Quigley Introduces Amendment on EPA Regulations and Emissions

"Thank you Madam Speaker

My amendment permits the EPA to continue to enforce and finalize the regulations preempted by the bill at hand, if the emissions limited by these regulations are found to cause cancer.

In other words, this amendment says, the Administrator shall not delay actions to reduce emissions from any cement kiln if such emissions are increasing the occurrence of cancer.

We stand here today having an argument that is predicated on the notion that when it comes to matters of job creation, and environmental stewardship and protection of public health, you can only have one or not the other.

You must pick between creating and retaining jobs, they'll tell you, or, protecting and conserving our land, air and water and keeping our public healthy.

This is a false notion, born of scare tactics, and the fact that those who purport these ideas aren't basing their beliefs on science.

There are both economic and societal factors involved, it's not an either-or.

It's dollar signs, yes, but it's also lives, days in hospitals, cancer treatments, and trips to the emergency room for small children and the elderly.

Come to Chicago, the asthma morbidity and mortality capital of the United States.

Cement kilns are the third largest source of mercury emissions in the U.S.

Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that impacts and impairs the ability of infants and children to think and learn.

The toxic air pollutants are found in cement kiln emissions can cause cancer, and they do.

The toxic air pollutants found in cement kiln emissions damage the eyes, skin and breathing passages.

The toxic air pollutants found in cement kiln emissions harm the kidneys, lungs and nervous systems, they cause pulmonary and cardiovascular disease and premature death.

The carcinogens found in cement kiln emissions include toxic air pollutants, including mercury, arsenic, acid gases, hydrochloric acid, dioxins, and other harmful pollutants that add to the nation's problems with soot and smog.

They are known carcinogens.

Known carcinogens, pumped from these sources, into our air, into our land, into our waters.

They even land on the grass in Wisconsin eaten by cows and drunk as milk

But, don't take my word for it; look at the numbers.

Plain and simple, Mister Speaker, the Clean Air Act saves lives.

The Clean Air Act has saved the lives of over 160,000 people in the 40 years it has been on the books.

This is not a number to be debated, in fact, this is a number that is conservatively estimated by the EPA.

This is not in some inflated statistic, designed for shock value or any other reason than we know that the Clean Air Act has human value.

Since 1990, EPA has set numeric emissions limits on a pollutant-by-pollutant basis for more than 100 industry source categories.

This approach has been a major success, reducing emissions of carcinogens and other highly toxic chemicals by 1.7 million tons each year.

Each of EPA's proposed rules would save thousands more lives each year.

One example, an example we're dealing with today, pertains to the EPA's proposed rule regarding toxic emissions from cement kilns.

This rule simply calls for cement kilns to meet numeric emissions standards for mercury and other toxic pollutants.

This so-called "job-killing" rule is predicted to save up to 2,500 lives each year.

The limit will annually prevent 1,500 heart attacks, 17,000 asthma attacks, and over 1,700 hospital and emergency room visits, and 130,000 days of missed work.

Any rule that saves lives is a matter of public health.

We're dealing with skyrocketing rates of death due to asthma, and burdening more children at earlier ages with life-long and sometimes debilitating cases of asthma from particulate matter being pumped into our air.

A report released by the American Lung Association reported nearly 60 percent of Americans live in areas where air pollution has reached unhealthy levels that can and do make people sick.

These are measures that will help keep us alive, and able to work.

These are measures that will create jobs in the clean and green industrial industries.

Attacks on the Clean Air Act and the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gasses are a huge piece of the larger climate crisis, a crisis that has a hefty cost, our lives.

The need to crackdown on greenhouse gas emissions is based on sound science, the result of hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that show their debilitating effects on our health and our planet.

Zero peer-reviewed studies that show that global warming does not exist and that man does not contribute to it.

We are asked to go back now. Why? Why?

Why are we considering legislation to halt rules that have been considered for now 10 years? This is beyond me.

Why are we considering legislation to halt rules that will keep us at work, healthy, and alive.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment."