Administrator Lisa P. Jackson's Remarks at the CBCI White House Briefing on Commerce & Energy
Environmental Protection Agency
Eisenhower Executive Office Building
July 22, 2010
All right everyone I’ll be relatively brief. First thanks for having me, thanks for giving me a couple of minutes to talk about energy and the environment. I’m going to switch them around, the environment and energy although that wouldn’t be fair because they really are the same topic and so much of the work we do. And obviously I’m nothing but proud to be apart of an Administration that gets that, that sees the opportunity in energy to do so many things, including taking care of our polluted environment, but also to realize that there is money to be made in doing that and that there are opportunities economically for so many communities, not just in jobs but opportunities to rethink the math when it comes to something as fundamental as to how we make, use energy and what that economy looks like. And that’s been so much of our work, not because we want to turn it all upside down, but because the current system is simply not sustainable; it’s not sustainable economically, we are fighting wars for energy, for oil and we are not sustainable economically from the standpoint of jobs, we don’t have growth industries, we need one and across the globe energy is a growth industry for us. What I’m here to talk about is not sustainable from the standpoint of pollution. See I spend a lot of my time trying to get an 18,000 person agency to focus on a few things because we only have eight years and there are so many important issues that face us, but one of the is air quality and water quality.
It’s like really fundamental stuff, but study after study is showing that the air quality is, guess what, not good. I heard Greg mention the Gulf when I was standing outside just a minute ago, I said the other day, it was actually the President asked me, “What’s going on with the environment down there?” and I said, “Mr. President, the news of the day is that the air quality is not good, it’s not safe for young people, it’s not safe for the elderly, there are some real concerns along the Gulf Coast when you talk about air quality”. And of course I got his attention with that and I said, “The other piece of news with that is that it’s not different than last year this time”. The air quality in many parts of our country is dangerously degraded. Ozone levels, even in some places that right now attain the current ozone standard, because we have a proposal out to change it. We have people who are literally going to go to the hospital and not come home today because of asthma and other lung diseases and heart disease. And at least some part of that, and my belief is that a large part of that, and that’s not a hyperbole, is because the air is not safe for them to breathe. We’ve actually gotten to that point where we’ve made the environment too toxic in which to live. And where is the environment most toxic? In urban areas, why because there is a confluence of industry and roads and transport, and that means you get these sort of… and cities tend to be warmer than the suburbs because of the heat island effect and on days like today the air is particularly toxic to breathe. What about water quality? Energy generation is but one user of water quality so it would not be fair to say all air pollution is because of energy or all water pollution is because of energy. That’s not fair but a significant part of our challenge is trying to decide how to deal with water quality that has gotten better, made a huge step forward in the ’70s and 80’s, and hasn’t had a step like that in a long time and we are seeing the effects of that. New York Times series of stories not too long ago, front page, on the quality of the water in this country. Many of you have seen the National Geographic, water is the new oil. In a climate stressed environment we will have places that will not have enough clean water to drink. And if we don’t start to pay attention to that we will have problem. Energy is a game changer for the environment and if you think of energy in an environmental context, that changes you as well. I like to give the give the following…I believe it’s wonderful to talk about the environment in big terms, but most people don’t come to care about the environment because of big terms, they don’t see the environment that way, they see it in their community, in their neighborhoods, what they deal with everyday, so here’s a different one.
There are 155 coal fire power plants in this country that are the oldest, never been retrofitted, never anything done to them. They are primarily located east of the Mississippi River, in what many of us call the “Rust Belt”, but not entirely. Some are in North Carolina, South Carolina, the Tennessee valley, majority down South. Those 155 coal fire power plants out of 1300 coal fire power plants have an average age of 53 years and many are much older. They’ve never been retrofitted, they’ve never had pollution controls and they beg if they were retrofitted to cleaner energy, pollution controls were put on would save 20,000-30,000 lives a year starting in 2015. So the health benefits from dealing with…and they are 5% of mega wattage coal (inaudible) and they are primarily located in areas that affect huge (inaudible) of air quality in the eastern part of the country. Think Boston to North Carolina, think about how many people live in that area of the world. So there are huge cost efficiencies to gain by dealing with those parts of our power fleets that are the oldest and dirtiest. And that was the promise in the Clean Air Act. I see my job as fulfilling a little bit of the promise of the Clean Air Act for all Americans. I feel like it’s well passed time that we do that. Those are the things that compel me to get up in the morning everyday to go to work, they’re the reason why energy is an indispensible part of the solution in my mind, but they’re also the bread and butter issues of the environment that too often people think folks of color don’t care about. If you breathe, you better care about air pollution.
One more fact for you, disproportionately people of color are seeing increases in asthma and pulmonary effects. Health issues are caused at least in part by the environment. Environmental justice is all about the proven now statement that because of where we live, poor people and often times that means people of color, are still sadly are disproportionately affected when the air is bad. And if you are disproportionately affected by something that bad, you will be disproportionately benefitted when it gets better. That’s all I have, I will be happy to take questions.
Comment by Art Collins: Thank you Ms. Jackson, thank you for being here… Congressman Thompson in his absence would want me to say these three things to you. First, he would thank you for your service to the nation as a member of the President’s cabinet. He would secondly, thank you for partnership with Congress and particularly members of the Congressional Black Caucus and to your last point, he would thank you for bringing a special focus to the disproportionate impact that the environment (inaudible) so I wanted to say that to you and thank you for taking the time out to address the 21st Century Council. The individuals before you represent a broad and diverse constituency of business, academic, non-profit as well as labor organizations. And so we are, if you will, some of the best of the brightest who come together around seven policies including energy and the environment.
Question: I noticed that you started out by talking about environment but also talking about economic opportunities associated with energy. And I was wondering, how can we get the voice of minority owned business and that part of our community, engaged in EPA, either through the (inaudible) process or other advisory when it comes to environment energy policy? My second question is, how does EPA under the Clean Air Act and other legislation address mitigating the cost impacts on (inaudible)
Jackson: The first one is easy. Here is Drue, Drue is from our Office of Outreach and she’ll make sure that we connect you with those pieces of EPA facts because we’ve had an effort since President Obama was inaugurated to diversify our factors and I think we’ve done a great job, but I think we can do more. So we would welcome diverse voices to make sure that those factors, and many of them, just because of timing and actions of the Bush administration are coming due all at the same time for new membership. So we would welcome that. The Clean Air Act is pretty specific on costs, it’s actually a pretty cool statute in general. It says there are two things the EPA administrator has to do, first is speak with a clear and non bias voice about what levels of pollution in the atmosphere are adequate to protecting the (inaudible). So when it comes to ozone, or socks or knocks or mercury, EPA has a suite of regulations that are due primarily because quite frankly the last administration either didn’t do them, or the (inaudible) they found were found illegal, patently illegal by the court, some of the funniest decisions you ever want to read. So we have this backlog of regulation, I am passionate about the need to actually getting them done because they are the same. That 155 coal fire power plants are also the same, they are not the biggest carbon emitters but there places where there are certainly opportunities on the CO2 and greenhouse gas front. But what we do…so part one is you speak and say what level of ozone is safe for human health, currently it’s 84 and we’re in the middle of changing that number, we haven’t announced to what yet. And then there are a series of implimentation steps where cost becomes quite important. The important thing to know about the Clean Air Act is that bar none, it is the most cost effective environmental statute in the country. It’s 13 to 1 is usually the number used, health benefits to cost. So everytime we spend a dollar to retrofit, to get air improvements and industry rightfully points that out. Think to your mind, 13 times benefits for children who are going to emergency rooms to get healthcare for asthma that’s the easiest one to think about, not the only one. So, 13 to one that’s over the last 20-25 years easily since the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. That’s what we’ll continue to do, there are policy issues associated with using the Clean Air Act to deal with greenhouse gases but EPA is now by law, ordered to use the Clean Air Act to deal with greenhouse gases. And I have personally said that a better mechanism would be a new law to deal with carbon pollution. And I’ll stop there.
Question: We have been working on an energy bill, climate for a long time, a couple of years. And we’ve gone through healthcare, financial reform and one of these days we are going to. Can we expect one this year?
Jackson: Here’s the good news, we’ll know soon enough. And I’ve been saying that now for a little bit of time. But the legislative clock being what it is, it is absolutely not untrue, we have until August, the 8th I think, until the Senate goes out of session. So we have an Energy Climate Bill that passed the House, we have a Senate that has yet to act on as a full body. There’s an Energy Bill that has passed the Energy Committee, it’s Bigaman and Murkowski I want to say. Then the big argument has been what that bill would say or not about carbon pollution. The President has been really clear, he thinks we need to finally give, not only certainty in people who need to make investments, but a price, a market mechanism that makes carbon pollution not free, in fact makes it a negative investment so business will do what business does, which is maximize profit by cutting down on carbon. But they are into a vote counting exercise and you don’t have to read Politico everyday, which of course I do, to know that the odds are somewhat long.
Question: As we talk with some of the other members of the African Diaspora around the world, they very much look to the US for leadership on climate issues, and technology. We are looking at a meeting in November/December in Mexico, we had a meeting (inaudible) in Johannesburg. At those occasions, particularly the Global South are looking to the US (inaudible) How can we help you in that area, as well what we know what we can do here in the US?
Jackson: First, you should meet Michelle DePass, have you met Michelle DePass who runs our office of International Activities. Many of you know Michelle, I commend you to spend some time with her in terms making sure we’re working together on those issues. You know climate change is an easy one, it’s a global problem right, CO2 emissions too, but increasingly a lot of the other air pollution issues and not just air, but other pollution issues, we deal with are global issues. And we can make progress but we cannot make them alone. We also have a moral obligation to not simply progress at the expense of someone else who has to deal with a mounting list of sort of the detritus of our civilization; well we just ship it over there where we don’t have to worry about it. I think that there is an educational component needed, there’s a leadership component needed, that’s why institutes like this are so incredibly important. I mean we should not miss what happened in Copenhagen, it was all kind of speculation as to what Copenhagen meant, but this President went to Copenhagen and showed exactly that kind of leadership. Probably say (inaudible) breaking down to the point where we wouldn’t have a Mexico City. So I think it is up to you all, my advocacy is limited, I have a job to do, and I’m happy to go as far as I can go within that job. But also, all of us, to build an awareness in our young people that we need to do this for job reasons, we need to do this for moral reasons, here and abroad, and that there is an incredible opportunity to get in this game. Now places like Green For All, who I know well, I think are vitally important. I think we need to make sure our young people embrace this issue of greening in a way that is meaningful for the Diaspora. And I will tell you that we have work yet to do, because when I read in Politico in other places about the people who are meeting quietly, not in the government but outside, to decide the fate of energy and climate bills, still missing, still missing are people like so many extraordinary members of the CBC, in that small, small room to make sure that we are thinking global. That’s why I’m absolutely…my first message these days is about those 155 power plants, because if we don’t somehow, in dealing with all the issues before us, deal with those 155 plunkers we’ve not only missed an opportunity, we have paid for it with our lives, with our health disproportionately. So we all have to do what we have to do.
Question: I just wanted to build on what was already said in terms of the United States being a leader in terms of addressing global issues around greenhouse gas emissions and also the opportunity to find jobs throughout. What do you think is going to be the best remedy, I mean I’m pleased to hear you say that the legislative piece…(inaudible)
Jackson: I’m always in reference to the legislation is better than regulation for carbon pollution. The only amendment I have is the Clean Air Act when it comes to mercury and socks and knocks, (inaudible), has a proven track record of getting the job done.
Question: Inaudible question
Jackson: My amendment…my belief is that legislation is better, but nothing is worse. So if we don’t get legislation we have an EPA that now has statutory authority in the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. We started with a place, that still in my mind, hasn’t gotten enough attention and that’s what we call mobile sources and what everyone else would call cars and trucks. Light duty trucks, meaning the ones you would buy, not the 18 wheelers. Tremendous opportunity, billions of barrels of oil and million plus tons of CO2 just by making our cars average 35 miles per gallon, and the President has already said he liked that so much because it was such a win/win; industry liked it, the unions liked it, the environmentalists liked it. Those are all always good days for the environmental movement. He has already told us that he wants us to do another round of car, truck, and light duty rules for 2017. So we already have an EPA that has done something that for most environmentalists was a dream, which is use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases. We fought a hard fought, but very successful battle those are the best kind, to beat back an amendment from Sen. Murkowski that would have taken all that back. It would nullified our (inaudible) and taken that away . We now have a harder job of dealing with what we call stationary sources: plants, power plants and other plants, any industrial thing you can think of , refineries, chemical plants. And the challenge there is going to be reasonable, because like I said you have to regulate it, you should use common sense and reason, and understand that the economy is hurting. And realize how fundamental energy is in that economy and do what legislation would do but even better which is give certainty to investments for business. And we have a rule out right now called the “Tailoring Rule”, it’s final, that says when we regulate we are not going to start with small or medium size business. We are going to start with those businesses that generate hundred thousand tons a year or higher, and actually that would start in January. So we are in the process now of figuring out what those regulations look like. And we’re all enforced to continue down that path. And what I have said to my staff and what I’ve committed when I talk to business is, this is not meant to be punitive so that you face a horrible EPA or a happy bright sunny legislator. Not because I know there are people who politically do that game all the time, ”you can do it with us or you can do it with Lisa Jackson”,…but because I’ve been too long working in the regulatory field to know that’s a short term strategy. If it falls on EPA to regulate, we have to do that in a way that preserves the idea of economic (inaudible) that gives business certainty, but that also gives it time.
