The House on Regulation: Cement and Reform

Wed, 2011-10-05 09:55 | Regulation | Sam Batkins
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Today the House takes up EPA’s Cement MACT rule and H.R. 2681, a measure that would rescind the current regulation and allow EPA more time to promulgate a new rule. 

The House could also address EPA’s pricey Boiler MACT proposal, which was issued earlier this year but that EPA later delayed.  Combined, the two rules could:

  • Impose more than $2.6 billion in industry costs;
  • Require 362,000 annual paperwork burden hours; and
  • Endanger close to 800,000 U.S. jobs, according to Global Insight.

Here’s a highlight of the reform legislation that would address these two pricey EPA rules:

The “EPA Regulatory Relief Act,” H.R. 2250, sponsored by Representative Morgan Griffith (R-VA), would:

  • Rescind the Boiler MACT rule and the solid waste incinerator rule;
  • Allow EPA 15 months to reissue the rescinded rules, and require EPA to consider compliance costs and “potential net employment impacts.”
  • Require EPA “to impose the least burdensome regulatory alternative for each regulation promulgated.”

The “Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act,” H.R. 2681, sponsored by Representative John Sullivan (R-OK), would:

  • Rescind EPA’s “Portland Cement” emission standards;
  • Require EPA to, within 15 months, establish new Portland Cement standards under the Clean Air Act, set compliance dates for new standards, and take into account compliance costs and “potential net employment impacts.”
  • Require EPA “to impose the least burdensome regulatory alternative for each regulation promulgated.”

The bills have 26 Democratic cosponsors, or roughly 14 percent of the entire caucus, so these regulatory reform efforts have broad bipartisan support.  Whether these co-sponsorships translate into votes on the House floor is another matter.