Burdensome EPA Regulations

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARR. I thank the gentlelady for organizing this Special Order and her leadership in highlighting a real problem in our country right now.

The President of the United States the other night in the State of the Union made an observation, and the President's observation was one where he described an economy in which inequality has deepened and upward mobility has stalled. Unfortunately, in many respects the President is right, but he is wrong about what has caused that problem to exist in our economy.

The truth is a major reason why upward mobility has stalled is because the Environmental Protection Agency, under his direction, has produced a deluge of red tape and regulations that are literally strangling the Nation's economy. The poor are worse off today than they were when President Obama took office. Seven million more Americans live in poverty today as compared to 2008. Median household income has fallen over $2,000 in the last 4 years. Seventy-six percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and the percentage of working-age people actually in the workforce has dropped to the lowest rate in 35 years in the Obama economy. The EPA is largely responsible for this.

The coal industry in my region in central and eastern Kentucky could be the poster child of this regulatory onslaught. According to the Commonwealth's recently released figures, more than 7,000 coal miners in the Appalachian coalfields have received pink slips since 2009; 2,232 of those jobs were lost last year alone, thanks in large part to the overreach of the EPA. The percentage of coal miners in our State is the lowest number of coal miners since 1927 in the coal labor market, and that is since they actually started keeping those statistics.

So whether it is deadlocking the permit process or trying to effectively ban coal-fired electricity through disastrous greenhouse gas regulations, EPA's arming of unelected bureaucrats has been very direct about their efforts to reshape entire sectors of our economy. In fact, the President's own climate adviser was reported as saying ``a war on coal is exactly what we need.''

So what bothers me about this is that there is a total disregard for the human cost to hardworking Americans, their families, who have lost these paychecks, who have been laid off with no other economic opportunity.

There is a problem with upward mobility in this country. There is income inequality, but it is because of this administration's policies that are devastating these coal-mining families. And make no mistake, these costs are generally borne by the Nation's most vulnerable who can least afford higher energy prices. A recent study analyzing government data found that, for the 180,000 families in Kentucky making less than $10,000 per year, energy costs consume more than two-thirds of after-tax income.

That means for every $100 they take home, about $70 goes to covering the cost of energy. The EPA's ruinous policies will only drive those rates higher, adding to the burdens on those already struggling to make ends meet. Folks like our seniors on fixed incomes, they can't afford these higher utility bills.

The President likes to talk about the war on poverty. My friends on the other side of the aisle like to talk about the war on poverty. Well, it is hard to win the war on poverty when you are waging a relentless war on jobs. That is exactly what is happening with the EPA.

EPA officials think that they know what is best for you, for your family, and for your community, whether you live in Kentucky or Texas or California, but when Congress has asked for some evidence to justify this one-size-fits-all approach, they fail to provide it.

While I am sure it was much easier for these bureaucrats to have listening sessions on greenhouse gas regulations in Washington, D.C., or San Francisco, California, the three States that produced the most coal--Kentucky, West Virginia, and Wyoming--they were not on the list where the EPA went to visit. I don't think the bureaucrats would have received such a warm welcome from the coal miners of my State whose jobs were lost, the small businesses that no longer have customers--many in my home district--the teachers whose schools have lost a major source of tax revenue. They no longer have those funds because of the war on coal and the loss of revenue.

As I have warned for some time, the impact of EPA regulations will not be limited to the coal fields of Appalachia. If the EPA has its way, rising electricity rates, like we have already seen this winter, will ripple through this economy, threatening the manufacturing renaissance; home heating bills will spike; goods and services will cost more, depressing consumer demand; businesses will have to devote money that could have gone to investment and hiring to cover higher energy costs at a time when they can least afford it; companies considering to locate here in the United States will leave because our energy advantage will instead go overseas, where labor and energy are cheaper and the regulatory environment is less suffocating. Americans are calling for more jobs, but the Federal bureaucracy is trying to make sure those jobs go elsewhere.

All of this is happening through agency rulemaking because that is the only way that the President's environmentalist wish list can come into being. Similar policies have repeatedly failed in the face of bipartisan opposition in Congress. The President and the EPA, deaf to the vehement refusals of the American people and their elected officials to go along with this extremist agenda, are resorting to the only means that they have left: legally questionable rulemaking and executive actions unilaterally administered by the executive branch.

The House has made its position loud and clear: these policies are at odds with the intent of Congress and not in the best interest of the American people. In fact, they are actually bankrupting many hardworking Americans.

Enough is enough, Mr. Speaker. I would encourage the President and the EPA to approach Congress with an open, transparent program that balances environmental protection with economic growth. It can be done if Congress has a willing negotiator in the White House, but continuing to impose these rules by executive proclamation unilaterally fails to benefit the environment and it serves only to harm our constituents and our democracy, if this President, if this Congress is serious about dealing with poverty, if we are serious about dealing with income inequality, if we are really genuinely interested in helping the poor in this country, let's not attack hardworking Americans. Let's focus on job creation and growth, and let's unleash the energy potential of the United States.

I thank the gentlelady for her leadership.

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