As a father and grandfather, I understand the importance of ensuring a clean environment for our future generations. Throughout my 33 years of public service, I have demonstrated a commitment to preserving our environment and the health and well-being of all Ohioans. I sponsored legislation to create the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency when I served in the state legislature, and I fought to end oil and gas drilling in the Lake Erie bed. As Governor, I increased funding for environmental protection by over 60 percent. While in the Ohio House of Representatives, I was responsible for creating the Environment and Natural Resources Committee and was honored to serve as vice chairman of that committee.
In addition, the state of Ohio realized significant improvements in air quality in recent years. When I first entered office as Governor in 1991, most of Ohio's urban areas were not attaining the 1-hour ozone standard. By the time I left office in 1998, all cities had attained the standard, except one. However, Cincinnati is now meeting the standard an is awaiting action by the EPA.
Overall, the ozone level in Ohio has gone down by 25% and in many urban areas, it has gone done by more than 50% in the past 20 years. Ohio is doing its part to provide cleaner air. Nevertheless, over the years, I have become more and more concerned that just in order to comply with federal laws and regulations, our citizens, businesses and state and local governments must pay costs that can be inordinately burdensome or totally unnecessary.
In the 104th Congress, I worked closely with a coalition of state and local government officials and members of the House and Senate to pass effective safe drinking water reforms. The results of our efforts culminated in the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments, legislation which was enacted with broad bipartisan support in 1996. In addition, the bill had the support of environmental organizations and I was pleased to attend the President's bill-signing ceremony when these reforms were signed into law. This cooperative effort is notable because it showed that a law could include common-sense reforms that make the government more accountable based on public awareness of risks, costs and benefits. I believe it set a key precedent for reform of environmental regulations.
I specifically mention the drinking water program because it includes risk assessment and cost benefit analysis provisions that I strongly believe should be part of the Clean Air Act. In fact, I am about to introduce a bill that would do just that. Under my bill, the EPA would be required to conduct an analysis of incremental costs and benefits of alternative standards, while providing the agency with flexibility in making final regulatory decisions.
My bill is a common-sense approach that merely addresses the obvious: if it's good enough to protect the water that we drink, then it should be good enough to protect the air that we breath. It will also help us avoid some of the legal and legislative wrangling that has occurred with respect to how we achieve clean air.
When I was Governor of Ohio, I became more and more concerned that the EPA was not taking into consideration sound science, costs and benefits during the rulemaking process. I was particularly concerned about the standards for ozone and particulate matter and the NOx SIP call. In fact, I spent over 100 hours trying to convince the EPA, the Clinton Administration, members of Congress and members of this committee that the costs to this country to implement the new National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) far outweighed the benefits to public health and the environment.
In fact, according to EPA's own estimates, the costs for implementing the NAAQS standard for ozone exceeded the benefits. The President's own Council of Economic Advisors predicted that the benefits would be small, while the costs of reaching full attainment could total $60 billion.
Just this spring, a U.S. appeals court remanded EPA's ozone and PM2.5 standards, ruling that EPA did not justify its decision with sound scientific evidence. Ohio was a party to this lawsuit, which began when I was Governor. The court didn't say that EPA couldn't regulate at these levels, but that EPA didn't give justification for doing so.
That has been my point all along. I have argued that the NAAQS standards and NOx SIP call were going to be costly and that we didn't even know if making those investments was going to make a difference.
Federal agencies should not be in the position to force businesses and consumers to throw billions of dollars at a problem without knowing if they're hitting the right target. Yet, the EPA is asking all of America to pay for these new regulations simply because the EPA said it is the right thing to do. However, they have failed to adequately determine the effects of changing the ozone and particulate matter standards.
In an effort to make my case with Administrator Browner regarding the new NAAQS standards, I told her the facts were inadequate to make the case for these standards. Instead of improving public health, they would divert resources from programs that make a real difference in protecting human health and the environment. However, she told me that her hands were tied, that statutorily she could not use risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis in her consideration of final regulations. At that point I realized it was essential to provide EPA the authority to take costs, benefits and risk into consideration during the rulemaking process. And it is important that the public know what information has been used in finalizing the rules that affect our air quality.
I have no doubt that using risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis will help ensure that reasonable and cost-effective rules are being set, and which have the science to back them up.
The challenge facing public officials today is determining how best to protect the health of our citizens and our environment with limited resources. We need to do a much better job ensuring that regulations' costs bear a reasonable relationship with their benefits, and we need to do a better job of setting priorities and spending our resources wisely.
We need to make the federal government more accountable to the people it serves. When EPA is setting Clean Air standards, they should answer several simple, but vital questions:
What science is needed to help us make good decisions? What is the nature of the risk being considered? What are the benefits of the proposed regulation? How much will it cost? And, are there better, less burdensome ways to achieve the same goals?
Thank you Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing today's testimony.