states seek a revision of their plan for a plant not to -- under certain reliability circumstances and something that we're looking closely at is the memorandum of understanding between the epa and the u.s. department of energy where there's going to be a coordinated process to help the states address reliability concerns, monitor how that state planned development is going to go and provide support during this position transition period. finally, on the electricity bills, what i think oregon has done extremely well in the last 20 years is planning. our integrated resource planning process really causes the utahs

to think very long and hard about the least cost, least risk approach. oregon especially since 1999 but even back -- dating back to 1980 has treated energy efficiency not as a boutique thing to do every now and then, but as a genuine resource that a utility should rely on. it is a cost-effective resource and should be at the top of the list of any utility acquisition as being the lowest cost resour resource. so between planning, energy efficiency, we've been able to maintain our low cost. we are below average and we've been below average for dwight quite some time. we don't expect the clean power plan to fundamentally change that because of the tools that you would use to meet the clean power provisions.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. in my direct in southwest arkansas has already been announced to be closed and there's study that's show that rates will increase from 20% to 60% because of this closure. the the obvious negative effects are direct loss. the higher rates will put a disproportional burden to low and fixed income resident necessary my district. not only in their higher light bills and the increased costs of goods. welcome. there's not too many of us out there. if you look at texas, what's the split on residential versus commercial use?

>> i don't have that information. i don't know what that -- it's largely driven by the commercial. we are a large energy consumer because of the fact that we manage manufacturer goods and process materials that apply much of the united states. >> and in ohio, is that similar there, too? >> yes, sir. ohio is the fifth largest consumer in the u.s. 50% of that is industry. >> the remainder is split between commercial and industrial. >> so if we -- i think we fail to see sometimes how much of the power goes into industry and jobs. so if you look at current air quality standards in texas and the rest of the u.s. and compare those to the world quickly on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being low

quality and 10 being high quality, where would you say china would be on that scale? on the south end of that, some of the worst air quality that exists exists in parts of china. >> and indonesia and vietnam. >> they're still not at the levels that we are. >> and the u.s.? >> if we're not a ten, then the scale needs to be accommodating to put us there. >> but we're leading in the world in air quality standards? >> yes, sir. >> okay. so do you believe higher costs plus reliability energy can drive manufacturing industrial jobs to countries with lower standards? >> i think it could. i think even the threat of higher costs can drive those overseas to lower costs areas with less restrictive regulations. >> in my district, what we need very much are jobs and i would hate for investors to come in

and see this huge increase in electrical rates and decide to move their manufacturing somewhere else and when we look at this, there seems to be confusion in it. i spent quite a bit of time out in your state, a beautiful state except for the large wind farms along the clupby ya george that dot the landscape. how do you feel the about the epa's biomass treatment of energy >> that is something we continue to look at.

that is not something we loved and at the same time, we recognized what the epa was trying to -- the message they were trying to send is that not all biomass is created equal. so folks at the department of energy -- >> are they saying it's not renewable? >> they're saying the carbon sequestration benefits need to be tracked closely. so that may mean some biomass is treated differently and depending upon if it's sustainablely -- >> it's bad enough when epa is picking winners and losers in power, but then they start taking winners and losers there. i think we should take an all encompassing approach and the lower cost efficient product and develop these other technology wes more research and development in those areas. but it looks like i'm about out of time, mr. chairman, so i'll

yield back. >> thank you for your questions. ranking member johnson is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much. >> mr. shaw, i'm a native texan. i'm a nurse by education. last year, parkland hospital had a billion dollars of uncompensated care. children's hospital had about a third of that. many of the conditions are respiratory related, which are related to environmental contamination. have you factored in the cost that it would take the state to continue to afford this kind of health care cost with most of our people being poor that are living in low income areas, that are damaged more frequently by these heavy environmental violations?

>> congresswoman, the clean power plan is directed as reducing greenhouse gases which do not impact the pesrytory issues. the cobenefits that are claimed in the rule -- >> wait a minute. repeat what you just said. >> the cobenefits. in other words, the rule is based on reducing -- >> i know what the rule says, but you say it does not impact respiratory? >> that's correct. greenhouse gas emissions don't have any adverse impact on respiratory health. some of the rhetoric from epa suggests the clean power plan is going to, by reducing greenhouse gases leads to improvement in respiratory companies. that's not due to reduction in co2. >> what is it due to? >> it's due to their cobenefits. they're suggesting the process they're mandating will accidently and likely cause

reduction in other emissions. the challenge with that, though, is they're assuming that it's going to provide health benefits, yet they're assuming that reducing pm 275 even lower leads to health benefits. that is my concern is that it's misleading whenever they told us that you're going to have these health benefits associated with this rule. the areas where tlshgd be a benefit to that's areas that are non-attainment, those are being addressed throughout the rules and we're making strides to comply with those regulations. >> so you're challenging the epa, their goal is health and safety of the people that

inhabit that? >> yes, ma'am. the purpose of this rule is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and as part of that the state gold areas, primarily the benefits they claim are a slight decrease in sea level rise, unmeasurable, as well as a hungt of a degree fahrenheit reduction in increase in global temperature. those are unmeasurable and those are not quiet quantifiable from the benefit standpoint. therefore, they went to the accidental cobenefits associated with it, not what the purpose of the rule was, to claim benefits to the rule. >> so you're saying it has absolutely nothing to do, the science that has indicated that is not pure science? i'm suggesting the goal is and what led to this rule is climate change and client variability. and carbon dioxide, which is the

focus of the rule, does not have health impacts. carbon dioxide at the levels we breathe it is good for plants. we breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. you have to get larger levels of carbon dioxide than we're ever going to see in the ambient air. so the goal of the plan is to address climate change, yet that impact -- so climate change has no impact on health? >> the model suggestions of what this rule would accomplish would be an unmeasurable change in sea lev level. so even the best estimate of what the climate change impact and benefit of this rule is so small to be unquantifible. >> so when we continue to see climate change with a lot of flooding, a lot of air contamination, this is not going to impact health? >> for one, the ipcc, the

intergovernment panel on climate change has indicated the adverse weather we're seeing has not been correlated with climate change. so there is certainly an argument to be made and additional dae et to be there. could you submit to me your research findings and the origin of them? >> sure. i will be happy to provide you the background information on that. >> thank you very much. >> thank you, congresswoman. >> and the chair now recognizes the chairman of the full committee, mr. smith, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. from what i read, the reason for those costs are the children of illegal immigrants in the

country today. it is not due to health care issues caused by carbon emissions. dr. shaw, let me address my first question to you. the chairman put a chart on the screen that was produced by the chamber of commerce that showed that 42 states are going to be harmed by this clean power plan and by harmed, i mean they're going to see a cart matdic increase in electricity costs. these costs are going to hurt low income individuals, because it's going to raise the costs of everything, whether it be food, electricity or anything else. so i very much regrekt the impact on low income americans that this plan is going to have. but i wanted to ask you, do you see any bit of this whatsoever as a result of reducing the plan emissions? >> chairman, no.

the rule does not -- especially from the standpoint of its impact in recent carbon dioxide does not have a measurable xwabl on sea level or the global you the. to your point, texas having a competitive energy on the market, that is you only get to generate and sell electricity if you do it cheaply has naturally driven our electricity generation grid to be as cheap as possible.

do you think that this clean power plan is going to have any significant impact on climate change? >> chairman smith, absolutely. we can talk about the incremental benefits of this particular plan. >> do you disagree with the epa's data that shows it would only impact the rise, at best impact the rise in ocean level by .001 of an inch? >> i can't say whether i agree with it or disagree with that. i haven't done that analysis. if we don't begin to address it -- >> this particular cost is on epa emission s emissions when t administrator was before the full committee a couple of months ago, i made the point that i just made to you about no significant impact on climate

change. she did not deny that. she said only it could be justified because we need to show action. she does not dispute the data that showed it would impact the rise in sea levels by .01, the thickness of three pieces of paper and we're summiting the american people to burdensome regulations across jobs, it is going to increase electricity crieses and not because it's going to have any impact on climate change. that is what the administrator herself said. i think because certain plans are going to be shut down entirely. if those coplans are generating less carbon emissions, that is

going to have a measurable effect on the environment and is beginning to address climate change. >> when you say measurable effect, do you have any evidence whatsoever that it's going to impact the sea level rise by more than .01? >> i don't have that information. >> thank you. last question one mentioned that you were disappointed that the clean power plan was going to have a half an impact on the state of oregon. what were you disappointed about or what's the half loaf that did not meet your expectations? >> chairman smith, i think i was arguing against the visual that was produced that seems to indicate that oregon is in really, really good shape. we were in g shape for complying as a state, but as rate payers, since we are tied to coal plants and gas facilities in other states, we do care very much what happens in those other states.

>> and i saw one document that said electricity rates will go up in oregon. is that possibly? >> that is a possibility. >> i now recognize mr. edwards for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. and thank you to the witnesses today. i wanted to highlight that we've been hearing a lot of the steps that are necessary to address climate change by reducing carbon emissions and its equivalent is setting up the economy on fire. but it's actually not the case. and i would note that maryland on that chamber of commerce chart is deceptive. so it makes me question those other red states on there. but the efforts of maryland and other states that have been involved in the greenhouse gas initiative are proved that the environmental protection and economic and robust development can and should go hand in hand.

i have a regional review of the analysis group that i want to submit for the record. the report finds over the last three years, the regional greenhouse gas initiative is produced the economic value of $1..3 billion and $14,200 jobs. this is on top of the $1..6 billion in net economic value and 16,000 jobs created over the fist three years that were analyzed under the program. energy bills in my state and the other participating states in this regional initiative declined between 2012 and 2014 with consumers saving $460 million. the regional economy has grown 8%. in fact, maryland has been very supportive of the rule that we're discussing today and began under the regional initiate ifr,

go2 emissions reductions under reggie that have reaped over $2 million for credits. the solar panels for helping low income people with utility bills and for rebates for energy efficient appliances. so i am gratify that the epa has proous introduced this rule and is preparing to finalize it because i think it's going to be a great economic impact for this state and for our future. maryland relies on economic from the chesapeake bay and the other states in the region so we can't afford even a little bit of an increase in sea level because it would impact our economy tremendously. so i'm gratified for the epa's

work. let me say, as well, the u.s. globe change, human health, climate change threatens human health in many ways. climate change is increasing the risk of respiratory stress from poor air quality, heat stress, insect boor, water born and airborne diseases. extreme weather events often lead to fatalities and a variety of health impacts on vulnerable populations. large scale changes in the environment due to climate change in extreme weather events are increasing the risk of emergence or reemergence of health threats currently uncommon in the united states such as denghi fever. key drivers of health impacts include frequently intense and longer lasting extreme heat.

increasingly frequent extreme precipitation, intense storms and precipitation can lead to flood, drought and ecosystem changes. causing injuries and death, stress veexzs and water quality impacts among other effects on public health. so i would welcome any submission for the record that would refuse the findings of the climb change impact in the united states and those highlights as published in may of 20147.. and lastly, just as we closed out for a witness from oregon, and thank you for the work that you are doing, i wonder if you can talk about any regional efforts that you're involved in and whether you think that you might change some of your work in the region over these next several weeks and years and months. >> thank you, congresswoman.

two quick things. one, the northwest has acted as a region for many, many years. so washington, oregon, montana and idaho are usually in a can't state of discussion. so this is no exception. we're having those kinds of discussions. another regional discussion that we're having is service sayretory. it's six states that include washington, oregon, welcome and utah. and they -- their resource lead is heavy on coal and so that utilities significantly impacted by the rule and so discussions between those states are in the offing. >> thank you. mr. abraham from louisiana. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

this, in my opinion, is the epa doing a little malpractice of manipulating data to fit their goal instead of using this data object ifrly to actually formulate a coherent plan. i'll make a brief mention to ranking member johnson and miss edwards as far as some documentation as far as whether this comet change, which i'll assume is global warming the way they are saying it. i am a practicing physician that does treat respiratory conditions and certainly asthma and administrator mccarthy has often tried to refer to as children's asthma as something that she uses to try to sell her points. but if you look at the objective data from an unbias source, which i have to, and that's the cdc. if you look at states like california who have some of the cleanest air in the nation, they

still have the highest asthma rate. and they have increasing asthma rates. so if we want to compare apples to apples, you are right, chairman shaw, and that co2 certainly has no role in respiratory asthma as far as exacerbating it. so saying that, you know, we do have object onnive data that proves your point to the thing. i'll refer, also, to this report that has been touted and i will ask if it has not been done to insert it into the record. mr. eisendorf, from this report b it says that oregon stands to make or benefit from up to $125 million. would you agree with that? >> i'm sorry, i just don't have the ability to -- >> okay. i'm assuming it's a good report. i will, again, ask to submit it

to the record and i'll stay with you, sir. the way i understand it, oregon has only one coal fired plant? >> yes. that -- >> and it's supposed to go down or shut down in 2020? >> yes. the boardman plant, its use for life was to go after the year 2040 and there was a discussion that began about 2006, 2007 by stakeholders, utilities and regulators and the least cause least risk analysis was done and the result of that was it was in the customers' interest, it was less costly to shut the plant down early rather than to retrofit it with nonclean power plant environment yal technologies. so it was actually cheaper to shut it down and less riskier to shut it down in 2020 to full 2040. >> under the power plan. will oregon be allowed to emit more carbon or less carbon?

the the way i read it, it's more, actually. what's your take on that? >> from the baseline from 2012, oregon is not going to be able to emit more carbon from that baseline. >> okay. and i will probably respectfully disagree reading the report, but i will defer to sources for that. chairman shaw, would you agree that with this bser methodology, that this is an overreach of the federal government? >> clearly, this is exceptional from what the -- what i think the clear reasoning of the 111d statute prescribed. >> and that's all i have, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. i now recognize mr. foster from illinois. >> thank you, mr. chairman. director, as i understand, one of your fundamental objections is what is proposed is to

replace an economic model for determining the energy, it's one that includes environmental factors. first, just a simple question, how many people die in ohio each year as a result of power plant emissions? >> representative foster, thanks for the question. i don't know the exact number to your question, but my -- >> roughly. >> i don't know. i'm not a physician. >> thank you. okay. it's sort of surprising because that seems like a fundamental question here. let's see. i actually do have an estimate, if we could have the thing out there. this is an estimate from someone by the clean air task force put this together. i think it's primarily driven by particulate emissions. and it looks like, do an eyeball average, about 10 people in 10,000 -- 10 in 100,000, about 1 in 10,000 die each year in ohio roughly in a typical area of ohio if this data is correct. ohio, i think, has something like 10 million people. so we're talking thousandish,

roughly 1,000 people per year die because of particulates from coal plants. so from a particularly economic point of view that you advocate, what is the optimum number of people to die in ohio each year? >> representative foster, ohio has about 11.5 million people. and ultimately, i think the chart that you're showing and the argument that you're making is around something that dr. shaw talked about, this issue about these cobenefits of the clean power plan. you're talking about this -- this is about issues around particulate emissions. has nothing to do with co2 emissions. >> but this hearing is about closing plants. so the cobenefits -- i do not understand the the argument that when you complain about the cost of something, you don't include the economic cobenefits. but that's a separate issue. so -- but i was wondering, just in general, you know, for whatever philosophical approach to this you take, how would you

calculate the economically optimum number of people the die in ohio each year? what are the inputs into that? >> sure. representative foster, we care about all 11.5 million in ohio. and this hearing today is about the clean power plan. it is about the the co2 emissions that are supposed to be reduced from the clean power plan. we take seriously and as you have seen in my remarks that ohio has reduced not only its co2 emissions and -- >> how do you do the opt mvt mum plan, in your point of view? do you believe that the optimum number of people to die from particulates in ohio is zero or some number bigger than zero? and how from your philosophical point of view do you calculate the number of people to die each year? >> so we benefited from an all futures approach in the state of ohio. we've got energy efficiency, natural gas, wind, we've got solar. we think that it is in our best

economic and environmental interest to have all of those in ohio. and we'll strive to continue to do that. >> but ultimately, you have a philosophy that tells you how to optimize that mix. maybe purely economic or a combination of purely economic and environmental aspects that allows you to calculate the number of people who should die in ohio each year. how do you -- how would you advocate determining that number. for example, does it include health effects from downwind states? if the emissions from ohio raise co2, we lose the sheath and 75 years from now people die in coastal areas. should that be included or not? how large is your commons that you're looking at here? >> arrest foster, so the way that we look at this in ohio is that, again, it's an all fuels approach. whether or not you want to -- what we don't account for is the

notion that we'll see any impact to human health because of emissions that are regulated under the clean power plan. we take into development of our plan not just clean power, but how we look at our energy mix based on an economic model. it is also based on looking at environmental protection as included in my role as director as being protective of human health and the environment. so it's always a balance on how we try to balance with perspective. we work closely with the public utilities commission ksh. >> what i'm fishing for is what is the balance of, you know, human suffering and death versus economic goals? because it seems like there's a big disconnect and we're talking past each other on this. one side of this hearing, people seem to be, you know, ignoring anything with regard to quality of life of ultimately death and

versus pure economic concerns. i'm wondering how you handle that and what is the objective function you're looking for from a mathematical point of view? does it take into account the number of deaths in ohio or not? >> representative win did say i think you're line of questioning is unfair from the perspective of what this haeshg is about. it's about the clean power plan, looking at co2 emissions relative to the clean power plan. >> the title of the hear is the shut down power plants. we're talking about shutting down certain kinds of plants. >> the gentleman's time s has expired. >> real quick, could you answer the question, is there already a national ambient air quality standard for particulate matter? that already exists. aim incorrect? >> mr. chairman, that's correct. >> okay. i now recognize representative muvinar from michigan. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i wanted to follow up on some of the questions regarding the clean power plan rule and the safety valve provision.

according to the epa, this would give states a 90-day period to exceed carbon limits during emergencies. ep heir has indicated that although this safety valve exists, it would be rarely used. mr. shaw and mr. butler, i wonder if you could address the safety valve provision and give us your thoughts on that. >> thank you. well, i certainly am appreciative that there's a recognition that this rule could lead to reliability issues. some of the challenges and concerns with the safety value approach is that in order to have allowing generating to operate beyond what is permitted and allowed in those extreme circumstances, there's two issues. one, epa has not made it clear what those extreme circumstances are. so it's going to be rare. would you be able to rely on it? two, one of the outcomes of this rule as i see it is the extreme advancement in renewables energy is going to make it more

challenging for us to account for when peak wind aren't blowing. part of what that is going to mean is we may not have generation available in our market to turn on because it's difficult to justify cost of building new generation capacity when you may only be able to operate for a few hours a year and only during those extreme circumstances and those rates are going to have to be extremely high twoornt those multi millions and sometimes billion dollar investments. >> representative, i think my comments would be very much similar to dr. shaw in the sense that the way that we look at this reliability safety valve on the one hand where we are appreciative because i think it was one of the probably most mentioned concerns that states had raised with epa as well as our public utilities commission around the notion that they were going to be setting up through the clean power plan constrained zones and putting in position where we would have unreliable power supplies at certain times.

so what i would tell su i think we're going to have to go on what i heard was the public utilities commission and usepa signed a memorandum of understanding, i think they are trying to figure out the dynamics of that as we are, as well. so we appreciate that there is this reliability safety valve. i think it's unknown at this point whether we think it will be effective. i've heard them talk about the reliability safety valve from the perspective they have a memorandum of understanding, it really is in the details which are yet to be developed. >> okay. thank you. i also want to get back to this question of getting credit for and maybe have all three of you address this issue for energy efficiency changes or reduction in greenhouse gases, different plans that you implemented in your state prior to 2012 that

you don't get credit for. could you talk about that aspect? because that's a concern i've heard from constituents, as well. >> i'll quickly talk about the case for texas. with regard to, for example, renewable energy, we've had a significant increase where about 10% of our electric generation is from wind power that was accomplished through about a $7 billion investment in transition line toes make that occur and a dedicated effort and that peak right because of 2012 in the mix of things, it was -- credits were going to be expiring and so you had this equip where lots of wind power was installed, a lot of the expenditure was made but then we don't get credit because the baseline was drawn after that occurred. >> representative, i'll echo that. one of our chief concerns and comments we made in our draft comments on the power plan which was yet unaddressed and yet to be addressed still is this notion of first movers like the state of ohio, like the state of

texas where we've had a renewable portion since 2008, had targets for renewables, had targets for solar and energy efficiency hitting targets by the year 2025. on to on to be told frankly because we were first movers and we were aggressive in implementing those across the state, to be told that those efforts between 2005 and '12 don't count is frankly disappointing to us and puts us in a deep hole. number two, recent conversations with u.s. epa and our modeling looking at the finalized clean power plan is that many of our renewable portfolio standards going forward even after 2012 will not count because they don't qualify under the measurement and verification requirements that u.s. epa has put into the final rule. >> congressman, very quickly, one of the things i said earlier is that oregon was beginning to look at the mass based approach. and under that approach, any

energy efficiency with a measure life that extends past after 2022 and into the compliance period in a sense very much does count to the extent that it causes the utilities to have to operate their thermal generation that much less. so under a mass based approach, mass based and rate based creates energy efficiency differently. under a mass based, all energy efficiency you do, the compliance period, that's a really good thing. >> the gentleman yields back. the the gentleman from ohio, mr. johnson, is recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and glad i was able to make it back the director butler, earlier this year in testimony before the energy and commerce committee, as i recall, you stated that epa's clean power plan had not been well designed. and that the rule was rushed out the door to meet a predetermined

schedule. so question for you, now that epa has released the final clean power plan rule, do you still feel that the final rule has some of the same flaws that existed in the proposed rule? >> representative, thanks for the question. i think that they obviously made some adjustments in the final rule. where he still have many of those questions remain and there are certain new ones, too. the actual final clean power plan is dramatically different. the titles of the books haven't changed, but all the panls are different. that is one of the reasons why today i called for epa at a minimum rerelease of the draft so that we ought to be able to -- rather than having to implement the rule immediately, at the same time, we're

reviewing it, give us and all the stakeholders an opportunity to review it. i will also just mention that the idea that u.s. epa made some assurances that as soon as august 3rd when they released this rule, that beginning in the first week of september, they intended this rule to be issued at final. they have deferred and moven away from that position. that would take us into february. all the while, still requiring states to be able to submit a plan by september 2016. those dates are unrealistic for us to meet. i think ultimately there are even more questions that have been raised in the final plan that we're still unclear about and frankly u.s. epa has not

been able to answer those questions for us. >> you've answered several of my additional questions. let me turn to another issue that we've talked about before in some of the hearings and testimonies. for chairman shaw and director butler, it appears that one of the changes between the final and the proposed clean power plan rule is the the amount of coal fired power plant requirements reflected in the base case, the scenario that analyses the current state of affairses without the clean power plan. it appears that the epa believes that 27%, or 78 giga watts of coal-fired electricity in existence three months ago will close by next year, even without the implementation of the clean power plan. epa claims that it made this change based on stakeholder

comments on the rule. did your agencies submit comments? >> yes. >> for you both, chairman slaw and director butler, in your comments on the proposed clean power plan, did you provide comments regarding the number of coal-fired requirements that would occur as a result of the mercury air toxics rule? >> my agency does not. our public utilities commission, perhaps, may have. >> representative johnson, he we did and we still, as i testified today, just by the mercury, the match rules that were responsible for closing 25% of our megawatts in ohio. so just over 6,000 megawatts of

power turned off this year because of the mercury standard. >> final question for the two of you. in your opinions, what stakeholder groups would have submitted comments that would have led the epa to make changes to its base-cased scenario for the amount of its coal fired requirements. and do you believe that these comments were submitted in an attempt too make it ach as though the clean power plan was less onerous to the states? >> i don't know what the the -- what group submitted comments that they were able to base that on. certainly, it does seem especially with the overly aggressive renewable energy goals that they have that one could conclude that it appears that they were more concerned with getting a 30% reduction than in determining what bser was for the different facilities. >> representative, i concur with that. i still believe there was a conclusion before the plan ultimately were developed. >> got it. okay. well, we've heard this before, mr. chairman. you know, you've got to pass it

before you know what's in it. you've got to define it before you do the analysis. i mean, that's just a pattern of this administration in so many areas and this is another one of them. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. without objection, i have a letter here from the governor of ohio, john kasich. it's a request to suspends implementation of the clean power plan. without objection, i'd like to have this letter entered into the record. i now recognize the gentleman from alabama, mr. palmer, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it was with great interest that i followed your testimony a few minutes ago, several minutes ago, chairman shaw, that this is really not about air quality. it's about climate change. which i think raises some questions as to whether or not this should fall under the purview of the epa, since their

primary responsibility under the clean air act was air quality. that said, one of the things that concerns me about this along that same line is your excellent analysis of the snvkest to the contrary of what this will do for climate change, the very limited impact. the one thing that you didn't cover that i'd like four to comment on is that there's -- recently, a report from a former lead author of the international panel on climate change, dr. phillip lloyd from south africa, he says that the majority of climate change we're seeing is due to natural variations. if you mean with that? >> i may have. i didn't recognize it from the author's name been but i have read material similar to that. >> i think this guy, obviously, has a -- an excellent reputation

in the scientific community given that he was the lead author of the ippc, one of their lead authors of the ippc report. so ijs it's sensible, then, to suggest that the epa is imposing an enormous economic burden on the families of america for little or no impact. >> and, congressman, i think as you even look into the material -- not the summaries, but look into the material of even previous ippc reports, you go back a few years and the message wasn't that climate change, manmade climate change is causing all these issues. it's that we've seen a natural clielt change and the concern was manmade emissions might accelerate that to lead to events. and then there was a shift it seems to me that seemed to suggest whether variability and any unusual weather became accredited to climate change and

i think it seems to support what the morrow bust review of the scientific record is. >> that came after they realized that we haven't had any temperature increase in 18 years and there was no evidence to support that. so they just changed the dialogue from global warming to climate change. mr. eisendorf, in regard to this impact that this is going to have and your assertion that there's some association with health benefitses and particularly asthma, there's a study out of ucla. there are several studies that indicate that the single biggest predictor of asthma is income. it's not air quality. it's income. how do you respond to that? >> representative palmer, not really my area of expertise. it may be that low income folks tend to be downwind from --

>> no, sir. >> i'm not really sure what the answer is. >> no, sir. it's -- the proximity to traffic and things like that may have some impact, but the study indicates that the majority of this is low income families. and i want to continue on that line and point out that the national black chamber of commerce is opposed to the clean power plan. and they pointed out that if this goes into effect, poverty rates among black families will go up 23% and among hispanic families will go up 26%. and the states that have already implemented a renewable power plant, such as maryland who began this initiative in 2005, their power rates have gone up, electricity power rates have gone up 61%. so you're imposing an enormous burden on families through this rule that i don't think the epa

has taken into full consideration. one other things about this, too, is how it impacts senior households, how folks who were on basically low income households, they're below 34,000 in median income and there's a report that came out that indicated that you've got house holes, 41 peshs of seniors went without medical or dental care because they had to make a choice between that and paying their energy bill. 31% went without food for a day. 30% did not fill out a prescription or took less than a full dose. this is the real impact of the regulations that the epa is imposing. this is not some pie in the sky stuff. this is how it impacts real people. it costs jobs. the black national chamber of commerce is estimating that they'll lose literally hundreds of thousands of jobs among black workers and hundreds of

thousands of jobs among sxan i hispanic workers. that's the real impact. it's not some issue of we may stop this unproven idea on of climate change -- >> the the gentleman's time has expired. >> that you can, mr. chairman. >> i'd like to recognize ranking member b on onamicci to make a submission for the record. >> i would like to submit to the admin vacation a letter. connecticut, oregon, vermont, washington, the district of columnby gentleman and the cooperation council of the city of new york dated august 13th, 2015, in which this group of attorneys general and corporation counsel wrote that the power plant rules issued today are the product of an unprecedented attempt by the epa to solicit public input.

they write in strong support of the final rules stating that the rules are firmly grounded in law. and i would like to submit this for the record, mr. chairman. >> without objection, so order onned. of course the states that are going to benefit from the clean power plant financially would be the ones who sign that letter. i would like to recognize dr. babbin from the grait great state of texas. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate that you said great. i have a lot of concerns with the epa's final rule for the clean power plan. while it's an improvement over the proposed rule, it goes too far with unrealistic expectations for reducing carbon emissions and lacks clarity in other areas. for example, i have a new biomass plant in my district that uses forest waste for fuel. under the clean power plan, it's not clear if this plant would be treated as a renewable fault for purposes of initial counseling

been has epa provided you, dr. shaw, with any more guidance on how these facilities will be handled under the clean power plan? >> that is wurchb of those areas that still remains elusive to get an answer to. >> thank you. >> there's a lot of folks that are worried about that in my district. and also, dr. shaw, i have several coal fired plans in my district. surprisingly, to many texans, 65% of our energy is producing coal fired plans no matter how cheap natural gas is. do you believe that this new rule will kick start a transition away from coal towards renewable energy in texas causing a number of coal fired power units to retire? >> it seems that there's no other outcome and in order to meet the rule would require dictate and crawling back to a point they're no longer feasibly economical to maintain. >> so war on coal is kind of a

good name. if so, how will this affect the economy and jobs in my district? won't this race prizes and affect reliability of our energy? congressman, i think based on the fact ercot and i think in your region ercot, let to, for example, our electric utility rates were about 30% to 35% lower than the reggie states utility rates, that's been because weaver insentivized the capacity. anything that makes us department from that are those utilizing those energy rates. >> and directed at you again, dr. shaw, and director butler, when administrator mccarthy was here and testified before the sfls committee back in july, she stated unequivocally that the epa's regulatory agenda rely owes on science that is

accessible and transparent. do you agree that with regard to the clean power plan, the epa has promulgated this rule transparently and that all aspects of the rule, including the calculation of benefits rely upon science and data that have been publicly made available? >> i think that is a stretch and certainly we're still digging our way through the 1500 pages. so maybe we've missed it in there somewhere, congressman. but it is a challenge to understand the basis and i think part of that is because it's very difficult to quantify some of the benefits because it's difficult to quantify the benefit of a hundredth of an inch in sea level rise change. >> mr. butler. i would agree with brian, my colleague. relative to transparency, maybe i'll transition and mention one other issue relative to transparency. t the u.s. epa, i know the state

of ohio, west virginia and kentucky, we asked the administrator who hold one of those public hearings somewhere within one of our three states so that they could see and get firsthand information from those, the most dramatically affected by the clean power plant. the closest i got was pittsburgh for having one of those public hearings. >> okay. >> and frankly, the level of transparent interaction, i think it was more of just a traditional top down regulatory approach they developed this clean power plan under this clean model, handed it to the states. we got an opportunity to provide some comments. but ultimately, i think they're still continuing down along the strategy that they had all along. >> absolutely. thank you. i think we could see a little more transparency myself. i want to thank all the witnesses. and mr. chairman, i it seems if you give them an inch, the epa will take a mile. this plan is another overreach by this administration and i

hope not just sake of my home state of texas, but for the entire country, we as a congress will be able to do something about this proposed final rule. thank you and i yield back the balance of my time. >> i'd like to thank the doctor from texas. now recognize the gentleman from texas mr. weber for five minutes. >> chairman shaw, i didn't get to hear your testimony. apparently i was out too late last night. but you mentioned in your testimony that the epa seems to be choosing energy sources that they prefer. and it was said in mr. west's comments earlier that it seems like they're in the business of picking winners and losers. and i appreciate your comments when i was here about this adversely affecting low income people especially in texas since we have our own grid, as you know, 85%, ercot. so what you're saying is that this is actually going to

adversely affect low income people more so than others. >> yes, congressman. i don't see a way that -- when you see a methodology, determining what your source is going to be based on the economics, which is what our system is based on, it's a creating new generations sources that meet that. and dispatch based on greenhouse emissions alone that raises the costs and the rates of that electric generation. >> i followed your exchange. i think my colleague from maryland and also from the north part of texas, colleague from maryland seemed to list just a whole bunch of bad things that were going to happen, all kinds of illnesses, fires and bad weather. she got down and i think she said heat, heat stress, which

low income people when actually their electricity bill goes up would be more prone to turn off their air-conditioner and probably a seed to heat stress. she had a long list of bad things that apparently the epa is trying to prevent. the only thing she left out was mumps and measles. and so i was appreciating your comments to the colleague from texas. actually, this is about co2 and that doesn't cause -- i mean, co2 doesn't cause asthma. you also said something, i think, chairman smith might have said .01 of a degree fahrenheit, an unmeasurable rate. is that what he said? >> i said that, as well. the chairman may have mentioned that, as well. that's from epa's -- >> and .01 of an inch sea level rise. let's go over to you. you seem to be in favor of the plan. i was fascinated by chairman smith's comments that that's three pieces of paper. three pieces of paper. so if we're going to

disadvantage some low income people, the epa cost estimate, this was $9 billion. if you divide that out by 50 states, it's $180 million per state, just fyi. the $180 million per state. if we're going to disadvantage the low income people and cause electricity prices to rise, how many sheets of paper would you add to that pile to disfranchise what percentage of the elderly and the low income?