't be raising the credit limit of the country without turning things around and stopping the spending.

So we're not talking about or not suggesting not doing all of the cuts. What I am saying is we need to work together to find the commensurate cuts that aren't those that disproportionately affect the defense of our country. And I think the gentleman agrees with me; a priority is the defense of our country.

That's why if we can't see our way clear to even finding $1.2 trillion through the Joint Select Committee process, then let's look to see how we come together in an incremental way. But I think the American people are looking for some progress here.

But I want to tell the gentleman, again, I don't believe that raising taxes is a good thing. And, again, the gentleman continues to talk about balanced deals, and that is a euphemism for saying raising taxes.

But, look. If we disagree on that, if the gentleman thinks it's good to raise taxes, then we have a disagreement. So let's, instead, focus on areas where we can actually find common ground, and the common ground should be, as the gentleman suggests, on small business.

Now, every economist there is will tell you that uncertainty, that added costs will provide an impediment to job creation. Now, I'm sure the gentleman has visited small business people in his district like I have in mine. And the kind of regulatory measures that we brought forward, whether it's regulations being proposed by the EPA, those being proposed by the NLRB, or any of the other measures, the ones that we passed on the floor today, these are measures to remove the uncertainty of added costs to our businesses, our small business men and women. Today's measures and this week's measures went to the fact that we need some common sense put back into the regulatory process.

We want to make sure that agencies take into consideration their actions and the consequences that those actions have on small businesses. We want to make sure that the agencies are going through a cost-benefit analysis that's a balanced and sensible approach. And yes, I think you will find agreement among economists, if you've got that kind of certainty, you will lend the process towards a better economy to create jobs, and I yield back

I thank the gentleman, and the gentleman asks what regulations did we put forward, bills removing impediments in the regulatory process. Well, I mean the Keystone Pipeline, look at that bill. That bill says we'll create 12,000 construction jobs right away if we can remove the necessary government redtape getting in the way of that project. So I don't see that there's any disagreement over that, but somehow we have your side saying that we shouldn't do that.

And if the gentleman is so interested in paying for things--because I don't believe that that's an issue now because we're not saying remove the sequester. What we're saying is finding cuts elsewhere but imposing that discipline. But if we're talking about not paying for things, what about the stimulus? My goodness, that was an 800-plus billion dollar effect at the end, didn't pay for anything, and it ended up imposing all kinds of debt now on us and our children and theirs.

And so I am with the gentleman: let's be courageous. Again, our budget was put out there. In the joint select committee process, our side proposed a plan to come together, and I think that the gentleman knows on his side there were comments made that there was never any coalescence on the part of the Democrats as to a way to come to some solution.

So I'm for the courage, but seemingly, after looking at the three processes that have taken place, the Biden talks, the White House talks, and those between the Speaker and the President and the leader on the other side of the Capitol, as well as now the joint select committee, all of those did not come to a result. So if that's the case, let's then say, well, wait a minute, maybe something's not working here. Then let's try and see what can work and what can't work. We really can come together in a bipartisan way and find some things that we agree on. Let's set aside those big differences, and the President even suggested back in the spring those big differences may get in the way. So, fine, let's find a way for us to at least make some progress because some progress is better than none. So incremental progress is better than no progress. That's for sure.

Again, I'd say to the gentleman, I think our side has demonstrated--we've put forward a number of plans, both in these processes that we're talking about and in the joint select committee, as well as with our budget. And I think we come from the perspective, Mr. Speaker, let's fix the problem. If you don't fix the problem and then you want to raise taxes, especially on small businesspeople, you are throwing good money after bad and you're aggravating the crisis that is gripping this country right here and now as well, which is the jobs crisis.

So, again, Mr. Speaker, I would say, let's agree to work towards common ground. We have laid out very well several times where differences are, but it's time for us to really work to transcend those differences and work in a bipartisan manner and see where we can come together. We've done it. We've done it in the House on the trade agreements. We've done it in the House on the 3 percent withholding bill. We've done it in the House when it comes to the veteran hiring bill. We can do this. Now, yes, it's not everything that all of us want, and I share the gentleman's frustration.

The gentleman has been here a lot longer than I have. But I will tell you I think the gentleman's career has been built on progress. So let's work towards progress again. That's all.

We've always said, certainly, there needs to be more revenue. But we need to be focused on how we can have a sustainable revenue flow, and that's from a growing economy.

The gentleman asked me before whether we have economists that will endorse our Republican jobs-creator agenda. And, yes, the Speaker, as he knows, has issued a letter with 132 economists listed on that letter. And I'm going to send it to the gentleman so he can be reminded yet again that, yes, there are plenty of economists who embrace the notion that if we take away the impediments that Washington has put in place, that we can see a growing economy and produce more revenues.

I would say to the gentleman about his assertion about fixing the problem, he's correct, we need more revenues. We believe we need more revenues. Let's first see if we can fix the problem, because just paying for things by raising taxes doesn't fix the problem.

We know the demographics of this country. We know 10,000 people every day turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare. We know that Medicare is supported by premiums and taxes paid in. And those revenues cover only a little over half the cost of the program. We know that means that every day times 10,000, you're 50 percent in the hole. You cannot tax your way out of that. You can't grow your way out of that. You've got to fix the problem.

Back to my original notion. We're the only ones that have put a real fix on the table to that problem. And so what the gentleman says is, No, no, no, we don't want to fix the problem; we just want to tax people more until sometime, somewhere we come up with a solution to fix the problem. That's like throwing good money after bad. And raising taxes on small business people is going to get in the way of getting more revenues into Washington because you're not going to spur the economy into a growth mode.

Again, Mr. Speaker, we have been over and over this for months. We know where our differences lie. Let's come together.

I would say Keystone pipeline: again, the gentleman has a lot of support on his side for the unions in this country. They want to see the Keystone pipeline built. Twelve thousand new jobs right away-- almost 13,000 construction jobs. We've got manufacturing jobs and spin- offs that will come from that. Why can't we come together on jobs?

So, again, we can do this. We really can. It's time for us to begin to work together towards a productive end. Let's get America back to work, get this economy growing again, and then maybe we can then tackle some of the bigger problems that have eluded us in this quest to try and accomplish it all that has failed this year.

I just want to thank the gentleman, and I look forward to working with him over the next 2 weeks.

I just want to clarify, no one is talking about removing the sequester, absolutely not. The gentleman knows where I stand on that. I'm talking about making sure that we come together to find the cuts commensurate with those aimed at the Defense Department, and in lieu of those cuts, putting others in place so we can maintain our priority of the national defense of this country.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 487 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying bill. House Resolution 487 provides for a structured rule for consideration of House Resolution 1633, the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act.

The rule makes 8 of the 11 amendments submitted to the Rules Committee in order, a majority of which are Democrat amendments, in order to have robust debate here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

H.R. 1633 passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee with bipartisan support after proceeding through the committee process under regular order. A subcommittee hearing was followed by a subcommittee markup, and then a markup was held by the full committee, which passed the bill with bipartisan support.

The Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act is quite simple. It seeks regulatory certainty in the short term and a regulatory, commonsense approach in the long term. Specifically, this legislation does two things. First, in the short term, the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act would temporarily prohibit the EPA from issuing a new coarse particulate matter standard for 1 year.

H.R. 1633 does not prohibit EPA from issuing a revised standard for coarse particulate matter after this 1-year timeout. Coarse particulate matter, or PM10, is also known by a much more common name: dust.

Second, in the longer term, this legislation would limit future EPA regulation of nuisance dust to areas where it is not already regulated by State or local government, where it causes substantial adverse effects, and where the benefits of the EPA stepping in would outweigh the costs.

Nuisance dust is particulate matter that is generated primarily from natural sources, dirt roads, earth moving, or other common farm activities. Nuisance dust is pieces of plants plowed up during tilling, soil disturbed by the movement of livestock or bits of rock kicked up by a truck driving down a dirt road. The definition specifically precludes combustion emissions, coal combustion residues and radioactive particulate matter from mining operations.

H.R. 1633 does not eliminate EPA's authority to step in if local or State regulatory efforts fall short of what is needed to adequately protect the public. The bill would allow EPA to step in and regulate ``nuisance dust'' in areas where States and localities do not do so, if it substantially hurts the public health, and if benefits of applying these standards outweigh the cost.

So in summary, if it isn't regulated, it would harm public health, and the benefit of regulation would outweigh the cost of regulation. The EPA could, and presumably would, fill that void.

While EPA Administrator Jackson has announced that she does not plan on changing the standard, EPA has been actively considering a revised, more costly and stringent standard as part of the review process. The same review process increased the stringency of that standard in 1996 and most recently in 2006. Prior to the administrator's announcement, EPA's staff had recommended further changes to the standard.

Despite Administrator Jackson's statement, there is nothing currently on the books preventing the EPA from adopting a stricter regulation. Further, as we all know, the environmental lobby could force a more stringent standard regardless of what the EPA announces, finalizes, or proposes through legal action.

This legislation provides ironclad certainty to farmers, ranchers, small business owners that farm dust would stay off the EPA's to-do list for at least another year. For that very reason, farming, agricultural and rural small business organizations of all shapes and sizes have put their steadfast support behind this legislation. To them, certainty means the ability to grow their business by creating jobs in their communities, feeding every American, and providing for their families through the sale of the fruits of their labors.

The agricultural community and, more largely, rural America is critical to economic growth and job creation. The agricultural sector alone supports 1.8 million American jobs and represents 5 percent of our Nation's total exports. The Obama administration has acknowledged the importance of economic health for rural America. In fact, the President's White House Rural Council has claimed that rural America is ``central to the economic health and prosperity of our Nation.''

Unfortunately, it is often rural communities, particularly those in the western United States, that suffer from the highest rates of unemployment and are least equipped to bear the burden of additional costs stemming from Washington.

So once again, Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and the underlying legislation. The relevant committee of jurisdiction has worked to provide us with a bipartisan bill which, at its core, quite simply offers regulatory certainty in the short term and commonsense regularity relief in the long.

This bill is not a cure-all, but is a step in the right direction. While a small step, it is a commonsense approach to fixing what's wrong in Washington, D.C. It's a step that many in

Congress on both sides of the aisle seem ready and willing to take.

As I mentioned, the Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act passed out of subcommittee and full committee with bipartisan support. The bill has over 100 bipartisan cosponsors. Companion legislation in the Senate also enjoys that same bipartisan support.

Let's ensure rural businesses and American farmers that at least for 1 more year they can cross dust off the list of the potential bureaucratic burdens passed down from Washington.

I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes ``on the rule and ``yes'' on the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

That's a good reason as to why we should pass this bill. The real cure for unemployment is employment. If we can remove the uncertainty from the marketplace for farmers and for those in other places in this country through limited regulation--good regulation but not by overburdening the businesses and the job creators of this country--then we will have the opportunity to solve that problem, to solve it by hiring people.

I am hoping that this bill will pass. In knowing that it probably will pass in the House, I hope the Senate takes it up and the President signs it, and I hope we end up with less regulation in an area where many, many jobs could be created and where certainty could be provided if we would only pass this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Yes, Yogi Berra, it ain't over till it's over. We've got time.

We have a plan. House Republicans have a plan. It's down here on this card. We have a plan, a jobs plan. Twenty-five of those issues have already passed this House and they went to the Senate. And where are they? I don't know. They're there. They're ready to be acted on.

Let me just give one. The union labor in this country rallied around that bill a couple of days ago and said we want to build the pipeline. It's tens of thousands of jobs. Many of the Democrats opposed that, and yes, it's thousands and thousands of jobs. Is it a job creator? Absolutely.

Do we have a plan? We have a plan, and that's just one of the 25 that's waiting in the Senate for action. We need to have action there. We have a plan. We have job plans, this is it, and we're ready to move this country forward, get our economy rolling again, creating jobs, and making this economy better for everyone in America.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I am prepared to close.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

This bill provides for ample open debate, allowing for the colleagues here on this floor and across the aisle, both on our side and theirs, to offer amendments to this bill.

The underlying bill isn't particularly controversial. As a matter of fact, it's rather simple. This bill has no effect on direct spending. It does not appropriate any money or have any new appropriation in it at all. This bill creates no new programs. It has nothing to do with CutGo or pay-as-you-go, either way. It doesn't do either.

In the end, I can't imagine 186 different groups being so stirred up in this country to write and to call and to ask for this legislation, groups like the National Corn Growers Association and the Sheep Growers Association and the Association of Cooperatives and the Farm Bureaus across this country and the American Soybean Association and many, many more getting stirred up about nothing?

No, that argument is heifer dust. It is. This argument is real, it's true, and it's right, and it's absolutely just like what's happening in EPA in many other areas.

The underlying bill, as I said, is quite simple. It provides much- needed certainty in the short term for agricultural, ranching, and rural businesses by hitting pause on the EPA's runaway regulatory machine for just one measure for just 1 year.

H.R. 1633 simply says that now is not the time to thrust yet another burdensome, costly and, in EPA's own judgment, unnecessary regulation on rural job creators. In the long term, it offers regulatory relief to rural America by acknowledging that States and local communities are better suited to manage dust in their own communities and thus grant them the flexibility to do so.

It's particularly offensive because it's like the old cookie-cutter approach that Washington uses, the same program that's good for Ocoee, Florida, is good for Butte, Montana, and inner-city New York, and it's wrong. We ought to get rid of the cookie-cutter approach and go back to local communities and State governments and let them solve their problems, as opposed to one-size-fits-all Federal Government.

Given the state of the economy, given the EPA administrator's own comments about the lack of need to further regulate farm dust, given the dearth of scientific evidence that says that this is a danger, there is some sort of danger from farm dust, this legislation represents a commonsense effort to create an environment for job creation that all Members should support. It gives farmers, ranchers, and other rural small business owners the certainty, at least when it comes to dust, that costly regulations would not shackle their ability to focus on growing their business, providing for their families, and creating much needed jobs in rural America.

I ask my colleagues to join me in voting in favor of the rule and passage of the underlying bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.