>> the senate environment and public works committee convened a hearing to examine the pros and cons of the growing american innovation now act, or gain act. there would be less regulatory barriers for manufacturing plants seeking to upgrade or retrofit their facilities. the committee chair is john barrasso. several other committee members co-sponsored the legislation. democrats who oppose the bill argued less regulations would negatively impact the environment. this is an hour and a half. >> i call this hearing to order. today we heard to discuss s.

2662, the growing american innovation not act, or linking act. this bill would bring long overdue legislative reform to the clean air ask new source review program. the new source review program protects air-quality when factories and power plants are modified in newly built. gain act provides much-needed clarity to factor in power plant owners as well as to state permitting officials about when permits are needed. the new source review program was originally designed to support pollution control projects and upgrades. it had the opposite effect. in its current form the program is complex, costly, time-consuming. the program directly slows economic growth and slows job creation, technical innovation as well as the ability to modernize our american industry and infrastructure. the association spent a letter to the committee outlining the extreme burden that new source

review places on its members. the association explained a member company sought a permit to combust alternative fuels. the epa regional office insisted permitting to burn alternative fuels automatically triggered an nsr permitting. after going through a costly, lengthy and burdensome process the epa regional office concluded the project was not required to go through nsr permitting. it took five years to go through this process. five years to figure out that you do not need a permit. simply unacceptable. i ask unanimous consent to enter that letter into the record. without objection. such permitting uncertainty and delays discourage key upgrades that would otherwise be good for the economy and the environment. last year a group of seven unions wrote to the committee urging new source review reform legislation. the seven unions that wrote state quote, the new source

review program adversely impacts american workers by creating a strong disincentive to undertake projects that can improve the efficiency and productivity of existing utility and industrial plants, from steele and chemical to refineries. i will enter that letter into the record without objection as well. congress enacted the new source review program more than 40 years ago. it's time for us to streamline and modernize the program. when congress last address the program we didn't have power plants using carbon capture like we now have at the petrol nova project. in a twentysomething heard before this committee energy energy testified it had to redesign the petrol nova project in texas to avoid triggering new source review requirements. this unnecessary redesign added $100 million to the cost of the project. we can't have our environment our environmental regulations pose roadblocks to critical technologies that would reduce

our emissions and combat climate change. gain act would make much-needed changes to the clean air act it would provide more clarity about what types of changes fit the definition of modifications and, therefore, warrant a new source review permit. the bill would clarify projects designed to reduce emissions or approve reliably and safety should not generally trigger new source review permits. permitting would no longer be based on annual emission estimates which have been the subject to endless litigation and a very difficult to double check sod like to thank leader mcconnell and senator capito constant upon sender and off for joining me on this bill. gain act is identical, identical to a bipartisan bill, the new source review permitting improvement act that is sponsored in the house i congressman morgan griffith and collin peterson and alexander muti. i encourage senate democrats to

join us in making this deal bipartisan on this side of the capital as well as we have it bipartisan in the house. any senator who cares about economic growth, emissions reductions and clear regulations i would encourage to support this legislation. i would now like to turn to ranking member crapo for his opening remarks. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm going to do something i don't think i've ever done in 18 years. i just had my colleagues, asked my colleagues to bear with me for a moment. we all have military personnel who answered and injured and some killed, and i just want to share with you briefly before i recap my opening comments. just a couple words about an army battalion ranger from delaware who was nearly killed two months ago today, he sustained brain injuries, a

building exploded, crush him and other people. broke his ribs, broke his pelvis, broke his right leg, fractured vertebrae in his spine and it's amazing he's alive. he was brought miraculously safe there, eventually brought back to walter reed and has gotten great care there. he has moved a couple weeks ago i talked to him and he has moved to a poly, center in tampa, florida. his mom lives in delaware, talk to her the other day. she says he's doing well. he has no infection severity, he's learning to walk again, the occupational therapy, needs brain stimulation. currently he's having difficulty remembering. he remembers the incident and some idea. he's got a good attitude. i talk to them and i told him the words of henry ford, if you think, if you think you can't, you're right.

this is a greeting card. his mother says he loves cars and she said maybe you could send him one. i'm going to cinnabon and ask you all to sign it, all my colleagues, okay? thank you. now i i want to say terrible things about this bill. [laughing] when i was a congressman i used to hold a lot of town hall meetings. i still have some, not as many but every now and then someone would raise an issue and say i have an idea, propose an idea which was devoid of much value. rather than say that's the dumbest i did i ever would say there's good it is and what you are proposing a focus on that. the issue the chair chairman ig is one that's not new and we adopted the clean air act to

come how many years ago? many, many years ago. i was involved in 1990 in the modification of the amendments of the clean air act. this is not a new issue. it's it's what i would welcome, just a chance to sit and talk with you and your staff and to explore, find out whether it is a germ of a good idea and i think there probably is. i'm just going to ask that my statement for the record be entered. privileged -- some of your for me say this before although statement northeast with are the 49th largest it what were sunk by lot of other states where there's a lot of pollution. when i was governor i could shut down the economy and mistaken stop every car on the road we still would bent we had of complaints for clean air standards and a lot of weight because of the pollution that comes to us from other places. my fear one of my fears, i want to overcome this legislation doesn't help that situation get into better. we all care about our state and this is something the u.s. would continue to wrestle with.

i would be willing to have a conversation, mr. chairman, in the meantime i just ask unanimous consent to enter into the record this statement. >> without objection. >> i would ask my colleagues if you take a time to write a note on this. >> what is his name? >> heil. i'll have it on there. thank you. >> we could start with our number one veteran and continue, so thank you. we are -- we will hear from her witnesses jeff holmstead who is a partner at bracewell llc, sean alteri who is the deputy commissioner of the kentucky department of our little protection as well as john walk was a cleaner director for the natural resources defense council. i'd like to remind the witnesses your full written testimony will be made part of the official hearing record. so please keep her statements to five minutes so that we may have time for questions. i look for to hearing from the testimony of each of you.

director, i think your first. would you please proceed? >> good morning, john barrasso, ranking member crapo, members of the committee. my name is sean alteri at a release of the sick at the commissioner for the kentucky department for environmental protection. i'm honored to testify today at appreciate the opportunity to provide comments routes to the new source review program. it is important to note the new source for your program is utilized by epa, state, tribal and local air pollution control agencies. to obtain and maintain compliance with the national ambient air quality standard the program is nested to protect the health of our citizens and prevents the significant deterioration of air quality. regarding this legislation the proposed amendments are narrow and the scope of the new source review program if this bill proposed to amend the definition of modification to exclude projects at implement efficiency measures which reduce the amount

of any air pollutant emitted by the source per unit of production. the proposed amendment limits of the emissions increases to the maximum hourly achievable rate demonstrated in the last ten years. to be certain, this bill does not apply to a new major stationary sources or new units that exist in major stationary sources. this bill does not allow the deep downstream emission units and does not exempt those emissions from new source review. this bill does not allow sources of emissions to violate the national ap and air quality standards. since 2008 the cap has issued more than 25 new source review permits. these actions allow for economic growth and development requiring major sources of emissions to install and operate the best available control technologies. during the same time air-quality in kentucky has improved dramatically. in the last ten years emissions of sulfur oxide have decreased more than 83% and emissions of

nitrogen oxide have decreased by more than 70% from her coal-fired electric generating units. these tremendous reductions do not occur as as a result of new source review. due to potential applicability of new source review requirements, facilities have work on efficiency measures and improvements that can substantially, provide substantial environmental benefits. this bill will not allow coal-fired electric generating units to violate applicable emission standards established by the cross state air pollution rule and that mercury air toxics standards. however, this bill will allow an existing coal-fired electric generating unit to implement energy efficiency measures and reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide per megawatt generator. efficiency projects that exist in coal-fired electric generating units will be necessary to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions and will be critical for air pollution control agencies to meet the requirements of the affordable clean energy rule.

a state plan under the israel will establish carbon dioxide emission limitations from existing coal-fired generating units for the very first time. balancing affirmative protection and economic growth and the government often creates tension between regulated industries and of our mental activist. this tension is most notable and evident in the clean air act new source review program. when setting forth the statutory authority congress declared the new source review program is to ensure that economic growth will occur in a manner consistent with the preservation of clean air resources. striking the proper balance between economic growth and protection of our resources is essential to fulfill our statutory obligations. to resolve this tension by the determinations of new source review permits are often administratively challenged and decided through litigation. in recent years the new source review program has served as a vehicle to delay the permit process and the construction of major economic development

opportunities. in kentucky, third-party interest groups challenge or petition epa to object to eight air-quality permits related to new source review in the last ten years. all of the challenge air-quality permits utilize cold as an energy resource and the focus of the challenge centered on coal-fired electric generation. ultimately epa and the court found air-quality permits issued by the division for air-quality contain all applicable requirements and sufficient monitoring to demonstrate compliance. and a different resolve the differences of this proposed legislation, one option would be to further restrict the scope of the new source review amendments to apply only to energy efficiency projects at existing coal-fired electric generating units. by establishing clear statutory authority, state air-quality regulators will be provided with the certainty to establish carbon dioxide emission limitations from existing coal-fired generating units. and again for the very first

time. again, thank you for the opportunity to comment today at a luke 14 questions you may have regarding my testimony. >> thanks so much for your thoughtful test whether appreciate you coming in from kentucky. mr. holmstead. >> thank you thank you very mucr giving me the chance to testify. >> have you testified to before? >> a few times. >> if you had to guess, how many times? a dozen or more. >> may be close to that number. quite a few. >> welcome back. >> thank you. >> don't agree with you on everything. >> it is always an honor to be here. as some of you know for almost 30 years i devoted my professional career to working on clean air act issues as a staffer in the white house, as head of the epa for office and as an attorney in private practice. and had to say that one of things i find so frustrating is it's very hard to have an honest conversation about the new source review program, what it does and what it doesn't do.

i had the chance last night to review the testimony from an have to say i found it dispiriting, even bordering on dishonest when it comes to coal-fired power plants. i want to tell you why. historically, the pollutants of greatest concern from power plants have been esa two and nox because of impact on human health and the environment. in 1990 when the modern clean air act was passed, at least two of you were involved in that,, power planes were far and away the biggest sources of esso to in the country and along with motor vehicles the biggest sources of nox. but since 1990 power plant emissions of esso to have decreased by 92% in our country and power plant emissions of nox a it decreased by 84%. that's remarkable achievement. if you read the testimony and did know anything about the clean air act you would assume

the nsr program must be responsible for all these pollution reductions that all these plants trigger nsr and were forced to install the best available control technology. but that simply is not the case. if you go to the epa website that tracks power plant emissions it says these dramatic reductions are attributable to a number of other regulatory programs primarily a series of cap-and-trade programs starting with the -- that imposed increasingly stringent caps. they believe the best way to reduce emissions is to wait until plants trigger nsr and a required to install back the epa has learned it's actually much better just to issue regulations telling them that they have to reduce their emissions by how much and by win. you might be surprised to note that there are many different clean air act programs that regulate the very same pollutants from the very same facilities. effect power plant emissions of

so2 and nox a regulated under least 14 different clean air act programs. a a cornucopia of acronyms that some of you know. the testimony gives these programs no credit but these of the programs that actually reduce power plant emissions by 90% over the last 25 years and these of the very same programs that will make sure that pollutant continues to go down regardless of what happens with the nsr program. i did a word search last night and found 15 different places in the testimony say the reforms in the gain act would lead to either massive or enormous increases in pollution. 13 places saying ominously would allow industrial facilities to evade pollution controls. i will say any theoretical world where there are no other environmental regulations and there's unlimited demand for all products, this might be the case

but in a real-world even if congress decided to exempt all existing power plants from nsr entirely, and that's not what this bill does, but even if they did it would not be an increase in power plant pollution. because of the many of the programs the regulate the same pollutants from these facilities, emissions would continue to decrease as they have had been doing since 1990. the testimony almost concedes the total emissions would continue to go down but suggest the current program is needed to ensure that no individual plant can increase its annual emissions but this is just plain silly. the current nsr program does nothing to prevent a facility from increasing its emissions. annual emissions of individual plants go up and down all the time for reasons entirely unrelated to nsr and modifications. the hours that plants run depend entirely on what demand is to give economy heats up, or as of

the big power plants in an airship down for any reason, other plants will need to operate more hours. that's the way the world works. the nsr program doesn't prevent this but thankfully there are many other regulatory programs that when there are these increases in annual emissions, they are not enough to adversely affect air-quality across health problems. in the real world the current nsr program does make it difficult for plant owners to make capital investments that would make the place more efficient and it does make it more difficult to maintain industrial plants in good working order. they gain act would remove these disincentives were still ensuring that when new industrial facilities held or an existing facility is expanded it would be required to install the best available control technology. i thank you very much for inviting here today and look forward to answering questions thanks so much for a very thoughtful test with. we should you coming back to the committee today.

mr. walk. >> thank you, chairman barrasso and ranking member crapo. i have been a clean air attorney for over 25 years. i'm afraid this bill is most harmful send a bill to amend the clean air act i have ever read. this bill allows a greater amount of air pollution increases from a greater number of industrial polluters that any senate bill i have seen. indeed, the bill lets industrial facility increased dangers air pollution to higher levels than the ever have polluted, worsening air-quality. this bill lets the cells increase pollution although it up to the worst possible colluding hour in the past ten years and then incredibly the bill lets facilities exceed even that astronomical increase. bill supporters say their other legal limits on these enormous pollution increases. that begs the question, why we

can will also seduced to allow massive pollution increases if there are these other limits on actual pollution increases? the answer is because there are not these are the limits. my written testimony provides multiple examples of why these e are the limits on the pollution increases do not exist or do not limit massive increases. notably, the written testimony of my fellow witnesses does not contain a single example of a single law that limits actual air pollution increases from a single facility in the country, much less the many thousands of facilities this the would let increase air pollution. the main benefit of today's new source review safeguards are to constrain runaway pollution increases. when my fellow witness homesteaded, epa rejected approach similar to the spills amnesty saying the approach would mean quote, increases in emissions that would be detrimental to air-quality,, quote, allowing pollution increases of 100-200%.

the bush epa enforcement office found a single power plant that violated the law and the beta pollution controls would have been able to get away with an astonishing 21,000-ton per year increase in small pouring pollution under the approach of this bill and the approach the bush epa rejected. how bad is a 21,000-ton increase from one plant? that's greater than the total smog forming pollution from all coal burning power plants in each of these committee states, alabama, arkansas, delaware, iowa, maryland, mississippi, new jersey, oklahoma and oregon. 21,000-ton increase is an incredible 7% of all smog forming nitrogen oxide pollution emitted from all sources in indiana including cars and trucks and industrial and manufacturing plants. it's 10% of all sources in

kentucky, 12% of all sources in iowa, and an astounding 91% 91f all pollution from all sources in delaware of nitrogen oxides. when smokestacks are belching more smog pollution from burning coal or oil, they are also belching more of the brain poisons lead and mercury, more cancer causing pollution, more carbon pollution that dries dangerous climate change. a 21,010 smog increase would correspond to millions of tons of increased carbon pollution. what about claims bill encourages energy efficiency works what bills supporters -- marginal pollution pollution rates that are then allowed to increase overall air pollution significantly and worsen air-quality significantly. this is not greater efficiency. the bill does not require any efficiency improvements. facilities may increase pollution up to and beyond their worst possible polluting our integers becoming less

efficient. the parents of a child rushed to the er from an asthma attack do not care if pollution per product or kilowatt decreases. what these frantic parents care about is their daughters health after over all air pollution worsens causing her asthma attacks. that's what this bills amnesty enables, more pollution, more asthma attacks. this bill does confirm how illegal a proposed trump epa rollback is the pretense the cleaner act authorized the same rollbacks in this bill. current law does nothing of the sort as even the bills cosponsors seem to realize. the house is unlikely to pass any version of this bill. the main thing this bill appears to do now is attempt to give cover to the proposed trump epa rollback. the bill says it is merely clarifying the clean air act. that is plainly incorrect, as all the bills new text makes clear. if you want to industries

pollute more, that's what this bill does. if you want to explain to americans why we should let industry pollute all the way up to the worst possible polluting our interviews, that's what this bill does. and then pollute even more than that all the way up to what they are physically capable of polluting, that's what this bill does. deathly tiny particle pollution has worsened over 5% since 2016 here we don't need to go backward further. senators should not advance of this bill. thank you. >> thank you for your testimony. i would like to enter into the record a letter of support for today's hearing over this bipartisan bill to point out that this is a bipartisan submitted from the house represent the new source improving act, h.r. 172, the house the house companion to the gain act. i would encourage others in a bipartisan way to support the legislation. let's go to question at the time. time. i'd like to start with mr. holmstead. to understand how badly we need reform and you'd tested veteran

touched on some owes an overstatement. it would be helpful to the committee to know the types of projects that the current new source review program complicates or discourages government makes it harder. could you walk us through some examples of projects at a power plant or a factory that the current program discourages? >> sure, yes. i would love to do that. if you look at all be in us are enforcement groups like john walker has brought, here's what you see. there's a power plant that has a component, and these components are called -- it's a part of the power plant. it starts to wear out and so they replaced that component. they essentially just do the same thing that you do if you replace the water pump in your car. they are not increasing the output, not increasing the capacity. they're returning the plant to its original design, to its

original operations. there are hundreds of those projects. that's what the nsr program has done. if you operate a power plant jeff to have teams of engineers and lawyers to make sure some out you don't run afoul of this program. that's what all these nsr enforcement cases are about is simply letting plants -- will come efficiency improvement is another issue but for the most part these enforcement actions are about allowing plants to replace components that are part of way they work inside. >> mr. alteri, the trump administration is pursuing a number of reforms to the new source review program through updated regulations, guidance, memoranda, different things. in your testimony you note the commonwealth of kentucky has supported regulatory reforms to the program. as a state regulator who was implement the clean air -- you're an administrator who is implemented the clean air act.

can you talk about why legislation is also necessary? >> well, in kentucky where prohibited from regulating my policy and guidance and so it's always critical for epa to go through the regulatory rulemaking process. and also as a regulator and a former regulation supervisor, when you have clear statutory authority, then you don't have the risk of wasted effort when you do promulgate the regulations and you can also point back yet clear statutory authority. >> mr. holmstead come back to you. you heard the others testify, i know you read the testimony privacy, made some comments about that. anything else you've heard from the other witnesses in terms of you would like to add to your testimony from this morning? >> again, i would love to wager mr. walke. i would wager i'd use salary if you pass this bill there's not going to be an increase in pollution from power plants.

just think about it. power plants operate to provide electricity to people who demanded. demand it. if you pass this bill, is demand going to go up that will make power plant increase of hours of operations? no. all those power plants have limits in their permits or because of allowances that keep their pollution down. so that claim about these massive pollution increases, again, it's based on some theoretical world that's nothing like the real world. the other thing, i wish i could say quickly is, he claims in his written testimony that there's no evidence that the nsr program discourages efficiency improvements. and i would just suggest that when gina mccarthy takes over nrdc that have a conversation with her about this because she has acknowledged that's an issue. there are dozens and dozens of cases where power plants having energy efficiency improvements, and they been targeted by nsr

enforcement actions. and so mr. walke claims there's no peer-reviewed studies to prove that it discourages energy efficiency projects but all just to do is look out there and see all the plants have been subject to enforcement. i just think that's problematic. that's not the way the law should work. >> mr. alteri come back to you. 20 years even with the kentucky department of apartment protections. beyond the new source review program we're looking at today, did you discuss any other epa programs that congress ought to modernize? >> you know, i'm always cautious because i'm a huge fan of the clean air act and it's been a successful as legislation but i think you need to look at it really thoroughly and i think the way we handle nonattainment areas and basically we have a provision where we would withhold transportation dollars

if you don't achieve attainment with a certain time, that's counterintuitive to improving air quality in areas like cincinnati, ohio, los angeles where you need the infrastructure dollars to open up some quarters, washington, d.c., all the nonattainment areas in the northeast are up i-95. i-95. i think that's one area of where you want to be thoughtful and not restrict people from transportation improvements. >> senator carper. >> sometimes when we have hearings like this, and on other committees, too, where there's smart people on very to the site of the issue and and i will asm to help committee think through where a compromise lies. i would just ask, where you think a compromise lies in this area?

>> well, i think that there are speedy one that is respectful of human health, clean air, doing better better, thanks. >> sure. we should be encouraging to energy efficiency improvements that cause us to burn less fuel, save industries money, reduce carbon pollution and reduce air pollution. that is to efficiency. there are improvements that could be made to new source review to improve all of those fronts. what this bill does, however, is allow air pollution to increase, to allow fuel consumption to increase, to allow carbon pollution to increase while avoiding the installation of modern air pollution controls. that's not a reasonable compromise. it's something that the bush epa rejected under mr. holmstead. it's something the bush epa enforcement office criticized

heavily in materials i submitted to this record showing that the plants across the country were illegally invading pollution controls and increasing pollution by thousands of times. that's not the right answer. if we want real energy efficiency improvements, over all carbon pollution should go down over all air pollution should go down, and businesses can and will become more efficient. >> mr. holmstead, same question, please. >> i encouraged by what sean says. if there's a way to define, the way he defined energy efficiency improvements or efficiency improvements, if those things could become if you could know those things wouldn't trigger nsr, let's work out a real definition of energy efficiency improvement. i think that would be a big step in the right direction. i think that would be a great idea. and i appreciate the opportunity to have that conversation with

mr. walke. >> please. are you from kentucky? >> i am. >> kentucky was in the news last night. >> yes. we beat michigan state. >> there you go. [laughing] >> i think both of these gentlemen touched on it, is a boiler or an electric generating unit replaces a turban and it goes from efficiency from 30% to 43%, that should that should be celebrated by everybody. however, by increasing the efficiency it's going to dispatch more often and that goes to the annual increase in emissions. however, you are still making less pollution per megawatt hour. considering we are a cold state and affordable electricity for libel electricity is our focus, i think it only makes sense to improve the efficiency of those existing coal-fired generating units. >> mr. walke, did you want respond to that?

>> i mean, i touched upon this in my opening statement. pollution going down per megawatt doesn't help people for breathing dirtier air. does help that asthmatic child. that's not an improvement to the system. that's the severe weakening of the rules and it's exactly the type of thing that new source review is supposed to guard against. .. >> credit, in english the permission to pollute. in cap and trade you buy and sell allowances, to pollute. allowances allow that plant to increase pollution. there was a plant in texas last year that increased its emissions by over 20,000 tons,

by 54% over the year before. why? it had bought allowances. pollution got worse around at that texas town and down wind from that plant by 20,000 tons. allowances don't keep the emissions down. >> the program didn't stop plants from increasing hours of operation and you talked about allowances. there are a limit on the number of allowances, it is a limit on place. >> if plants to modify and this bill modifies the definition of modification rnths what you're talking about has no modification. >> all right. senator corker, you have the floor. >> i welcome the conversation and probably welcome it in other forums as well. the-- one of the concerns i heard raised about the legislation doesn't address pollution or-- from coal-fired utilities, but

also from thousands of others emitters. mr. walke, would you speak to that? >> yes, sir, the trump rollback would allow to increase pollution, but this would affect every industry in the united states and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of them that this bill would grant to increase harmful pollutionment hazardous waste incinerators, oil refineries, cement plants, you name it. that's what informs my statement at the top of my oral statement, this is the worst clean air bill that would worsen than any other ioc i've seen before. we don't need to go backwards. this is dangerous air pollution. we know that it's deadly and causes heart attacks and strokes and asthma attacks. we know that over 120 million-- ments right there. thank you. >> thank you. >> just yes or no. do you -- the point that

mr. walke is trying to make, this goes way, way, way beyond the number of utilities that especially concerned about to touch on thousands of other emitters: do you think that that might be some area of agreement? >> look, i think if we could do something for power plants and if that was a compromise that we'd reached, that would be great. i'm not -- i support the idea that you would have the same approach for other plants because i don't think they would increase their pollution. what we're talking about is hours of operation here. hours of operation is determined by demand for product that goes up and down. i don't think there would be an increase in pollution, but in the spirit of trying to find a compromise, if we could do it at least for power plants, that would be a step in the right direction. >> thank you all very much. >> senator inhofe. >> thank you, mr. chairman, i'm going to help senator carper

out with his statistics. we have looked and you have appeared before this committee several times just during the years that i chaired the committee, so maybe you weren't too far off. you are experienced here. let me just mention that, first of all, thank the chairman for hosting this hearing on the gain act, important legislation we need to streamline registry overreach. now, registry overreach goes far beyond just the 70 that we're talking about today. in fact, the fact that we have arguably the best economy that we've had in maybe in my lifetime, two things precipitated that. one was that we lower the-- and reduction, but also regulatory relief. so this is something that we're very sensitive to. i remember during the four years that you had the office of air and radiation, we

addressed this. let me ask you, mr. holmstead, talk -- we haven't really talked about job creation which is what one of the things that is supposed to be accomplished with the new source review. so respond to that and also how the gain act reforms helped job growth. >> so i -- i think the best indications that this would be good for jobs comes from the support from the labor unions. you mentioned, i think, that there were seven labor unions and it's mostly the building trades that are supportive of this because they do see the project that they would be working on, that companies don't do because of nsr. and so, i think that that would-- that in and of itself is pretty good evidence. i think it's pretty hard to come up with numbers, but because you would -- because you would reduce the threat of

nsr, i think you would certainly unleash a lot of economic activity and making plants more efficient. >> and mr. -- i came over and introduced myself to you so i could pronounce your name correctly and still haven't done it. but anyway, as you know, the states are primarily regulator of the new source review program and your testimony highlighted that since 2008, kentucky has issued more than 25 new source review permits, but during the time it appears you've also seen the program used by activists it delay important projects that would improve both environmental quality and modernization of facilities. so mr. alteri, would you agree it's possible to protect air quality while also streamlining the nsr permitting?

and would you agree that the gain act balances those interests? >> i think it does, but i think during this conversation it has raised issues relative to who else it would effect. but i think if you have an opportunity to improve energy efficiency at existing coal-fired units, i think you do have the opportunity to row dues pollution without triggering nsr and costly litigation. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i might add we're passing around something at that can be signed by some of the members for an american he hero that senator carper called to our attention and i'll pass that around. >> thank you. senator gillibrand. . >> welcome, the trump administration looking to replace with weaker standards. these rollbacks mean more not less pollution falling on

adirondacks and power plants in the midwest. and the six acre adirondack park, forests have suffered the worst acid rain damage in the united states including the chemical chemical sterilization of hundreds of high elevation lakes and ponds. a review of emissions data from the add ran dak council shows 2017-2018 infuse of sulfur dioxide increased in coalen had fired plants, that produce acid rain. what impact would it have on downwind states like in new york? >> as i testified, this bill would allow very significant air pollution increases and we know that the pollution is

carried by wind to downwind states. the trump administration has denied pleading requests from new york to protect the air quality in new york from up wind power plants. my testimony has at the back maps of the really shocking, stunning number of coal-fired power plants in this country to date that still lack modern air pollution controls like shrubbers and those for smog. those plants have been grandfathered in many cases since the 1940's and 1950's and it's in their economic interest to run longer and harder, to increase air pollution, and to continue to evade controls and that hurts downwind states like new york, delaware and maryland. it hurts the adirondacks and this would make air pollution worse not better. >> if inacted would residents of new york have to worry about more frequent acid rain events in their communities?

>> yes, and the reason is that this bill increases long-term annual air pollution levels of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide to cause acid rain, as well as a number of chronic health problems from long-term exposure to these pollutants, including cardiovascular and respiratory problems and even premature death. >> well, i would like to issue a standing invitation to my republican colleagues on this committee to spend some time with me in the adirondacks so you can see why these impacts would be horrible for that region. and ozone forms on hot sunny days when pollution from cars, power sources and reacts with sunlight. ozone is likely to reach the levels on hot sunny days and have known health effects.

it affects people with asthma, children, older americans, and people who are active jut doors, especially outdoor workers. what effect does increased pollution from power plants have on ozone formation and other air quality problems in states that are downwind to the emitting source? >> so coal-fired power plants are one of the largest sources in the united states of a smog-forming pollutant called nitrogen oxides, causing respiratory problems and even premature deaths from the literature from owe sen. we know the downwind states are suffering from pursue plants they cannot control, from the east as well. another dirty secret, i'm afraid, even plants equipped with these controls are allowed to turn them off after they are

charging customers for these controls that they are not allowed to-- that they're allowed not to operate, including on summer days when there are very high ozone levels that hurt new yorkers. >> can you expand on the public health implications for people in states like new york? >> yes, again, we -- we know that some of these types of air polluti pollution, fine particle pollution in particular, are unsafe at any level and so that even in areas that are nominally meeting these standards, people are dying, people are suffering heart attacks and strokes. parts of new york have some of the highest asthma rates of anywhere in the country that affects children in particular. then of course, we have a lot of very toxic pollutants, like mercury and lead, that come from these power plants that are landing in water ways and it's a full suite of health

problems that americans are still suffering, especially from these large uncontrolled and poorly controlled coal plants. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you so very much. senator braun. >> thank you, mr. chair. number one, i think the discussion we're having is pertinent in the sense that next to the cost of health care, needing to be fixed in an industry that's digging in and fighting almost everything we're doing to try to have us help them fix themselves, this is a point that can be confusing the most in the sense, if you become more efficient, isn't it close to a zero sum game in the sense, in this one plant if you're more efficient, to mr. holmstead first and then i'd like mr. walke's response, wouldn't you at least be holding your own in terms of emissions?

because demand has been relatively flat given how fast the economy is growing for electricity anyway. so i know that if you'd run it more, that particular plant would be emitting more, but if you're running less efficient plants, less, isn't it close to a zero sum game when it comes to emissions? >> thank you for making that point. as you say, the amount, the number of hours these plants run depend on the demand for electricity which has been very flat. so, if one plant becomes more efficient and runs more hours, that means that another plant is going to run fewer hours and you'd have to look at the emission rate of each plant to see and in general you'd expect an overall reduction as you start to shift generations to more efficient plants. >> mr. walke. >> senator brownet, that could be an area of reasonable compromise.

if a plant is going to keep its production flat, there are mechanisms in the law where it can agree to do so and it won't increase dangerous air pollution. that's a reasonable outcome and if it doesn't increase dangerous air pollution, it won't require pollution control. so it can become more efficient, as you posited. but it can also fail to increase dangerous air pollution. unfortunately, that's not what this bill does. so if there was interest on your part in changing the approach and the bill to make clear that plants can become more efficient and not increase dangerous air pollution by agreeing to limit to the demand that you acknowledge has been flat, that's a very sensible outcome. >> now, i think that might occur somewhat naturally, even without a provision because i don't see utilities producing more than what the demand is and that's been relatively flat so maybe that's something that would be a pleasant outcome without needing a requirement.

next question, regardless of what we do here and anything impacting climate in the u.s., where do you see in any of the panelists feel free to jump in, what impact does this have on the world in terms of our impact and percentage, if india and china keep on the trajectory they're on? so if we do things that cost a lot in the present, which is the biggest variable in any financial analysis, what you spend today, anything that you accrue in terms of benefits is somewhat of an estimate. what's the best kind of number out there of how this impacts what happens around the world? because we breathe an atmosphere that diffuses across the world. >> well, in kentucky we're a manufacturing state. so if you drive up electric

prices artificially or through these regulations, then you would end up shifting that demand-- that manufacturing to countries that do not have the environmental laws that we have. we've had significant emissions reductions and i think you would lose that gain if you end up shifting jobs to even mexico. >> senator, i would make two points. in the mid 1970's, united states was a world leader in removing lead from gasoline. that saved a tremendous number of lives and avoided misery in this country. that u.s. leadership spread to countries around the globe and now we don't have lead and gasoline in most countries in the world. that's the type of american leadership that we need to confront the climate crisis. you are correct, if india and china do not reduce their emissions, then we are in big trouble. but america needs to get its house in in order first and address the problems that we

have control over and to negotiate and to work with other countries. that's what the paris climbed accord was trying to do and this administration stepped away from it. i support your call for american leadership and exporting american ingenuity to countries around the world. >> very good. do want to announce that i'm the first republican to join bipartisan climate caucus and we now have three or four others as well and i think this capsulizes, really in a good fashion, the discussion and i believe if we're not having it, we've seen a little bit of commonalty in terms of even the nsr and discussion on how this is a global discussion as well. and it's going to be the driving issue over the next couple of decades. so i'm glad to see folks of different points of view still seem to be zeroing in on the same outcome.

thank you. >> thank you, senator braun. senator van holland. >> thank you all for your testimony today. senator and are are both from the state of maryland and maryland is a downwind state and we suffer from some of what you heard from senator gillibrand. in 2015 maryland filed a petition concerning air pollution generated by 36 power plants located in indiana, kentucky, ohio, pennsylvania, and west virginia. and the point of that petition was that, that pollution coming from those states was making it harder for maryland to meet its air quality goals and causing more health risks in the state of maryland. so we've filed a petition with the epa in september of last year, epa denied maryland's good neighbor petition.

that's been appealed by our attorney general. so this conversation is important to maryland like other states as well. so, mr. walke, i'm trying to understand one thing. i understand it the nsr only applies to existing sources if a facility wants to make changes that will significantly increase its aggregate annual pollution, is that right? >> correct so maybe i misunderstood you, mr. holmstead, i thought you said you would bet mr. walke that these emissions from a plant with these changes-- did i misunderstood you? >> what i said was power plants in the united states would not increase. total power plant emissions would continue to decrease, the question at an individual power

plant emissions increase and decrease all the time, every year they increase and decrease. >> right, but the law here only triggers-- no, no. >> if there's-- let me make sure i understand and as i understand it, this law only applies if the air pollution generated at the particular plant in question will increase. isn't that true? just yes or no, is that true? >> no. >> it's more complicated. >> mr. walke. >> if you'd let me answer. i . >> i only have a certain amount of time and let mr. walke-- >> the answer is absolutely yes. >> a and how many times that-- ments if they reduce their emissions. >> i'll come back to you in a second round. mr. walke could you explain your answer to that question? >> yes, the law says exactly what you said, senator van hollen, only if a change at a facility increases emissions

significantly in tons per year from that plant. what jeff's answer reveals is that on balance across the entire united states, the power sector's pollution will go down. that's no consolation to someone living next to a plant that has its pollution increased by 10,000 tons per year. >> and it's no consolation, frankly, to maryland, if the plants in question are the plants that are causing pollution to drift to maryland and impact air quality in maryland. so, yeah, i just -- that's what i thought, which is why i thought that was a little change strange, betting overall that pollution from power plants will go down in the united states. there's lots of reasons for that, but the whole purpose of this law is directed at a particular power plant. as i understand mr. walke, if you want to do a deal with him where you can guarantee in advance that another power plant may be owned by the same company is going to reduce, you know, its air pollution by more than compensated, maybe that's

a discussion we should have. let me just-- i understood you earlier, mr. walke to point out that trying to frame this bill as a clarification of existing law, obviously, flies in the face of the facts, right? and if epa thought-- this current epa, the trump administration thought that this was compliant with the law, wouldn't they have included this in their most recent revisions to the obama power plant rule? >> yes, sir, they clearly failed to finalize that rule because they were getting advice from lawyers and the epa and justice department that it was severely problematic. the first half of this bill essentially replicates what the trump epa is doing and has just, you know, sentence after sense after sense that congress says you can only change the law by amending the law. >> and the second, extreme

pollution increases in the name of reliability, that not even the trump administration was audacious enough to claim that a was allowed under current law and yet this bill caused that to a clarification of the law. it doesn't pass the test. >> thank you, sir. >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you all of you for being here. mr. holmstead, i'm going to give you a chance to respond, understanding it's more complicated, but i want to say a few things before i turn the floor over to you. first of all, i am a co-sponsor of the gain act and i think because we have a bipartisan-- we have several bipartisan pieces of legislation here that are carbon capture and utelization with the dual purposes of preserving the economy and cleaning the environment at the same time. and the way i understand this, if you add on and make a

significant investment with the goal of reducing your emissions and you're more efficient, that it would stand to reason that you would be more economical and so your plant would be running more, more time, putting out more production, therefore, maybe your per unit emission is less, but your overall mission may be more because you're running more efficient efficiently. wouldn't we rather have, like senator from indiana said, you're only going to go to a certain demand. wouldn't we rather have the more efficient, cleaner plant going than having the less efficient plants, you know, keeping their steady production numbers, but adding to the emission count at the same time? so, am i understanding that right? and if you could-- no, no, absolutely. you've explained it better than perhaps than i've been. and that is, yes, a more

efficient plant would likely run more hours, but that would mean that other less efficient plants run fewer hours, so on an overall basis you, you would expect pollution to decrease. as i say before, plants increase and decrease annual emissions all the time. based on demand. based on whether other plants in the area are out of service, and the nsr program doesn't stop that, but we have all kinds of other laws in place to make sure that those variations we see on a year to year basis don't adversely affect public health. >> another question i have in your testimony and this is conflicting, i think, information that we've heard in the testimony. you say emission reductions have dramatically improved over the quality of the air that we breathe. nobody's pro pollution. i mean, let's take that off the table. but according to the epa's air trends report. since 1990, national concentrations of air pollutants have improved 89%

f for-- 74% for co and 57 for nox and 21% for ozone. so we're trending down. is that a correct interpretation of what your testimony is? >> yes. no, absolutely. air quality improvement over the last 0 years have been pretty dramatic throughout the country, 30 years, and it's been a remarkable achievement attributable to the clean air act. >> as for one of those states that the senator from maryland, i guess he's down wind from west virginia and he's lucky to be there. [laughter]. >> guest: but this is an argument, and also being from a coal producing state. so in order to get to that goal of keeping our coal miners working at least efficiently to get to that. c cu goal, we've got to keep

moving forward, i think, with encouraging the investments that are going to keep it-- make it more efficient, number one-- well, maybe not number one, they are tied. more improving and lowering emissions. that to me is the whole point of the gain act. i want to ask mr. alteri from kentucky. you highlight the fact that kentucky was repeatedly sued touched by permits. do you feel by the convoluted ways that that they're drafted is contributing to these lawsuits? >> well, i think implementation of the rules and i think it's been highlighted so if you replace a turbine and then you run the unit more, then you're going to increase more than 40 tons per year and that would trigger nsr and it's that improvement of the energy efficiency of the turbines that haven about the subject of

these litigation between those two. but at the same time while you're improving the efficiency of the turbine, i'm assuming you're cutting emissions at the same time. >> per megawatt hour. >> thank you, i appreciate all the panelists in this hearing. senat senator, sometimes i don't know whether i'm in west virginia or maryland, we share a similar goal. i was intrigued by senator braun's questioning on trying to reach some agreement here and i think the confusion, as i understand it, is yes, you can make an individual power plant more efficient as far as its production and pollution, but if the total mix in the region is increasing because that plant is not doing what it should be doing, the overall

impact is dirtier air. that's, as i understand it, the dilemma we're in. so, perhaps we have something going on an individual plan if it doesn't increase its capacity, but reduces its emissions, that may be an area where we could reach some type of accord, if i understand what mr. walke is saying. i want to follow up though on the point that senator van hollen made and that is, we are down state wind, maryland, no question about it. the clean air act gives us the opportunity to challenge when there's pollution coming from a different state, it affects our ability to comply with the national ambient air quality standards. so my concern, and i want to get mr. walke, your view on this, is that this legislation would make it more difficult for maryland to challenge another state's activities in regards to maryland's meeting our air quality standards.

am i-- is that a concern i should have? >> you should because that's completely correct. this bill would authorize those pollution increases and say they're just fine to occur under the law. maryland is helpless to control that increased air pollution that's occurring in indiana or in other upwind state. so the burden that falls on maryland is to crack down on pollution sources inside maryland's borders that are not responsible for the problem. maryland has turned to the epa to plead for help and they've consistently denied those requests, and now we have two court decisions within the past two months that have struck down the trump administration's approach to failing to protect downwind states and they've denied maryland's petition based upon one of those faulty legal defenses that the courts have said is insufficient.

so, you know, we need leadership that will protect downwind states because the current epa is not doing so, the trump epa rollback will make things much worse and this bill would as well. >> i appreciate that answer. we do have our challenges. there's no question, with the regulatory and the activities of the epa. and giving legal justification to some of this through this bill would make it, as you say, more challenging. i want to get to a statement that you made that really has me of concern. i looked at your map. i looked at the coal burning plants and i saw how they are surrounding my state. and then you said many still don't have the scrubbers and the modern technology to make them as efficient as possible. and you said that this legislation may even make it more challenging for those types of improvements to be maids. can you elaborate to why you believe that that is -- we haven't made more progress in cleaning up those plants?

>> sure. when congress adopted this new source review program in 1977, older plants before that date were grandfathered and they were only required to install modern pollution controls when they undertook modifications. na is the subject of this bill. not new plants, there's agreement that new plants have to stall controls. and some of those were challenges of a new plant. that's not what this bill was about. what this bill does is say to those grandfathered power plants, that still lack controls after being built in the 30's, 40's, 50's and 60 a he is, that you can continue to run forever without installing modern pollution controls, you can overhaul your facility and extend its life by 20, 30, 40 years and that's indefensible to me in america in 2019 and

the bill extends to every industrial in united states. again, it's going to make air quality worse and air pollution problems worse not just in downwind states, but in states where the grandfathered plants are continuing to operate uncontrolled. >> thank you, mr. chair. >> senator markey. >> thank you, mr. chair. the clean air act has been cleaning up america's air since 1970 and would cut down dangerous toxins like lead and mercury, particulates in the air and improving health of people across the nation. the clean air act resource review program is key to improving our quality standards, any attempts to weaken the new source review, to a major health would be a big win for dirty coal and energy facilities that want to put as much pollution into the air as they want. mr. walke, does the new source review program successfully help to control the emissions increases that affect the community around power plants?

>> it does, i want to make a point that the role that the new source roux he -- review plays in the act, put restraints on run away. if -- i think of it as an iceberg, 7/8 of at iceberg is below the surface. 7/8 of new source review prevents run away pollution and that's what this bill is trying to-- >> i agree with you. the gain act would allow facilities to emit more dangerous pollutants and toxins, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide. is it true that it would have unlimited license to pollute? >> it will under this bill. mr. holmstead is it correct, there may be constraints on

limited increases in some cases, but there's not that go limits air pollution not even a comma. >> i was trying to think of analogy. say you smoke one cigarette per day. so you smoke 365 cigarettes a year. and the doctor says well, that's okay. one a day. cigarettes are bad, keep it to one a day, your health might be okay. but you are physically capable of smoking ten cigarettes an hour. under the gain act rules applied to cigarettes you'd be able to smoke ten cigarettes an hour, 365 days a year, 87,600 cigarettes in one year. >> that's correct. >> not 365, 80,000 cigarettes before your doctor would be able to tell you to stop. the doctor here being the epa, you've got to stop. so if you can smoke 87,600 cigarettes a year, it's probably going to hurt your health. >> that's right. >> it's probably going to hurt your lungs. >> i'll agree with that one.

>> thank you. >> and so that's really what the problem is, that it just opens up this huge loophole and unfortunately, smokers need some limits because we know that it causes cancer and the children of america, who could contract asthma, you know, pregnant women, they need protections as well. and so, this just blows open all the protections and the analogy with cigarettes is something that-- from my perspective is just so easy to understand that instead, it's just going to be going out of smoke stacks, but into the lungs of people all across our country. and the bill would authorize that massive pollution increase and we need a cleaner air future, not to go back in time. four out of 10 americans are

living with unhealthy air and companies are affected by air pollution, and african-americans in areas of emissions like soot, and the trump administration epa has been hard at work trying to dismantle air quality protections across the board. mr. walke, do you agree that it would mean that old plants, coal plants could emit more life threatening pollution? >> absolutely. as senator van hollen led mr. holmstead to acknowledge, individual power plants, individual facilities that number in the thousands across the united states would be allowed to increase pollution upped under this bill. >> and let me ask you a question, massachusetts doesn't have any more coal plants operating. you responded about the air quality, could you tell me

about the gain act on the air quality in massachusetts. >> in figure, worse, new england, maine, massachusetts an often called the end of the tail pipe. and pollution from the southeast and midwest directly into the commonwealth's back yard. >> if we have the gain act, existing facilities in every state could use loopholes to spew out 20,000 tons per year of nitric objectixide and that be in massachusetts travelling downwind to the commonwealth of massachusetts from other places, blowing the smoke, like a father smoking a cigar in the front seat and blowing to the kids in the back seat i'm not responsible for the impact on the kids with the windows up. that's what happens with the wind blowing towards the east coast, towards massachusetts and other states.

we're the ones that have to inhale this dangerous and unnecessarily permissive new law that is being proposed. so i thank you, mr. chairman, thank you for the opportunity to be able to question. >> thank you very much. senator cramer. >> thank you. mr. chairman, thanks to all of you for being here. i ask your forgiveness tore my tardiness. i presided over the senate wednesday mornings and i thought it was okay when i picked that time. i missed an hour of good hearings. absent that first hour, i'm going to throw a couple of things out maybe to facilitate some discussion if that's okay. you know, i think some of you know, maybe all of you know that i was a regulator for ten years in north dakota on the public service commission where we had very broad as well as fairly deep regulatory authority over lots of things, not just economics, but environmental and siting and all of that. and one of the challenges -- one of my frustrations with ntr

has always been what seems to me to be a perverse incentive away from the innovation that would actually be applied especially to existing facilities in the form of modifications, that would actually be cleaner, but the incentive is to not do it as for nsr. i'm sure you've discussed some of that, but maybe i would just throw out along with that frustration, there's got to be some bipartisan, you know, wide ranging solutions that don't perversely incent the wrong activity. assuming, i think we all can, support cleaner and lowering of emissions and pollutants of all times. do any of you or all of you have just an idea for us, whether it's the gains act and in fact, i will be a co-sponsor of it, to try and bring clearer

definition to terms? but is there something we can be doing together that, you know, senator carper and i can agree on? because we tend to agree more often than people might think. what's the middle ground? what are some of the thoughts that people can share with us to get to the goal that we all share? is that fair? >> sure. >> well, in my testimony, i offered to narrow the scope even further to just existing coal-fired generating unit and that's a known universe, it's not going to grow. if they were to add a new unit at that existing plant it would be nsr and do not ignore how beneficial the air pollution rule is. we're talking ancient history when we're talking about tail pipes. mobile vessels are your problem and marine vessels in the northeast. kentucky, i don't know the air quality phenomenon that allows emissions from kentucky to leap

over west virginia and fall down in one concentrated area in hartford, maryland. i just don't know how that works. i really think that marine vessels, mobile sources, peak demand generators operated on high ozone days, those are the focus. maybe we should focus in that arena, but as far as narrowing the scope of this legislation, you could do it with existing sources, but do not ignore the great benefits. the cross state air pollution rule, we talked about allowing areas that are more concentrated than pollutants. well, the 2017 update narrowed that to states. those are narrowed to the states. so kentucky cannot emit more by buying allowances from georgia or indiana or somewhere else. that's old ancient history. >> i know you're very familiar with, and referenced it in your testimony as well. that's one we're fairly familiar with as well.

is there a way to do this? >> so, you raise an interesting point that if we really do want coal fired power plants to ininstall carbon cop tour and sequestration, coming up with some way to help them do that without having the regulatory burdens like nsr would be a good thing and maybe that's an area where we could come up with some sort of an increase because everybody, i believe, supports that kind of an approach and i know from the experience of nsr, it was a huge impediment. the other thing i would offer and we talked a little about this before you were able to get here is, you know, defining energy efficiency improvements in a way that everybody would be comfortable with. i mean, boy, i just don't know why you would want to have this regulatory hurdle for people who want to improve the efficiency of their facilities. and sean mentioned an issue

that's come up in a number of cases, you can now buy more efficient turbine blades for coal-powered plants and if you do you trigger nsr. and the cost of triggering nsr, no one wants that, and you have people passing up the energy efficiencies. >> could you-- thank you, senator cramer, that's kind of you. senator, i don't have a specific idea, but i think most americans think that there's a pretty simple common sense question that should be answered. will any reform let plants pollute more after the reform than they did before? and if the answer to that is question yes, then maybe we should look for other solutions. we're in agreement, less pollution, less carbon pollution is a good thing, but i think we need to look

elsewhere for solutions since the answers at this hearing are so clear today that this bill will let plants pollute more. so maybe that's just not the solution that we need to try to find the compromise around. >> thank you, mr. chair. >> thank you, senator carper. >> thank you. before i know my colleague has to leave, i circulated earlier today a card to send to an army ranger who was almost killed in afghanistan two months ago today. and if you have a minute to sign that, that would be great, thank you. mr. chairman, i mentioned, too, three unanimous consent, i'd like to to submit data from this administration showing emission pollution, carbon pollution, in our country increasing not decreasing. >> without objection. >> the second one, to the-- i'd like to address unanimous

consent to submit for the record a letter opposing the gain act from the sierra club, organizations caution if this bill were enacted it would, i quote their letter, allow enormous increases in air pollution, there by endangering public health. closed quote and completely eviscerating the clean air act, new source review, thank you, mr. chairman and one more, request, ask unanimous consent to submit for the record, studies, letters, more from the renowned public health organization former epa officials that show how the gain act and previous proposals by congress, epa, weaken the clean air act attempting to completely re structural ultima ultimate ly harming our health -- that's a long sentence. >> without objection. >> thanks to all of you for

being here and some of have been here many times and for being here today. i -- mr. walke, if i could, mr. holmstead's testimony also says that the test flowing increase in emissions would be the same for new source review as it is for the clean air acts, section 111 new source performance standards provision. and would you take a moment and speak about the differences between these two programs and describe why congress found it necessary to add the new source review program in the clean air act amendments of 1977? >> yes, senator carper. the new source performance standard program that you're referring to was and is viewed to be unsuccessful at reducing pollution or even constraining pollution from individual plants. so congress added the new source review safeguards in 1977 to complement the program.

the new source performance program is on federal technology standards, but it doesn't prevent wild increases in emissions that can hurt people from actual plants. that's why we have new source review added to the law. what this bill would do is effectively eliminate new source review and replace it with new source performance standards that would allow plants to increase up to their worst possible polluting hour in ten years and obviously doesn't protect people living around specific plants or protect people living in downwind states. >> thank you. >> and mr. alteri, where do you live in kentucky? >> warrens burg. >> where is that? >> it's between louisville and lexington, between-- >> are those adult beverages? >> are those dairy products? >> if it will make you feel better. [laughte [laughter]

>> my sister lives just south of there in winchester. and i'll mention that you were here. my question for you, i think it was in 2012, kentucky's power plants were some of the largest emitters of mercury and toxic in our country. and in written you've said that they've reduced emissions under section 112 clean air act also known as mercury and toxic air standard rule. would you oppose any efforts to undermine mats today? >> i would. >> thank you very much. >> and mr. holmstead, closing question for you as well. in 2012 while you were running the epa air office, epa expressly rejected a change to nsr based on the maximum hourly

emission rate. the george w. bush epa, i'm told, warned that using such a test would not-- i'm going to quote, would, could sanction greater actual emission increases to the environment, often from older facilities without any pre-construction review, closed quote and that section approach, quote, could lead to an unreviewed increase-- could lead to unreviewed increases in emissions that would be detrimental to air quality, closed quote. and my question, mr. holmstead-- i'm wondering, were you wrong then or do you think you might be wrong today? >> so i -- let me be clear, we never rejected this approach. we didn't adopt it, but i have-- and i have to say that i was to read mr. walke quotes, what i

will say is, you know, you emphasized the right words there, something like this could allow increases, or might allow increases. what we know from the real world is that they would not, or it's highly unlikely that they would. so if we lived in a world where nsr was the only-- was the only regulatory program that applied to existing facilities, if that were the case, then i would agree that this-- this bill could allow pollution increasesment again, the amount of pollution is not a function of-- what we're talking about is hours of operation and hours of operation depend on demand for your product. right? i mean, plants don't exist so they can maximize their pollution, they exist so they can sell things to people and so whether you're talking electricity or widgets. that's ultimately what determines the hours of

operations that people run. whether or not you modify, whether you become more efficient, all of those things are constrained by demand. going back to your question though, if the nsr program were the only program and if demand were essentially unconstrained, yes, this would allow more pollution, but we don't live in a world like that. we live in the real world and i have to say, i care a lot about air pollution, but i also care about doing it in the right way and we've learned a lot over the years and the nsr program is just not a very effective way to reduce air pollution. it's good for new sources because they're required to install pollution control. it's good when they expand that, you're required to stall pollution control. but playing this game of

gotcha, and we try to get them to trigger nsr has moved not to be a very effective way and creates sort of the wrong incentives. >> thank you for that. john, take just 30 seconds to close this out, please. >> sure, just two quick points. despite these general reassurances for jeff, let me emphasize that he's not identified a single law in the that would limit increases in actual emissions from thousands of plants that this bill covers, the way that the nsr modification program does. the second point i would make is jeff's enforcement colleagues down the mall identified plant after plant after plant that had increased emission the under the test that epa rejected. there was nothing theoretical about it. the air got dirtier and thicker. >> and this is not an issue as we've said already, and one we've been talking about, arguing about and discussing

for a long time and your legislation, if nothing else, is sort of giving us an opportunity to revisit and maybe have the start of a productive conversation, i'm not sure, but we'll see. >> thank you. >> thank you very much, senator carper. mr. alteri, mr. walke was making an answer a new source or old, and you shook your head about what happened in kentucky. i don't feel the specifics of that. is that something you'd like to clarify? >> mr. walke was correct on two new units, coal and gas located right at the mines so i think you're reducing your carbon footprint having access to local fuel sources. the other actions related to improvements that exist in facilities. and it also included when you put on a scrubber and you have a selective catalytic reduction strategy with ammonia injection, it creates sulfuric acid mist and that triggers

nsr. even though you're having a 95% reduction from so-2, because of the chemistry and atmospheric chemist chemistry, increasing sulfuric mist, and-- i think that's to make nsr reforms where there are not litigation costs as well as going through the permitting process for something that's a pollution control project. >> thank you, mr. walke described the gain act as a license to pollute. >> can you comment on the accuracy of that statement? >> well, you won't be surprised that i disagree. what this rule would do was remove the threat of triggering nsr that discourages company from doing the things that we should want them to do. we should want them to maintain their facilities.

if you're-- you know, if your boiler tubes wear out, you ought to be able to repair your facility and turn it to the way it was. if you want to improve the efficiency of your facility, why in the world do you want to have this-- this permitting requirement that is cumbersome, takes a long time, can be expensive. why do you want that? we have all of these other registry programs that protect air quality and-- and this one has just not worked well when it comes to, if you're trying to get plants to actually reduce their emissions. it just hasn't worked. and so i-- i'm frustrated because i see that we're -- that, you know, as a country, and this is a small part of our economy, but it's nevertheless very important, and you talk to manufacturing facilities, you talk to anybody and they say, nsr is a significant problem

and i just wish that we had some way to fix it and i think this act would be a very sensible way to do that. >> well, thank you all. now, the committee has received a number of letters in support of the gain act from a number of groups, including the national association of manufacturers, the portland cement association, the american forest and paper association, the international brotherhood of boilermakers, pennsylvania chamber of industry and without objection, ask unanimous consent to enter the letters into record and it's so done. we've heard from the witnesses and thank you all for being here with your testimony. there are no more people to ask questions today at the hearing, they may submit written questions sore the hearing record is open for two week. thank you for being here, thank you for your time, thank you for your testimony.

hearing is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >> the house will be in order. >> for 40 years c-span has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from washington d.c. and around the country. so you can make up your own mind. created by cable in 1979, c-span is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. government. >> the u.s. senate is about to gavel in to resume work on judicial nominations today. confirmation votes are planned on three nominees, u.s. district judge for the eastern district of arkansas, district judge for the middle district of pennsylvania and u.s. appeals court second district which covers connecticut, new york and vermont.

now to live coverage. senate here on c-span2. the president pro tempore: the senate will come to order. the senate will be opened by the senator from oklahoma, mr. inhofe, and he will lead us in prayer. mr. inhofe: let us pray. almighty god, creator of all, as we gather here today, we are grateful for the service members