WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, and ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, released the following statement today at the beginning of the committee’s markup of H.R. 3276, the American Medical Isotopes Production Act; H.R. 2868, the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act; H.R. 3258, the Drinking Water System Security Act, and H.R. 2190, the Mercury Pollution Reduction Act:
“First the good news. We’re having a regular order markup and I appreciate that. The second bit of good news is that we support the American Medical Isotopes Production Act of 2009. I thank Mr. Markey and Mr. Upton for their work. I have a little bit of a concern about the ban and the year the ban goes into effect. I raised that at subcommittee and both Chairman Markey and Ranking Member Upton assured us that they would take a look at that and work with us if we need to tweak that as the process moves forward.
‘The mercury bill is one of the worst bills I’ve ever seen in this committee’
“The not-so-good news, Mr. Chairman, is the other three bills we’re marking up I think are very bad bills. One of them, the mercury bill, is one of the worst bills I’ve ever seen in this committee. I really don’t see how a bill that wasn’t ready to be marked up three weeks ago and apparently nothing has changed is ready to be marked up today. If we want to just start picking targets in the manufacturing sector, and find ones that are helpless and defenseless and it’s not a big deal to eliminate a thousand jobs, so be it.
“If you want to eliminate and ban mercury period, let’s have a debate about that and go that way. But this mercury bill simply picks on four plants and says we the federal government have the power to shut you down and we’re going to it. I think that’s bad policy and an abuse of power of the Congress. But maybe I’ll be surprised and we’ll make some changes to that bill or maybe you’ll decide, Mr. Chairman, to once again do the right thing and pull it.
“On the other two bills, the chemical plant safety bill and the water bill, I think we’re mixing apples and oranges. If you want to have an anti-terrorism bill for chemical plants let’s have an anti-terrorism bill. Let’s look at the physical barrier protections, let’s look at the guard system
“Last week, the minority offered – in good faith – several perfecting amendments to the drinking water and chemical facilities bills. We raised issues from the legislation which we thought were extremely important to discuss and modify through the amendment process.
“Unfortunately, the Democratic majority voted down every one of our amendments. We want to be constructive. We believe we offered some common-sense ideas to advance sound public policy. We will continue to be constructive today and raise a number of the same issues we are so concerned about. We hope and believe that our friends on the majority side will reflect on the effectiveness of bipartisan government and consider this new opportunity to work with us.
‘An environmental bill in the guise of a terrorism bill’
“On the other two bills, the chemical plant safety bill and the water bill, I think we’re mixing apples and oranges. If you want to have an anti-terrorism bill for chemical plants, let’s have an anti-terrorism bill. Let’s look at the physical barrier protections, let’s look at the guard system, let’s look at the alarm system, let’s look at the protections to protect the files and secure information on site and let’s do a terrorism bill. That’s not what this bill is. It’s an environmental bill in the guise of a terrorism bill. It goes through this protocol of inherently safer technology, but if you think about it, that’s a process.
“There are certain chemical processes and treatment processes that perhaps are safer in terms of protecting the safety of the workers, providing a better product. They don’t have anything to do with terrorism and yet we have got two bills – the water bill and the chemical plant safety bill – that are really environmental bills operating under the banner of anti-terrorism bills. We have good anti-terrorism legislation that’s currently in effect. It’s not been fully implemented yet. Both the Obama administration and members of congress have put forward straight one- to two- to three-year reauthorizations of that legislation. I think we ought to implement it before we start radically changing the protocols we just put into place three years ago.
“But in any event, Mr. Chairman, as we did at subcommittee, at full committee we’re going to have a number of perfecting amendments. We’re going to offer those in good faith. It’s going to be a fairly long markup but hopefully a productive and cordial one.
“I do have one question. I want to make sure that pursuant to House Rule 11 of Clause 2, Subparagraph 1 that members will have two calendars days to file with the clerk supplemental, additional and minority views on the bills that we’re marking up today.”
