(KCPW News) Democratic Utah Congressman Jim Matheson is teaming up with a Republican lawmaker on a bill aimed at scrutinizing rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. It had its first subcommittee hearing last week.
“The Environmental Protection Agency considers the impacts and the costs and the benefits of each rule just as a single rule,” he told KCPW. “But it’s the old cliché, they’re missing the forest, they’re just looking at each individual tree, and what my legislation says is we ought to harmonize all these, look at the cumulative impact and the timing of these rules.”
Matheson’s bill, nicknamed the TRAIN Act, would have a committee analyze the cumulative impact of EPA rules with an eye toward how they impact economic competitiveness, energy, and employment.
The congressman says it would create a better environment for everyone to work together, both on the industry side and at the EPA.
“What I’ve heard from some folks is if a couple of these rules are implemented before the others, it may direct industry down one path, and after industry has spent time and money and effort to construct things to meet a couple of those rules, subsequent rules may say, wait a minute, we actually need you to do something different than that,” said Matheson.
The bill is specifically aimed at upcoming rules on pollution controls for oil refineries and utilities, air quality, and coal ash and storm water runoff. You can listen to a longer conversation with the congressman on the Politics Up Close page.
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