Pallone Floor Statement Blasting Republican Bill Restricting States from Enforcing Clean Water Laws Around Pipelines

Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) delivered the following remarks on the House floor today in opposition to H.R. 3668, legislation that strips states' right to enforce clean water laws and have a voice in the pipeline approval process:

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3668. This bill is an outright assault on our nation’s environmental laws. It completely strips states of their ability to enforce clean water laws when it comes to pipelines.

And I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that I was surprised when I first saw this provision of the bill. I thought Republicans were the party of “states’ rights” – so surely they wouldn’t take away a state’s right to enforce their laws and have a voice in the pipeline siting process. But Democrats offered an amendment at our Committee markup that would have struck this provision, and Republicans voted against it.

So here we are: Republicans on the House floor pushing forward legislation that actively and intentionally sells out states’ rights. Much like their promise to lower prices, I guess that was also just an empty campaign slogan.

But their bill goes even further than that – it also makes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, responsible for enforcing the Clean Water Act for pipelines. There’s just one problem with that: FERC has no idea how to do that. At an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing in April, we heard from FERC that they do not currently have the staff expertise or resources to execute this bill properly.

This bill is also a bad solution in search of a non-existent problem. FERC confirmed for us that they have not even seen issues with state clean water permits for pipelines. But as usual, Republicans simply do not care about the facts.

The language surrounding the Clean Water Act is not the only defect with this bill. Despite claiming that the bill aims to improve interagency coordination for pipeline permits and authorizations, the bill actually discourages it by pitting agencies against each other. Instead of letting FERC work collaboratively with other agencies – as the process does now – this bill makes FERC the adversary of other agencies by forcing it to breathe down every other agency’s neck, and make decisions on whether to exclude other agencies from the review process entirely. That is simply not an efficient or collaborative process.

I also want to take a moment to note that, while Republicans are obsessed with destroying our public health and environmental laws in order to speed up the construction of more pipelines, they have failed to pass basic laws to ensure that those pipelines are safe. The authorization for pipeline safety activities at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration – or PHMSA – expired over two years ago. And at no point in the last two years have Republicans put a bill on the floor that would reauthorize pipeline safety activities. I guess they don't care about that, either.

Instead, they have allowed the Trump Administration to run roughshod over the very concept of safety, repealing numerous rules designed to protect our communities and workers, and even withdrawing a rule that was required by a law that President Trump himself signed.

This bill, and the other energy bills we considered this week out of the Energy and Commerce Committee, are not a serious attempt at a “permitting package.” They do absolutely nothing to make it easier to expand or improve our power grid, despite this being a time when our grid reliability is a growing threat.

And for years, Democrats have been clear: a permitting package is impossible without reforms to the way we build transmission lines that transport electricity across the country. None of these bills address that, either. Instead, we have a slate of bills that cut corners for fossil fuel infrastructure, abolish states’ right to a role in the pipeline process, and serve absolutely no one except the worst corporate polluters – all while the Trump Administration blocks and cancels new clean energy projects across the country.  

These bills double down on failed Republican energy policies that have already driven up energy bills on American families and pollution in just the ten months since Trump took office.

The President promised to cut Americans’ power bills in half, but instead he and Republicans are causing them to soar with their backward policies and their war on cheaper, clean energy. Electricity prices are up 13 percent nationwide and Trump calls the issue of affordability a hoax. That’s how out of touch Trump is and Republicans continue to blindly follow him.

I urge my colleagues to vote no on this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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