Resolving Environmental and Grid Reliability Conflicts Act of 2013

Folks in South Carolina are concerned about where we are with energy in this country. Energy independence is something that's on the minds of folks back home.

You know, I drive a diesel truck, and the gentleman from Ohio was talking about diesel fuel just recently. When I was at the fuel pump recently fueling my truck with diesel fuel, I was paying about $3.85 a gallon. It dawned on me, as I watched the 18-wheelers roll by coming from the pumps where they filled up, that if we were able to really achieve American energy independence and we were able to lower the cost at the pump for America's truckers and all of America's families--but I use trucking as an example. If we could truly lower the cost of diesel fuel for America's truckers by just $1, if we could produce enough American energy resources to lower diesel fuel from that $3.85 a gallon that I was paying down to $2.85 a gallon--those 18-wheelers that were rolling by I believe had 400-gallon diesel tanks.

Think about that, America. Think about if that truck or that trucking company was able to save $400 per fill-up for that 18-wheeler, and think about the number of trucks you pass on America's interstates and highway systems. If we could save that, think about the trickle-down effect that that would have for consumer products.

We're not just talking about gasoline and diesel fuel. The American hydrocarbons that are produced when they're refined, they're refined into a lot of different products. And I would ask folks to research what a barrel of hydrocarbon or fossil fuel, oil, when you put that under extreme pressure, the heat created, how it separates out and all the different products that come from a barrel of oil. It's an amazing component that God has given us.

In South Carolina, we understand that the Nation can achieve American energy independence; but we also understand that if we can't have American energy independence, why not an all-American energy strategy where we work with our neighbors to the north, our largest and best trading partner, the Canadians, or we work with the Mexicans and the folks to the south with a transboundary agreement; allow that area where the boundary between Mexico and the United States is, that we can drill in that area and we have an agreement for revenue sharing on the oil produced there.

But let's go back to our neighbors in the north, our largest and best trading partner. The former speaker of the house from South Carolina, David Wilkins, was Ambassador to Canada under the Bush administration. I spent a lot of time with Speaker Wilkins, Ambassador Wilkins, and we talked about Canada and we talked about the oil sands. This was before the Keystone XL pipeline.

But let's focus on the Keystone XL pipeline to bring that Canadian oil to American refineries that are sitting there with the capacity to refine that Canadian oil. What do I mean by capacity? It's idle capacity. It's capacity that could be utilized to refine American resources or Canadian resources coming down to those refineries, refining that into the products that we enjoy as America.

That's why the Keystone XL pipeline is so important. Let's put Americans to work. We hear a lot about job creation and putting Americans to work. Well, this truly would. Mr. Speaker, this Keystone XL pipeline would put Americans to work in those refineries, refining that oil into all the chemicals and gasoline products and everything that we use out of a barrel of hydrocarbons or a barrel of oil. The Keystone pipeline is something that should happen in this country.

The opponents on the other side say: Well, that oil is just going to flow from Canada. It's going to flow through the United States. It's going to go to our refineries. But those contracts have been let, and that oil and those gasoline products are going to be used in other markets. It will not do anything to affect the price at the pump here.

That's what the other side says.

Here's a simple economic example:

It's supply and demand. Global demand is high right now, and the supply is low. The supply is low for a lot of reasons: the OPEC cartel and other things. Policies, moratoriums, and other things from this administration keep global supply down.

Let's assume that the oil from Canada does flow through the United States, refined at our refineries, and does flow out of this country. So what? That increased supply will meet the increased demand. And by meeting that demand, that will drive the price down, not only for Americans, but for everyone across the globe.

It's the right thing to do to put Americans to work to refine that oil into those products at American refineries. It's true job creation.

While we're on the subject of job creation, Mr. Speaker, and the gentleman that's heading up the House Energy Action Team, which is focused on an all-American energy strategy and American energy independence, while we're talking about job creation, let's talk about my State of South Carolina.

We've been excluded in the next 5-year plan, the plan that would allow offshore drilling off our coast on the Outer Continental Shelf. Right now, folks, the whole Atlantic shelf is off limits to drilling, with the exception of a very proactive State of Virginia, which has been able to include Virginia's offshore area in the next 5-year plan. We'll see if that comes to fruition.

But South Carolina is sitting there saying, with a lot of the other Atlantic States, We believe we have some resources off our coast. We believe there's natural gas off the coast of South Carolina. Let's allow South Carolina's offshore area to be included in the next 5-year plan.

What does that mean? Does that mean we're going to rush right out there and punch a hole in the Earth and start producing? Maybe; maybe not. What it does mean is that it allows that exploration. It allows those energy companies to say: You know what? That area is going to be opened up. We haven't explored out there in 30 years. It was 30-year- old technology when we went out there before. Let's go out there with new technology. Let's find out what sort of resources might be off the coast of South Carolina on the Outer Continental Shelf of the Atlantic seaboard. Let's go out there. Let's find out what might be there, and let's start producing that.

You know what happens when we do start producing? I just ask you to drive down to Louisiana and get on Highway 90 from Lafayette down to New Iberia and down to Houma and Thibodaux and those areas. You get on that four-lane highway, Mr. Johnson, and you ride down that highway, on both sides of the four-lane highway, business after business after business after business after business--and I could go on and on. These are businesses that aren't out there actually doing the drilling because those lease sales were to ExxonMobil or Halliburton or some of those companies. These are the service companies that are servicing offshore drilling.

Think about this for a minute. Think about the guys that are using the barges and the offshore boats that carry the service boats that are taking the drilling mud and the casing and the piping and the diesel fuel for the generators and the food and the personnel and everything else that goes offshore out to the platform. Then think about this: they're companies on shore. They're running trucks up and down the road that need truck repair; they need body repair. We need pipe welders and pipe fitters.

Like I said, business after business after business there in Louisiana is helping the offshore industry.

And South Carolina is sitting there going, Well, you know what? If we allowed drilling offshore and we allowed this to happen on the Outer Continental Shelf, then maybe those businesses would come to South Carolina--the service boats, the drilling mud, the providers of the onshore pipe fitters and pipe boilers. And you know what? Those guys have to eat. And so they fill up the local restaurants and they shop at the local Piggly Wiggly. And guess what. They give to the United Way and they give to the local church, and it's a trickle-down economy when you've got people working and you've people creating businesses and providing income to an economy.

When we think about an all-American, energy-independent energy structure, we need to think about all of the jobs that are created through that American energy independence; and it's not just the guys that are doing the offshore drilling, and it's not just the guys that are doing the hydraulic fracturing here. That is a tremendous component, and it's working in Pennsylvania, and should be working in southern New York. It's working in Ohio. It's producing resources.

When we talk about energy, we focus a lot right now on North Dakota. North Dakota, my gosh, it's a microcosm of what we could be in this country if we truly pursued an American energy policy. North Dakota, 3 percent unemployment or less. Some say it's a negative unemployment. I say, when you get off an airplane in North Dakota, they give you a job whether you need one or not. You talk about a lack of housing; they don't have housing for people coming up there to take the jobs. If you need a job in America and you're willing to travel to North Dakota, you can go up and get $70,000 a year driving a water truck. Jobs are created.

North Dakota, a microcosm of what we could be in this country if we truly pursued an all-American energy policy, and that includes hydraulic fracturing. That includes drilling on Federal land that is currently off-limits to energy exploration, energy production, but it's also off-limits to wind and solar. Federal land that you own--America. The American taxpayers own this Federal land, and it ought to be utilized to the maximum benefit for American taxpayers.

Folks, we can reduce our fuel prices at the pump. We can reduce your prices for electricity at home, and that's through an American energy policy that's truly all of the above.

And so I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio leading this leadership hour, giving me an opportunity to speak about something that I am very passionate about, and that is an all-American energy policy that produces resources here, lessens our dependence on the Middle East, lessens our dependence on the OPEC cartel, truly trades with our neighbors to the north and the south, and approaches true independence.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.

Mr. Speaker, it's good to be in the people's House this afternoon to talk about a topic that is of utmost concern to the American people--energy. What does it mean for America? We all put gas in our cars, we all heat and cool our homes, businesses across this country power their manufacturing processes. So what does energy mean for today and for the future of our country?

I'm proud to be a member of the House Energy Action Team because we understand the critical role that domestic-energy production plays not only today, but in the future of our country. Let me give an example of why this is so important.

I remember one of the very first memorable events that occurred in March of 2011 in my first term. We were addressed here in this Chamber by the Prime Minister of Australia. And in her remarks she commented, she said: ``I remember being a young girl, sitting on the floor of my living room, watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land on the Moon.'' She went on to talk about how America and Australia had stood side by side, how America had actually stood in front of and protected Australia during some of the darkest days of World War II in the Pacific.

At the end of her speech, she said, ``Back when I was a little girl and when I saw that Moon landing, I thought to myself, wow, those Americans can do anything.'' She wrapped up her comments by saying, ``Today, as Prime Minister of Australia, with a lot of experience under my belt, I still believe that Americans can do anything.''

When you stop and think about the Moon landing--and I know you're going to say, Well, what does that have to do with energy? I'm getting to that. President Kennedy gave us a vision of putting a man on the Moon in 10 years. We didn't make it in 10 years. We made it in less than 10 years. The reason that we did was that every fabric of our society bought into the idea--academic institutions, the scientific community. Industries cropped up overnight. Millions of jobs were created. Young people lined up to get into academic programs in which they could major in degrees that would prepare them for careers in space exploration.

At the end of the day--actually, we're not at the end of the day-- we're still benefiting from the innovation and the technological advance that came out of that era. It was a time when America's imagination was captivated by what many thought was impossible and by what the rest of the world didn't really think we could do. You look at what has happened since we started that journey--at all of the technological innovations that have occurred: cell phones, flat-screen TVs, GPS, even arthroscopic surgery. We had to learn to perform medical procedures on space travelers in a way that was noninvasive, and medical experts began to think about ``how do we do that in outer space?'' So we learned how to dream, and that goal to put a man on the Moon captivated America's imagination.

I want you to think for a second about what would happen if America once again embarked on a journey of that magnitude. I believe a journey to become energy independent and secure in America is just such a journey that we could embark on. A vision of energy independence and security would not only captivate the imagination of the American people but it would put America back to work at a time when our economy is in such desperate need of private-sector economic growth. Imagine what would happen if we had a national energy vision that sounded something like this:

We're going to go after the vast volumes of oil and natural gas that we have. In many experts' opinions, we've got more of it than anyone else has in the world. We're going to expand our nuclear footprint because nuclear energy is one of the safest, most reliable forms of energy on the planet. We brought that to the world, and we know how to do it. We're going to continue to mine coal, and we're going to learn how to use it environmentally soundly because we've got enough coal to fuel our energy needs for generations yet to come.

We're even going to embrace alternative forms of energy--biofuels, wind and solar. Now, they're not going to meet our heavy lifting energy needs for the foreseeable future, but there is a role that they play in our overall energy profile. We're going to back that up with action with the regulatory community and tell the regulators at the EPA and the Department of the Interior and at the Army Corps of Engineers: effective today, you start being partners in progress with America's energy industries. Rather than being the department of ``no,'' learn how to find a way forward. If a particular project or if a particular technology presents concerns, then let's address those concerns, but ``no'' should not be the final answer.

We've learned through the lessons of putting a man on the Moon that, when Americans are allowed to dream, when they're allowed to innovate, when they're allowed to compete, there is nothing that we can't solve.

Why is energy independence and security so important? First of all, it's important because of national security. Right now, today, we are beholden to some countries that don't like us very much for our energy resources. Why do we want to continue to do that when we have the resources right here at home to be able to solve that problem?

In order to captivate the imagination of the American people, we've got to help the American people understand why this is so important to them. We talk about energy in terms of very important projects like the Keystone XL pipeline of which the President, himself, said that the environmental concerns were overexaggerated, so let's get the project approved.

Yet we talk about it in technical terms--pipelines, hydraulic fracturing, oil rigs, nuclear reactors, uranium enrichment. What does all of that mean to American taxpayers--to working Americans who are just struggling day in and day out to make ends meet?

Here is what it means:

Take a manufacturing process, the manufacturing of cereal, Pop- Tarts--you name it, whatever our children consume today. When domestic energy costs are reduced, those manufacturing costs to produce those goods are also reduced. When the price of diesel fuel goes down and when the cost of the transportation to transport those goods from the manufacturers to the

grocery stores goes down, those savings are passed on in the costs of the products to the consumers. When working mothers and single moms and single dads who are trying to make ends meet--who are trying to figure out how they're going to put kids through college, how they're going to buy the next pair of tennis shoes--are balancing the checkbooks and when they see that their energy costs to heat and to cool their homes are going down and that they're paying less to fill up their cars to go back and forth to work, that translates into economic confidence to do the kinds of things that we were able to do during that remarkable period of putting a man on the Moon.

Today, we've got a lot of naysayers out there who simply don't understand how important this is, this idea of energy independence and security to the American people, and they're trying to frighten the American people.

Hydraulic fracturing, my goodness. We've been doing hydraulic fracturing in America for over 60 years, over a million such operations. A former EPA administrator, herself, acknowledged there has not been a single incident in which hydraulic fracturing has contaminated the water table. Yet the EPA is working hard to try and insert itself into a process that many, many States are already doing and are already doing very well. Take, for example, the State of Ohio where I come from. Literally, my district sits on top of the Marcellus and the Utica shales, one of the world's largest reservoirs of oil and natural gas.

The State of Ohio has been regulating the oil and gas industry since 1965. We're among those States that have done a lot of hydraulic fracturing, and yet again there is not one proven instance where that process has contaminated drinking water, yet you've got those that sit on the sidelines and try to frighten homeowners, try to frighten those people that live in Appalachian Ohio that their water is going to be contaminated. It's not. It's a proven process.

And just over the last 5 years, we've developed technology called horizontal hydraulic fracturing, where we can go down a mile and then go out horizontally another mile, sometimes more, and have much more of that vital resource of oil and natural gas flowing to the surface, resources that are going to move America one step closer to energy independence and security.

Mr. Speaker, we've got an opportunity to put America back in charge of our economic destiny and an energy vision that is a real all-of-the- above energy vision for this country. It's what America needs.

At this time, I'd like to yield time to my colleague from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).

I thank my colleague from South Carolina, and at this time I yield to our chairman from Texas (Mr. Smith).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time we have remaining?

Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to yield to my colleague from Virginia (Mr. Griffith).

I thank my colleague. I yield some time now to our colleague from Texas (Mr. Farenthold).

I thank the gentleman. At this time, we'll go to my colleague from Arkansas (Mr. Griffin).

I thank my friend.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire about how much time we have remaining.

I would like to now yield to my colleague from Texas (Mr. Olson).

I yield now to my colleague from California (Mr. Valadao).

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 271) to clarify that compliance with an emergency order under section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act may not be considered a violation of any Federal, State, or local environmental law or regulation, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials in the Record on H.R. 271.

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

I rise today in support of H.R. 271, Resolving Environmental and Grid Reliability Conflicts Act of 2013.

My colleagues and I carefully drafted this bill last year to resolve a conflict between the Federal Power Act and environmental rules that, if left unresolved, could create serious problems for the reliability of our Nation's electric grid. With the hot summer coming and power demands set to surge, the potential for dangerous power outages is rising, alongside the mercury.

Just last week, States like California and my own State of Texas were warned by regulators that electricity reserve margins could dip dangerously low. Texas faces critical electricity shortages in the next few years. We simply won't have enough reliable power to guarantee our grid. Rolling blackouts in Texas alone would impact over 25 million people. As coal plants continue to be shut down, pockets of areas across the country could quickly experience blackouts. When the power fails and the AC shuts down on a hot 100-degree day, it's the elderly, the young, and the poor who suffer first.

Prior experience shows that in rare and limited circumstances, emergency actions have been needed to ensure the reliable delivery of electricity. When an emergency exists due to a sudden increase in a demand for electricity or a shortage of supply, the Department of Energy has a tool of last resort to address the emergency. That tool is an emergency order under section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act.

DOE can order a grid connection to be made or power plant to generate electricity when outages occur due to weather events, equipment failures, or the electricity supply is too low to avoid a blackout. As they should, DOE can mandate a company to comply with a 202(c) order, even if it means a brief violation of environmental laws.

Unfortunately, under current law, a company or individual can be penalized for violating environmental laws even when they're following a Federal order to avoid a blackout. In recent years, these conflicting Federal laws have resulted in lawsuits and heavy fines for electricity providers complying with legal orders. Unless Congress passes this legislation to resolve the potential conflict in laws, the section 202(c) tool is in jeopardy.

H.R. 271 eliminates the uncertainty facing power generators and their customers by providing a needed safety valve which clarifies that compliance with an emergency order under section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act may not be considered a violation of any

Federal, State, or local environmental law or regulation. To be clear, these emergency orders are not issued lightly and only under extreme power reliability scenarios. In the last 30 years, this authority has only been invoked about half a dozen times.

If the need arises, my legislation will ensure that DOE works to minimize any adverse environmental impacts by balancing environmental interests with liability considerations.

While some people are concerned that H.R. 271 doesn't go far enough to protect plant operators who might face lawsuits from environmental groups, my bill is a vast improvement over current law.

Major utilities, both public and investor-owned power trade associations believe that a Federal court would be hard pressed to overrule an emergency order issued by the DOE. In a crisis, if this bill becomes law, DOE will be given deference, which will apply to utilities following these orders. DOE will consult with clean air regulators, but the final decision in emergencies will always firmly remain in the hands of those charged with keeping the power flowing.

The protection H.R. 271 offers is critical; and given the number of plant retirements that have been announced, as operators grapple with new EPA air and water rules, I worry that DOE may need to use its emergency authority more often in the future.

I still expect DOE emergency orders to be the exception and not the rule. In those rare instances when the authority is invoked, we should not punish generators who are simply following orders from the Federal Government to keep the power on in an emergency.

Resolving this conflict is critical, which is why I reintroduced this bipartisan legislation in the 113th Congress. It will allow America's power companies to comply with Federal orders to maintain grid reliability during a power emergency without the threats of lawsuits or penalties.

I'm pleased with the widespread bipartisan support this bill has received. This bill is proof that we can find common ground in Washington, D.C., when working to address a glitch in Federal law and provide a reliable energy supply to all Americans.

I want to thank Chairman Fred Upton, Ranking Member Henry Waxman, Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield, and Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Rush for their support and assistance in moving this bill forward. I also want to thank my original cosponsors on the committee, Gene Green of Texas, Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, Lee Terry of Nebraska, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, and their staffs for working with me to fix this problem, to keep the power running for all Americans in an emergency.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense, bipartisan legislation that protects energy consumers, the environment, and those who provide the power.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no other Members wanting to speak, and I'm willing to close if my colleague is as well.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to thank Chairman Upton, Ranking Member Waxman, subcommittee Chairman Whitfield, and subcommittee Ranking Member Rush for their assistance in getting this bill passed in the 113th Congress.

If my colleagues want to go home next week with an example of bipartisanship for their constituents, vote for H.R. 271.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Thank you so much for yielding as we talk about the importance of American energy independence and using all of our fuels and all of the above. I know that we all want to use all of the above, but there are a lot of people who want to put regulations so strict on coal that you can't use it anymore.

I hold up for you tonight the commemorative scissors that I used to cut the ribbon, along with a number of other people, at the Dominion Resources power plant in Virginia City, Virginia. And it wasn't 10 years ago; it wasn't 5 years ago. It was last September.

That plant would not be able to be built today if the regulations proposed by the EPA are actually adopted. Those would be the regulations relating to greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide.

When that plant was opened, they were so proud, and rightfully so. They had spent a lot of money, and they had the best technology available--the best technology available in the world--one of the cleanest plants ever opened to create electric power at a reasonable cost using the natural resources that God gave the United States of America, to use our coal supply in an appropriate, efficient manner.

Now, everybody says coal is dirty and we shouldn't use it; but we can use it in clean ways, like they're doing in the Dominion plant. I would also point out to you that as we send jobs away, are we really making any progress?

I note from one of the reports we've gotten from the Energy and Commerce Committee that at one point in time not too long ago the United Mine Workers estimated that job losses with the EPA targeting coal units due to utility MACT and tighter greenhouse gas standards could cost us more than 50,000 direct jobs in the coal, utility, and rail industries; and indirectly, a figure costing us jobs of more than 250,000 jobs lost.

That doesn't make a lot of sense because what we're doing is we're making it impossible to use our coal, where we, in fact, have the largest reserves of anyplace in the world. We are the Saudi Arabia of coal, and we don't want to use it, but many of the other nations of the world, including China, do want to use coal, and they are using coal. What's interesting about that is, when you look at that, looking at a report from the Sustainable Use of Coal and Pollution Control Policy in China, dated 2009--and this was a group of folks looking at what they can to do to continue to use coal in China; it's an international group trying to figure out what to do--they point out that, in China, the fraction of power capacity with unit scale smaller than 100 megawatts is 24.8 percent in 2007, while it is only 7 percent in the U.S. in 2007. The average coal consumption per unit powered electricity supply in China is 11 percent higher than that of Japan.

So what we're looking at is a situation where they're using more coal to produce the same power than we are, by about 24.8 percent for them and 7 percent in the United States. And when you get down to the pollution, you're looking at 30 percent to 150 percent higher than that in the United States.

Further, they go on to talk about the boilers, related to the maximum achievable control technology in boilers. And it says normally the thermal efficiency for boilers is between 72 and 80 percent, which is close to the design level of developed countries.

But, in reality, most of the actual thermal efficiencies are between 60 to 65 percent, which means they're 10 to 15 percent lower than the identified thermal efficiencies of boilers, which means, in effect, they're 30 to 40 percent less efficient, 30 to 50 percent less efficient than boilers in most of the developed countries.

So here's what we're doing, folks. We're taking the jobs from the United States; we're sending them over to China and other countries like India and so forth. They're producing the electricity to produce the goods that we used to produce in the United States. They're doing it less efficiently; they're creating more pollution. And, as a NASA study showed, it takes 10 days to get from the middle of the Gobi Desert, for that air to transport across the Pacific, 10 days from the middle of the Gobi Desert in China to the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

Folks, we have to be careful with the policies we make here. We all want clean air. We all want clean water. But we also want jobs, and we have to recognize the United States cannot solve this problem by itself. We must solve it with others working with us; and when they're not willing to start down that path and to make a good-faith effort, we have to recognize that we should be as efficient as we can be.

But we shouldn't be killing American jobs based on American energy when we know we can do it better and have less pollution than they can do it in other parts of the world.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 271, the Resolving Environmental and Grid Reliability Conflicts Act.

I'm proud to be an original cosponsor to this bill that we worked on with my good friends, Congressman Pete Olson and Congressman Mike Doyle, last Congress. This bipartisan legislation addresses a conflict in Federal law where a company or individual can be held liable for violating environmental laws when the Federal Government orders them to generate power to avoid blackouts.

Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act gives the Department of Energy the authority to order an electric generating facility to generate power in order to avoid an electric reliability emergency.

At the same time, the possibility of violating environmental laws and regulations may restrict the operation of power plants or transmission lines. For example, a company may have mothballed a power plant because it had reached its Clean Air Act emissions limit for the year. So if a company, or publicly owned utility, is ordered by DOE to operate under section 202(c), and at the same time is prohibited from operating in accordance with the DOE order due to environmental limitations, the operator must choose which legal mandate to follow. These conflicting legal mandates should not complicate an electric reliability crisis, but they do. It is not fair for the government to put a power generator in this position.

As a longtime member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and someone who has worked on both reliability and environmental legislation during that time, I can honestly say that it was never our intention to put electric generating facilities in the position of having to choose between compliance with one law over another. And while there have only been a couple of instances to date where a generator has been in this situation, this potential for conflict will only grow as several coal- fired plants are scheduled to be taken offline in the coming years.

That is why Congress needs to address this issue. Otherwise, we risk threatening our electric reliability and for certain regions of the country, this issue is coming fast. H.R. 271 simply clarifies that if an emergency order issued pursuant to section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act may result in a conflict with an environmental law or regulation, the order shall expire no later than 90 days after issuance.

This deadline does two things. First, this ensures that the Department of Energy continues to have the necessary authority to ``keep the lights on'' in true emergencies. However, it then gives DOE the opportunity to renew or reissue the order for an additional 90-day period only after consulting with the appropriate Federal agencies and including conditions submitted by these agencies to mitigate any potential adverse environmental impacts.

This is not a messaging bill. It's not an anti-EPA bill or an anti- air toxic standards bill. Instead, it's a commonsense bill that addresses a very worrisome deficiency in current law that is only going to become more prominent in the coming years.

I want to thank our ranking member, Mr. Waxman, for his continued support of this bill. This is one of a handful of bills that actually were supported by both Democrats and Republicans in the Energy and Commerce Committee, and it has support across the utility industry. My hope is that the committee will continue to refer to the floor truly bipartisan bills like this one. It's time we get back to legislating and not messaging. With that, I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this great legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.