Legislative Update: CLEAN Future Act & Nominations

CLEAN Future Act

Several committees have started examining the sprawling provisions of the CLEAN Future Act. On May 5, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy held a hearing on the decarbonization of the transportation sector. During the hearing, Ranking Member Fred Upton (R-MI) pointed out that the CLEAN Future Act would result in de facto bans on hydraulic fracturing, plastics manufacturing, and new pipelines. “As a result, the CLEAN Future Act is going to increase the cost of energy and make it practically impossible to build new industrial facilities,” Upton said. In his opening statement, the congressman questioned how the U.S. would manufacture electric vehicles (EVs) given how critical plastic and hydrocarbon-based materials are to the cars’ design, concluding that “we can’t have it both ways.”

Rep. Greg Pence (R-IN) agreed that EVs play a critical role in the U.S.’s transportation sector and provide opportunities to incentivize U.S. manufacturing but cautioned that the CLEAN Future Act severely limits hydrocarbons and plastic production necessary for car manufacturers. He says the legislation provides no realistic alternative and harms the millions of jobs in the petroleum industry.

Witness Michelle Foss, an energy and minerals fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy’s Center for Energy Studies at Rice University, testified about the benefits of light plastics in auto designs and batteries. Foss strongly emphasized how “anything and everything” that affects the ability to extract oil, gas, and hydrocarbons, and the materials produced from them, will affect the affordability and availability of battery electric vehicles. She also pointed to the effects that the Texas freeze had on plastics’ prices as an example of supply chain vulnerabilities that can increase costs and product prices.

Rep. Daniel Crenshaw (R-TX) recently questioned EPA Administrator Michael Regan on the subject during the EPA budget hearing on April 29 before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Climate. Crenshaw pointed to the contradictions within the CLEAN Future’s Act provisions and Democratic polices. The legation would effectively ban plastic for the coming years and curtail the U.S.’s investment in new plastic production, as Democrats are pushing a new infrastructure bill that would require massive new plastic production for EV batteries, lightweight materials for EV cars, medical materials for vaccines, and fiber optics wrapped in plastic. Administrator Regan says that he is unfamiliar with the CLEAN Future Act, noting that his staff’s choice not to brief him on the legislation “sends a signal” that it does not appear to be high on EPA’s lists of priorities.

Nominations

EPA Water office nominee Radhika Fox was well-received by both Democrats and Republicans during her confirmation hearing on May 12 before the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee. Fox repeatedly pledged to work with states and industry stakeholders on a new “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule. Questions on WOTUS dominated the hearing and showed the clear partisan divide over which waters should be subject to the Clean Water Act (CWA). Ranking Member Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) asked Fox whether she agrees the Obama administration’s 2015 CWA rule was “overreaching” and what her plans are as water chief to avoid duplicating it in a replacement policy that Administrator Regan has vowed to develop. Capito criticized the Biden administration speed in choosing so many environmental policy shifts “without a lot of external engagement.”

Several other Republican lawmakers asked similar questions, including Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), who asked Fox what provisions of the Trump 2020 rule she found objectionable. Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) also shared that the 2015 WOTUS rule under President Obama was unworkable for Arizona and urged Fox to consider arid western states when drafting a new version.

The panel also was also considering the nomination of Michal Freedhoff, the nominee for the head of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Freedman has been the acting Assistant Administrator since January and well known on Capitol Hill having previously worked for Congress for over two decades, including as the minority director of oversight for the EPW Committee under now Chairman Carper.  Freedhoff participated in the drafting of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and will now be tasked with its implementation. Carper praised Freedhoff’s work and ability to bring people together to form solid bipartisan solutions to protect the environment and public health while fostering economic growth.

The Republicans on the panel seemed pleased with Fox’s responses and her willingness to hold stakeholder meetings at the state and local levels to create an “enduring” definition of WOTUS and end the back-and-forth cycle of discarding a predecessor’s policies. Both Fox and Freedhoff received no objections or threats to vote against them. On May 5, David Ross, who served as EPA assistant administrator for water in the Trump administration, sent a letter to EPW Chairman Tom Carper (D-DE) and Ranking Member Capito urging the Committee to approve Fox’s nomination, saying that despite their policy differences, she is well qualified and “cares deeply about the water sector and understands the importance of the water sector workforce to our daily lives,”

Plastics Legislation

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) unveiled legislation directing EPA to curtail facilities and other sources discharging plastic pellets in waterways. The Plastic Pellet Free Waters Act (S. 1507) would require the EPA to prohibit the discharge of plastic pellets and other pre-production plastic into waterways from facilities and sources that make, use, package, or transport pellets. Durbin introduced the bill while sharing his concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic has increased consumer use of plastic packaging and single-use containers by 40%, but the U.S. only recycles 9% of its plastic consumption.

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