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tv   [untitled]    February 28, 2012 1:00pm-1:30pm EST

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action taken against polluters. it then brags it collected fully 30% of epa's fines all across the country. two thoughts, one, is that the kind of press release you think is appropriate, sort of bragging about how much money you've taken out of the united states economy? or second, 31% from a single region, region 7, do you think that suggests there's differential environment or regions are that different. >> environment finds are oftentimes serendipitous. in terms of bragging on investment and cleanup, investments, those are generally injunctive relief where we require a company not as much to pay the fine but do the work and come into compliance. we think it's important american people know there's an environmental cop on the beat.
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it did eters people from violat. that's an important part of the program. >> some was with agreement with the particular business or individuals, is that probably right? >> yeah, but that agreement came as a result of an environment. >> probably in this agreement, this agreement doesn't indicate any wrongdoing, simply says we're willing to cooperate with the epa, yet you used the term "polluters" which i will tell you in kansas we view that as a negative term. we think of polluters as someone we don't think highly of. yet they use it in press release as part of powers. you ought to talk to folks about not using terms like that. >> at this time recognize mr. cassidy. >> hey, miss jackson.
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you're always unflappable and calm. >> waiting for the other shoe to drop. >> no shoe, truly a compliment. >> thank you. >> care grants, i don't understand these well. but i'm told care grants that do to community organizations, the science they generate is not peer review science. state dpq does not look at it, you do not look at it. i can tell you they get headlines. sometimes in our kind of media driven society that headline has an impact. so one, is that true that when these community groups get grants from epa there's nobody at epa responsible for vetting the validity of their claims. first, is that true? >> well, we certainly don't vet their press releases. we ask them to use science and expect and hope they will. because they are community groups we don't quite hold them to the same standards we might
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hold a governmental entity or ourselves. >> i will tell you that's a fair statement. on the other hand does anybody look at the responsibility of these groups in general? are they periodically audited the science they are putting out or claims they are making are actually justifiable or hyperbole? >> they are more audited for fiscal responsibilities. >> that's a fair statement. can i believe that. on the other hand i can tell you when people put it out on the press, if it's read, people believe it sometimes even if there's no validity. let me just suggest that if we're going to hold you or a state deq or industry group responsible for the validity of their science, these groups should be as well. they are certainly influencing the debate as much as a major employer with with an emissions issue. do you think that's fair? >> i think it's fair if there's claims being made someone could ask epa whether or not we agree with that data. in general i see your point. >> thank you. secondly the president in his
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state of the union speech spoke as natural gas being used as a transportation fuel and hopes to encourage such. i'm not aware of any initiative he proposed, certainly not legislatively. do you know of such an initiative? >> i don't believe there's a legislative initiative right now. >> is there an administrative initiative? >> i seem to recall he talked about a corridor in california that could be made to be natural gas friendly and i thought that was voluntary with the state of california but i can check on that. >> okay. now, one thing proposed is the use of natural gas to create methanol, use it as a fuel administrative. i really kind of pursued this. seemed like it would be a wonderful way to come up with a low cost way to supplement oil and gas particularly with the ratio of cost of natural gas to oil. i went so far as to meet with people from industry, fairly high in research in industry. they told me it would take 15
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years conservatively for something such as methanol to be thoroughly vetted through epa's regulations as to being safe for use. it's not methanol per se but rather the agents to make it in gasoline. that said, this is someone currently work ongoing ethanol, so he kind of knows of that which he speaks because this is the process they are going through with ethanol. if we're trying to use natural gas as another way to use transportation fuel is there any way to make it less? is it so daunting to mean it's not going to happen? >> it would be off putting. i'm happy to meet with -- you don't want to meet with me, meet with experts to talk about ethanol in particular. of course natural gas in and of itself without a transformation is i believe what the president was more directly addressing in terms of potential
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transportation. >> he's done -- no offense, i'm not being derogatory, no initiative on it. it sounds great, could be great but nothing has happened. ethanol can be a fuel administrative like methanol is but the regulatory process is so long as to mean it never will happen which is a potential denied, if you will. >> i think it's worth having a discussion with those who are interested in pursuing methanol. >> you've been very responsive to me in the past on a certain issue. if you don't mind i would like took meet them. my industry groups are afraid you of. >> afraid of me. >> afraid of the agency. afraid of being penalized by regulations. again, unflappable and well prepared. >> very nice. >> we do have one vote on the floor but 400 people still have not voted so i'm recognizing you, sir, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank the administrator for coming. i want to specifically thank
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administrator jackson for your support of our efforts to restore the gulf of mexico as it relates to dedicating bp finds to gulf states. we passed a portion of the restore act here out of the house a few days ago and we're working with senate counter-parts to get the entire piece of legislation restore act, bipartisan legislation. through the entire process, i don't know if you want to make any comments on the restore act but i want to thank you for your efforts here. >> i'll simply say it's extremely important those resources return to the gulf of mexico, so thank you for your leadership. >> thank you. i want to talk about your budget. i know there's been some talk about what the president'st's a reduction from current level. i wanted to compare if you look at what we were given, the view over the four-year period since you had come in. of course there was a big spike through the stimulus bill in fiscal year 2010 which would
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represent about a 35% increase in your budget, then tailored down a little over the years. even with the president's budget request it still would represent a 9% increase from when you took office. i want though make sure these numbers are the same you're using. under these numbers i'm looking at, you started off with $7.6 billion budget and go to $8.3 billion which represents still $700 million increase over that four-year period. wanted to point that out and make sure it was an accurate number. >> two things or maybe three. we continually increase the amount of money going to states and tribes even in a budget down 1.2%. a large part of that big jump you saw was for srfs, which goes directly to the tribes and states that was $2 billion and 475 for great lakes. what's really happened is an erosion of those increases back. so we've heard a lot about infrastructure funding. >> i want to point out some
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people are suggesting there have been cuts, actually there's been a $700 million increase over the period, how people characterize that as a cut around this town. that's an increase, in fact, a 9% increase. >> they are cuts from prior year budgets. it's also really important to point out the agency itself, 40% of our dollars heading straight out the door to state and tribal grant programs. we're preserving those, so we're doing that at the expense of other agency operations. >> again, when you look at when your agency started your second year with a 35% increase, that came at a time when many states and businesses were cutting back their budget. you want to keep that in perspective. on the hydraulic fracturing issue, my colleague from texas has brought this up with you. i would strongly encourage your agency to allow the states to do what they have been doing so well for decades. that is to do state regulation of hydraulic fracturing. i know it's worked well in louisiana in protecting not only
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aquifers but allowing for dramatic increase with this new technology in the amount of natural gas our country can provide not only to our states, which we're pretty much self-sufficient on natural gas production in america but with all these new finds not only does it provide the opportunity for us to pull other vehicles off gasoline and increase america's energy security but created thousands of new jobs. so there's a real concern amongst the community in the natural gas industry that epa is looking at getting into an area where the states have been successful in regulating that process. i just wanted to mention that. on a local issue, i know you've worked with new corps which built a plant in south louisiana. they are currently pending a permit from the epa. that one permit alone would
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equate to 700 plus jobs. i want to know could you give me a status of that perm. do you have any time line of when that permit could be approved because about 750 jobs are waiting on it. >> i believe we approved the permit but there was litigation filed. i believe that's correct, mr. scalise but i'll check on it. we issued the permit last -- >> there was one permit but another permit waiting on now. >> i will check on that. >> i think there's another one they are waiting on right now that would be a second part of their expansion which that alone would be over 700 jobs. if you could give me a time line of what the likelihood of approval would be. my time is running short. finally on refineries are you planning on regulating greenhouse gases at refineries? >> there are no current rules under development on that issue. we have said in the past as part of our overall greenhouse gas
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strategy our first source is utilities, refineries are next. >> as refineries are next, keep in mind small business administration recently did a study that showed that the average cost per family of regulations as a whole comes out to 15,000 per year per family cost of regulations. many cite epa as worst offender of this 15,000 per family cost. if you can keep that in mind with additional regulations. thanks for coming and yield back the balance of my time. >> gentleman's time expired. mr. gardenuarardnergardner. >> thank you for time and patience being with us. a question regarding regional haze and i'm insured you heard this from people on other committees. since the clean air act authorizes each state to draft its own state specific plan, to address regional haze, do you foresee epa approving colorado
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sip given it has support from electric utilities, environmental groups, endorsed by the democrat governor, split control colorado legislature, speaker of the house, has support in a letter we sent to the epa of our two democratic senators, three democratic house members and four republican house members. >> i can't speak yes or no, but i will say this. i'm aware colorado has done amazing work on looking at some of its haze issues. i believe there's some issues o on controls versus shutdown. i think the region is working closely with the state on that. >> i think the deadline is march 8th i believe is the deadline. do you know if that's going to be hit or miss at this point? >> i don't have it in my notes, sir, but i would be happy to get back. >> has epa used health standards to reject north dakota. >> epa working with north dakota. i believe a decision is due if
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not today, tomorrow. we have -- on regional haze the issue is less about health but visibility. >> so you're not using health standards on regional haze. >> i'm not aware that we are but i can certainly check. on north dakota i'm more familiar because i've been dealing with that issue more recently. >> are you familiar with k kinesthetic? >> i know what the word means but i haven't done them. >> the learning? >> i'm not a teacher. >> one is giving grants. epa awarded $25,000 to repertory dance theater in salt lake city to educate youth about the impacts about air pollution. on epa's website there's a document describing what this money will be used for. the project intends to -- this is a quote. the project intends to produce innovative lectures, movements classes in schools. it will be used to examine air
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issue and urge families to adopt al what sunk program? >> i've read about it and we are reviewing. environmental justice grant program in utah as you mentioned. it's with a very well respected group, repertory group that uses dance to educate. apparently they have a long history of doing this and are quite well respected. but we are reviewing it at the request of i think one of the members. >> why is the epa to a dance company. >> environmental program is about educating communities, about interventions. in communities where there's large populations, for example, that may have asthma -- i don' self-education is an important part -- >> given the testimony you've talked about, across the government, can you assure us you're not going to make these grants. >> as i said, we're reviewing the program when this came to light. >> perhaps we can talk further
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about the dancing and whether epa ought to be funding that. >> i'm not the expert but i do think that is fair to say we can review the program and i'll be happy to tell you what the results will be. >> your budget says epa and i know others have touched on this, says epa would reduce spending by $105 million. in previous years epa used deobligated funds to do so. if they use funds approaching $160 million like last year epa is not reducing spending at all in 2013, is it? >> this came up in an earlier question. we do deobligate funds, report on movements of funds and we're happy to follow up if you have -- >> do you report on those before you make the expenditure? is it in the budget justification? >> it's in the budget justification. in the financial statements. excuse me, sir. >> not in terms -- i believe gao actually said epa -- congressmen want epa to submit on
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recertification and budget documents. >> we're doing it as part of our regular financial reporting. >> you're telling us you spent it after you spent it? >> i don't know whether it's after or before. i believe what we do is -- >> would you agree as a matter of principle we ought to know if you're reobligating funds we ought to know before you do that? >> in general i think we worked well with congress over the years to ensure we're spending the money as congress intends. >> you agree it's helpful for congress to know about the use of the funds and its justifications. >> sir, i'm telling you we deobligate money from time to time. i would bet all offices do. when we do, we report it. we're not trying to hide it. >> we would appreciate that before hand. do you believe deobligating funds and reusing them actually increases the need for new budget authority in the relevant accounts? >> no, not necessarily, sir. >> do you think this money ought to be returned to the taxpayer deobligated. >> it depends on the issue, sir. we are living within the budget
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and obligation that is we have. but it depends on the issue. >> expired. >> mr. chairman, my friends join me in doing the kinesthetic cha ch cha. >> when an where? >> we have a club in chicago. >> thank you for being with us. before we let you go i want to ask one question. under the fuel standard law, epa is required to publish the required volume obligations for certain fuel categories. the proposed volume of biomass-based diesel specified in june 2011 proposed rule omitted from the final rule published in december, what was there in june for the volume for
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diesel biomass was not in the final report in december. i was just curious, is that an oversight or was there some other explanation for that? >> i don't know. i don't have a fact sheet on that. can we get you an answer to the question after the hearing? >> yeah. i would appreciate that very much if we could get that answer. thank you again for being with us. we appreciate you and miss here. with that the hearing ie cord w 10 days for any additional materials to be submitted. thank you.
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more live coverage today here on c-span3. secretary of state hillary clinton will testify before the senate foreign relations committee on her department's
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budget request for 2013. the president is requesting $51.6 billion, a 1.6% increase over last year. tonight live road to the white house coverage of the results of the arizona and michigan primaries. we'll have victory and concession speeches from mitt romney, rick santorum, newt gingrich and ron paul. live result coverage tonight on the networks, c-span radio and c-span.org. >> governor bobby jindal scheduled to reveal his proposal for balancing the state budget for next fiscal year-to-date, a budget $900 million in the red. in three port bossier now mostly cloudy and 37 at the airport, 38 at barksdale and 38 in minden. you're listening to shreveport bossier news and radio. this weekend book tv and american history tv explore
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culture of shreveport, louisiana, saturday at noon eastern on book tv c-span 2, overnight gary joiner on louisiana's failure from one damn blunder from beginning to end, red river campaign. 260,000 books of the collection housed at the shreveport archives, then a walking tour of shreveport and bossier city. american history on c-span3 sunday at 5:00 p.m. eastern from barksdale air force base a look at the base's role on 911 plus the history of b-52 boomer. visit founding fathers auto collection. pioneer heritage center medical treatment and medicine during the civil war. three support, louisiana, this weekend on c-span 2 and 3. there are millions of decent americans who are willing to sacrifice for change but they want to do it without being
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threatened and they want to do it peacefully. they are the nonviolent majority, black and white, who are for change without violence. these are the people whose voice i want to be. >> as candidates campaigned for president this year, we looked back at 14 men who ran for office and lost. go to our website c-span.org/contenders to see video of the contenders who had a lasting impact on politics. >> can you remember in the depression, those my age, when times were really hard and we left the doors unlocked? now we have the most violent, crime ridden society in the industrialized world. i can't live with that? can you live with that? >> c-span.org/thecontenders. portion now from today's washington journal, representative hanson clark, a michigan democrat on tonight's
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gop primary and also democrat's prospects in 2012 election. >> we want to welcome congressman clark from michigan, michigan arizona primaries today. let's focus on your state of michigan. >> sure. >> mitt romney, massachusetts governor was on sean hannity on the fox network asked about the auto bailout issue and what it means for the state. here is what he had to say. >> the right way to get detroit to come back is to get the american economy to come back. part of that is changing the entire relationship between government and the private sentor. this president has a view the company should dominate the private sector, has general motor shares in the hands of government, conducting the course of general motors in the way he shouldn't. he's given a big hung of general motors and chrysler to uaw. that was a mistake. lower corporate taxes and lower marginal tacks for americans across the board, secondly to
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get regulations to encourage free enterprise in this country, not to stifle it. third, have energy policies that take advantage of energy resources. fourth is to have trade with other nations, open up trade agreement. this president has stalled in that front. finally crack down on china for stealing our jobs in an unfair way. you do those things detroit will come back, america will come back and we'll be working again. >> congressman, agree, disagree? >> he's totally off base. in order to create jobs you need to invest in detroit. that's exactly what the president did when his leadership helped rescue the auto industry. the president's tough decisive action providing emergency loans saved not only the auto industry but our u.s. economy. so many jobs come from manufacturing. the folks in michigan are doing so much better now that the president was able to save the
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auto industry. we have many folks in michigan uninsured, no health insurance, at risk of going bankrupt because of high health care costs. they are going to all be help because of the president's leadership enacting landmark health care reforms. our country's economy is strong because of manufacturing, because of investing in detroit. that's exactly what the president has done and why michigan will support him in november. >> congressman the polls showing a little different take on the auto bailouts. here is gal op poll february 20th through 21st. 60% of all those polled disapproved of the government auto bailout. 31% approved, 63 didn't approve. as gallup pollsters point out, crucial for re-election, less
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than half, 45% of independents approve of the auto bailout. is that a problem for the president? >> no, it's not. the reason people will vote for the president and what they are concerned about is the overall health of the economy. our economy is so much stronger. they are going to see the benefit of nrkd jobs because of a stronger auto industry. a lot of this is just because of political messaging. people may not really fully appreciate how our economy has grown so much now. the spirit of america's economy and confidence in it has grown as well. that's because of the president's leadership. >> we're learning today from polls and other places that democrats, it's an open primary in michigan. democrats are being encouraged to turn out and vote from the labor unions. they are encouraging democrats to go out and vote for rick santorum in order to undermine
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mitt romney as a candidate for the general election. do you want that's appropriate? should democrats be voting in this primary? >> there are some people asking democrats to cross over and vote in the republican primary. i've already voted. iabsentee and i voted for president obama. i'm encouraging everyone watching vote for president obama. vote for who you think will be the best person to lead our country in the next four years. it's clearly the president. he saved auto jobs and provided financial security and opportunity to get a more affordable education. on the issue of labor unions, president obama speaking before washington, united auto workers, conference in washington likely to be talking about auto bailout. what else does he need to say to the united auto workers? >> number one every worker must have the right to baai

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