in the state of montana, there are several forest hardwood plants. they tell us under the first set that is would cost something like $11 million to put in, whereas the second set of rules $1 million and the first set it would be more than their annual payroll, that is a capital cost and maintenance cost would be more than the annual payroll. the capital cost would be extremely difficult to deal with. now, they're not wild about the second set of rules. but they can live with them. i believe frankly that as most issues there's a little bit of truth in both sides. i think we should try to cut through to get to the facts and do something that makes sense here. for me it's looking at the fact

because the epa is going to promulgate this new rule in i think it's may of this year. it looks like it's going to be what i just outlined, that that might be the discretion is the better part of valor here. we do want to tighten up standards. one thing that sort of struck me a little bit, under the law, you all know this, epa is required every year to come up with the top 12% technologies across the country in this certain category. pretty soon it's hard to start coming up with the next 12%. it's a very interesting law. my sense is that just personal based upon my experience in my state and a bit with the epa over the years that this new

rule is going to go probably into effect on which -- i think it's the better of many choices. if that's the case, i don't know why we need to have a provision in this bill which changes that, when basically we're here to deal with the payroll tax issue and take on something that maybe can be handled in other venues more appropriately. >> i think, senator, i think one of the republican senators might have something to say -- >> if they stop following the 12% year after year -- the costs continue and the costs get more and more and the benefits become less and theoretical. which is why i think this needs to be in here because the costs

continue to be real and the benefits get less and less. >> mr. levin. >> we have a pretty tight regimented program here. >> we can do another round. i thought we'd keep moving and go to mr. levin and then come back. >> i leave my comments to the third round. i don't know if -- all right, so the two of you will split the second round. i don't know about you, mr. van holland. >> and chairman -- is this on? there we go. i think it's on. chairman, to me i'm going to keep this drum beat going. we've got work to do and we're

on the clock. today's the second of february, we have 27 days before our authority expires to extend the pay roll tax cut for 160 million working, tax paying americans, to extend the insurance benefits for up to 5 million americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own and to make sure that some 48 million seniors in our country continue to have access to the doctors they've come to count on under medicare. but the little secret that all 20 of us know in this room that most americans don't know is that we really don't have 27 days. in the house we have no more than 13 legislative days left before the end of this month. and so at least on the house side and i suspect the senate is fairly similar in terms of the number of voting legislative working days that you will have, we're down to about 13 days of actual work to be done before

the clock runs out, not on us because i dare say the 20 of us aren't going to feel the effects of failure but the 160 million working tax paying americans who won't get the tax -- payroll tax cut extension, the almost five million americans who are desperately looking for work, lost their jobs through no fault of their own and 48 million seniors, who expect to be able to go to their doctor. as i said at the very beginning, there are some areas where i think we have found the sweet spot. those three items that we've mentioned, there seems to be clear agreement that we should extend those. there are some areas where there is clear controversy. we touched on some of those yesterday with regard to these changes to the unemployment insurance programs with the short time we have when some of these ideas have been out there for quite some time. we should do those that are common sense, the improvements that we can all agree on.

but we should not let controversial items put at risk the lifeline that 160 million working families are counting on, the lifeline that desperate -- some 5 million desperate americans are counting on so they can continue to make the search for a job and 48 million seniors who are wondering what the heck did i do to be caught in a situation where i may not be able to go to my doctor anymore. so i would really encourage us with not 27 but maybe no more than 13 legislative days left before the clock runs out on us that we focus on the sweet spot and that's getting the work done that most americans expect of us. and i know that there are issues both ways and it is a bipartisan issue in some respects. but i don't think we're going to resolve it easily, the 20 of us, because this has been going on for quite some time.

i would uj to rge us to refocus the three things that americans expect us to get done. i really urge that movement. >> mr. brady. >> we'll go to the third round. >> thank you. let me talk about some of those extraneous workers. evaville texas, 1,483 population, i checked this morning in forest of southeast texas. major employer is a paper mill hires 700 workers, union workers with the steel workers. they produce paper products. this morning in you stop by starbucks or put a juice box in your kids' lunch, you're probably familiar with what they produce. they compete internationally, very tight margins. for many years they would barely breakin. they have a plant manager jim, they've worked with the union, they've streamlined themselves, they're as productive as anywhere in the country and now they are profitable.

in fact, not only are they profitable but almost half of everything they produce they are competing and selling and winning in china. one out of every two union workers at that mill is competing and winning in china. one of the ways it became competitive is became self-efficient. they used renewable energy, biomass, wood chips, debris from the forest floor, which keeps it healthy and byproducts of what they produce. they're completely self-sufficient. american factories using union workers, competing and winning in china. but this rule so poorly written and rushed through jeopardizes that plant and these jobs for two reasons. one, it puts it in a timetable an expense they can't afford, about $20 million to update and upgrade these two boilers with their lines. secondly, the regulation is so poorly written that those wood chips and forest residue is

considered to be incinerator waste, not biofuel, not fuels and renewable fuels. so that waste will either go to a land fill or it will stay on the forest floor where it either becomes pro sides either risk of fire or more disease. it makes no sense to move forward with this rule. the house provision is pretty common sense. it says, look, let's take a little more time to get the rule right and then let's give just a little more time for plants like this to upgrade. and in this case talking with the plan manager, it allows them to update the first one, evaluate the results and do a partial upgrade. they'll hit the standard but they'll do it without becoming uncompetitive in this global marketplace. and they'll be able to keep using renewable energy. the point of that is these workers aren't extraneous to this discussion. they're concerned about the

payroll tax because they want to have a payroll. they want to be on it. they don't want to be in the unemployment line. they want to stay competitive world wide. and my thought is we've had so many speeches in congress and the state of the union committing to american manufacturing here at home. well, here we have a common sense opportunity to actually protect those types of jobs and about 20,000 of those american pulp and paper manufacturing jobs here in the united states with just a thoughtful pause get the regulation right, give those company just an inch more time to do this. i think this is a critical part of this provision. yield back. >> senator baucus. >> i yield to senator reid for two minutes. >> mr. chairman, one of the issues here i think is what rule are we talking about, the original rule that was proposed or the rule that has now been revised extensively with

collaboration from industry and is much more focused. as the subcommittee chairman for the appropriations committee that responds to the epa, i had the occasion to listen to lots of pro potiposals with respect a jurisdictions the last year. with respect to issue we concluded, these are the both republicans and democrats, house and snats, the conferees are encouraged by the outcomes of epa's reconsideration of the boiler mack rule and offer no redirection regarding boiler mack standards. it includes additional flexibility with respect to biocourse and the last time we bicamerally took up the issue, epa was making progress. i think we should let them continue to make that progress and deploy a rule that's

effective. with that i would yield my time back. >> i yield. we have about three minutes left. i'll give it to senator cardin. >> i just want to reinforce what senator reid said and congressman brady's point. he was referring again to the original rule. we were in agreement that we wanted more time to get that rule right. well, we got the time in the consultation with the industry and the biomass issue that congressman brady said has been corrected in the revised rule. >> i think we have is a little time left. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i've gone through the original rules, i've gone through the rules from december and i know what geena mckacarthy had to sa who works at epa. the rules were poorly written and rushed through. the new december epa rules are

more complex, they've added more categories and when you break through category by category, the costs overall when you total up the whole thing actually goes up. there are about 1.5 million boilers in the united states, i think about 14% of them are going to be covered by the new rules, we're talking 200,000 boilers. the costs are going up. and the job losses are the biggest thing that i continue to look for and look at the letters that all the members of congress got with lists of all the companies that are talking about how they're going to either lose jobs, have to close down, just like the story that we heard about the small company in the small town in mr. brady's district. this is the real issue here. if we're talking about extending unemployment insurance for hard working americans who have lost their jobs to add to that list is going to make our job here that much more difficult, make the cost of this entire proposal much harder to deal with in the

cost for american families tremendous both in terms of lost jobs as well as in lost income. thank you, mr. chairman. >> mr. levin. >> the chairman and i and you've agreed will give everybody a chance to say a few words. we don't have this formal allocation of time. >> we have about seven minutes left on the clock on this issue. so it's your time. >> so we'll be brief. there are a few of us who wanted to speak. you want to go first, miss schwartz? allison, you want to go and then henry. >> hearing this conversation, i come into this debate as someone who believes very strongly that we can have a strong economy and strong environmental protections. i don't think it's either or. there are jobs created to repair these boilers and to bring them up to grade and those are real jobs as well.

there have been modifications made by the epa, the rules have been responsive, they've tried to work to compliance costs and to increase flexibility and responsive to some of the concerns that were raised. but i also this particular moment in time for this conference committee, this kind of debate should be taking place somewhere through regular suggested has already been taking place in the house and some rules have changed. the senate has not had its opportunity to go through those kind of rules and they could. and, again, we are really -- should be focused right now. we should be focused on the three major issues before us. i think we've talked about that but i will just reiterate it that the payroll tax made a commitment to continue the payroll tax cut for 160 million americans. those who are -- millions of americans who are on extended unemployment who want good jobs

and want to get back o work but are struggling right now are counting on us. we literally have just a week to get the work done and of course access to doctors for 40 million seniors and more coming online, it's a huge issue. it's a huge amount of work to get done, the substance and to get to pay for it. we may choose to sad something about extenders, that's a discussion we'll have later. but right now given the response, given the opinion about whether you can have a strong economy and strong environmental protections, our history shows we can have both and we should. i think we should be leading this way and i believe we should not even be having this discussion and including the boiler mack legislation that's written in this legislation. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i think there are still some issues outstanding, though, on this matter. one affects especially in my part of the world the northwest

because we use a lot of biomass in our boilers. my understanding as of a docket from february 1st, so i think this would come after the revised rules, that the biomass materials are still not listed as fuels. now, if you're in a plywood manufacturing plant like one i toured in medford recently, they have three boilers, they use the scraps from the pie wood in a very efficient system to help generate the power they use and they told me when i was there that because of the uncertain at the they may have to retool the boilers at the cost of a million or two apiece and they have three of them. the way they run their plant is not at the peak efficiency, which is how epn measures their emissions but they go up and down as the material goes through. so they're not convinced they could meet the current rules on the books and now with the revised rules not including biomass materials, it could mean

that those could be regulated under the onerous and stigmatizing incinerator rules. so we are here about extending the unemployment benefits. the house passed a bill to do that for a year. we're here to make sure seniors can see their physician. house passed a bill to deal with that and pay for it for two years. and the middle-class tax cut. but we're also here it figure out how to not send more manufacturing job overseas. in the last three years we've seen manufacturing employment fall to eye lowest level in the united states, and we've shed 600,000 jobs in the last three years in the manufacturing sector. by the way, a lot of the pollution we're talking about trying to reduce here comes across from countries that we're trying to compete with in the west coast, china. and that's where a lot of the airborne mercury and all comes

from. we're shifting these jobs offshore, the data are pretty clear. if i were in the boiler installation business, i'd like to have the government pick me as a winner. when i was in radio broadcasting, i would have loved it if the government said hey, for everybody in business, you have to buy so many radio ads. i guess having been a small business owner for 22 years and dealt with rules and regulations from the federal government, i got to tell you, it's hard just to sign in front of those payroll checks every month and keep the business going. i think this is an important issue, i'm glad we're discussing it here, it is controversial. we all want clean air and health bull you can't keep shifting these jobs overseas. i yield back, chairman. >> all right. we don't have a lot of time left. i'm prepared to move forward on to the next issue. our positions are pretty clear

here, unless there is some objection here. >> mr. waxman wants to speak. >> why doesn't we do quick closings from the house democrats and do the senators want to make a quick closing comment? why don't we do one last round of quick closing comments. senator baucus. >> well, i think most everything's been said. >> i would agree. >> i didn't hear uncle. i was waiting for uncle but i didn't hear uncle. >> i have nothing else to add. >> all right. >> mr. waxman, if you want to briefly and then i'll go back over to mr. upton. >> thank you, mr. chairman. members, in 1990 we passed a law saying deal with these toxic air pollutants. took 21 years for epa to come up with a rule in 2011. there was a lot of controversy about this rule and epa is hearing from the industries and

members of congress are hearing from the industries. and a lot of what members are hearing about no longer valid. mr. brady talked about wood chips not being allowed to be burned. well, that's been changed. the senator baucus and senator b grasso talked about rules being changed and standard being changed. it's the first time standard for waste incinerators and boilers are being scheduled. we've never had any standard. epa wrote to the senate on january 18th that the epa can and will use legally available and longstanding tools to address compliance concerns that boilers and incinerators subject to the rules may have as a result of the court decision and they're still talking to the industry, revised won't even finalized until april or may so that the argument is that

industry can't comply with these rules doesn't make sense. we don't know what the final rules are going to be. therefore i don't think ought to take the action now to say you can't adopt rules. after 21 years we're dealing with a problem and the problem is not choosing winners and losers in the boiler manufacturers or the boiler operators, it's to protect children. children who are exposed prenatally to neurotoxin mercury and it's to protect others from toxic air pollutants. let the senate hold a hearing on it and get the final information and see if people who sign on as co-sponsors believe that the bill is necessary because i think a lot of people will say the bill is no longer necessary, and i certainly don't think we ought to adopt it in this conference. >> chairman upton. >> i just want to say a letter that we received this last week from the brotherhood of carpenters and joiners. bottom line is that existing

rules do not allow adequate time for review in compliance. not only do many of these facilities not have the capital to comply, the labor force to address this is limited. several of these serve as cornerstones of our rule communities. in a study that was released just last week prepared bit council of industrial boiler owners, they still claim that the cost is going to be over $14 billion, a little bit less with many as 228,000 jobs. this is not something we should turn our backs on. i yield back. >> thank you. now let's turn to our final topic of the day. the house provision that would extend for an additional year through 2012, 100% bonus depreciation, sometimes referred to as expensing. as my colleagues know, this is

is a provision that permits employers to completely write off investments and qualifying capital expenditures in the year of purchase rather than over time. with the economy continuing to struggle, too many americans are still looking for work. it's provisions like this that can help employers of all sizes, small, large, invest in new equipment and machinery and grow their businesses and more importantly create jobs. would i note this provision in the house has been supported by the president and it maintains strong support for many employers and businesses. so why don't we start on this discussion. senator baucus. >> i'll be -- i'll defer, frankly, to the senator. i'll follow him. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i understand we have a short time frame so i'll try to be very brief. this hopefully is one of the provisions on which we will be able to develop early and strong support and consensus. as you've already indicated,

chairman camp, a number of times during the past decade congress has responded to difficult economic times but allowing capital formation to be given a strong boost through changing the depreciation provisions in our tax code, allowing small businesses in particular but business to depreciate on a more rapid basis their investments in equipment and machinery that will enable them not only to maintain their production but to grow and develop more jobs. as -- just as a reminder, the current law, which was developed during the december 2010 compromises enacted 100% bonus depreciation for the year 2011 and then a 50% bonus depreciation for 2012. and what the house bill does, which is what i'm supporting, what i think we ought to hopefully reach early agreement on, is to extend that 100% bonus depreciation through the entire year of 2012.

as you've already indicated, chairman kemp, this is something the president himself has proposed in his american jobs act. although the senate bill is silent on this issue, i think there has been support expressed by senators on this significantly. this is a boost to the economy. this is one of the win-win times of solutions that we can enact that will help across the board. businesses can invest in more productive capital assets and the promotion and incenti incentivization of capital formation is what we need in our efforts to strengthen our economy and boost the number of jobs that are available. also an october 2010 treasury study estimated that 100% expensing would lower the average cost for capital for new investments by more than 75%. now that is the kind of incentive we need to be providing as congress for the private sector in this country to be able to engage in capital formation and generate the jobs

that we are trying to address. it's also cost effective because the depreciation will ultimately be recovered, allowing deductions for their expenses now means they will not be taking drawn-out deductions in the future, which means we will ultimately recover most of this. my understanding is that the cost of this proposal, if we look at the cumulative effect through 2022 rather than 2021 to throughout the entire period, look at what will really be the revenue loss drops from $6 appening as the businesses billion down to $5 be recoverin- not all but much of the revenue that is lost by engaging in this provision. we will be allowing a strong boost to capital formation in the economy and we will be generating more jobs through this provision and i would encourage us to quickly agree to it. thank you. colleagues, i think it makes

sense. i don't know the degree toch it. i'm sure they'll use it ayhear trillion to $2 trillion cash that american companies have and maybe they'll spend some of it with this expensive provision. it's hard to tell. i think that many would. on the other hand, there are some estimates that this provision is used much more when the economy is prosperous, when unemployment is low, when consumers are buying good and companies are hiring, they're making money. the expensing works best of course when the company is profitable and you got taxes to pay. but when the economy is not doing quite as well, when some profit margins aren't as high as they might be, income expensing is not as important, it's not as much bang for the buck as it would have in a very prosperous

economy, but it helps and i think we should adopt it. i might add just parenthetically there are estimates from cbo and other organizations that dollar for dollar the greater bang for the buck is with payroll tax and that's in ui and so forth. it's important, no doubt about there are a few other provisions dollar for dollar that do have greater positive impact on the economy. on the talking about expensing, though, i think it's important for us also to extend the so-called traditional extenders. it's embarrassment, mr. chairman, this country has i think it's 130 of them, they're either one year or 18 months congress continually