The House introduced a bill Thursday to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s landmark rules for smog-forming ozone, which critics call the most stringent and costly regulations ever developed.
The bill was proposed by members of the Texas delegation, with the backing of House Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and the Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
“When the administration’s air regulations result in even Yosemite Park struggling to reach compliance, it is time to step back and survey the common sense of this regulation,” said McCarthy.
“In California’s Central Valley and other communities across America, significant advances have led to cleaner air. But the Obama administration’s regulation will saddle our communities with punitive fines for failing to meet a near-impossible task of complying with a standard so unrealistic it is approaching naturally occurring background ozone levels,” the majority leader added.
He said the EPA knows the technology to achieve the standards “does not exist,” creating a “Catch-22” for states.
Industry groups that have opposed the rules since they were proposed supported the measure Thursday.
“Just five months after the Environmental Protection Agency … issued its strictest ozone regulation ever, throwing hundreds of counties into noncompliance with the standard, manufacturers are encouraged to see leaders from the House Energy and Commerce Committee offer legislation that would restore some much-needed flexibility to this policy,” said Ross Eisenberg, National Association of Manufacturers vice president for federal affairs.
Eisenberg’s group is suing the EPA in federal appeals court with many other aligned industry associations. They argue that the rules, which call for reducing smog-forming ozone from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion — although an improvement over an earlier proposal — are still nearly impossible to meet, especially when many states have not yet complied with the previous regulation.
The “Ozone Standards Implementation Act of 2016” would delay implementation of the ozone standards while ensuring continued air-quality improvements across the country can still be achieved, “while better aligning the requirements with the realities of the economy, technology and existing policies,” Eisenberg said.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration proposed new air-quality regulations for offshore drilling Thursday that the oil and gas industry slammed as unnecessary. The rules were issued by the Interior Department a day after it issued its new offshore leasing plan that backtracked from opening swaths of the Atlantic Ocean to offshore drilling.
The new offshore air-quality rules go against the agency’s own conclusions “showing that offshore operations don’t significantly impact onshore air quality,” said the American Petroleum Institute.
“This smoke-and-mirrors approach jeopardizes the energy security of our nation, “said Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. “These regulations will impose additional costs in return for dubious benefits at a time when domestic operators are locked in ferocious competition with the likes of Iran and Russia.
“The administration is trying to earn plaudits for including the Arctic offshore in its proposed leasing plan, but at the same time is proposing regulations that would make Arctic development all the more difficult,” she said.
The modeling for the new proposal won’t be complete until next year, said the American Petroleum Institute. “The agency should not get ahead of the science and proceed with a rule proposal without the necessary data to justify costly regulatory changes,” said Erik Milito, the oil group’s director of upstream industry operations, which includes exploration, production and drilling.
