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Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) President Grover Norquist this week sent a letter to Congressional lawmakers urging support for Congressman Markwayne Mullin’s H.J. Res. 59 and Senator Jim Inhofe’s S.J. Res. 28. 

Both resolutions would use the Congressional Review Act to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new rules relating to the Agency’s Risk Management Plan Program (RMP), put forth under President Obama last year. The new RMP rule would increase an already excessive compliance burden and jeopardize the safety of over 12,500 U.S. chemical facilities. 

Below is the text of the letter to Congress, which can also be found here

March 9, 2017

The Honorable Paul Ryan
Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Majority Leader
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell:

On behalf of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) I write to express ATR’s strong support for using the Congressional Review Act to repeal the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new regulatory requirements relating to the Agency’s Risk Management Plan Program (RMP). 

While increased safety is a laudable goal, the changes to the RMP put forth by the EPA under President Obama fall short of achieving this goal in a sensible and cost effective manner. Instead, the changes put forth to the RMP could actually jeopardize the safety of U.S. chemical facilities and grow an already costly compliance burden.

The EPA’s new RMP rule is redundant and would add to an already excessive compliance burden. The new rule would also jeopardize safety by requiring U.S. facilities that handle hazardous materials to publicly disclose sensitive facility-specific information regarding the chemicals present at a certain facility and any relating operational information.

Such disclosures would be available to any member of the public upon request, and the new rule would prevent facilities from denying access or using any sort of vetting process to ensure the release of sensitive information will not be used to endanger the public or compromise national security.

The existing RMP has already proven successful by driving down accidents at chemical facilities by almost 60 percent since its implementation two decades ago. With the new rules set to take effect March 21 of this year Congress must act quickly.

In the House Congressman Markwayne Mullin has introduced H.J. Res. 59 and Senator Jim Inhofe has introduced S.J. Res. 28 in the Senate. Both of these resolutions would use the Congressional Review Act to block the EPA’s new RMP rule.

I urge you and your colleagues in Congress to support both H.J. Res. 59 and S.J. Res. 28 and use the authority granted under the Congressional Review Act to prevent the enactment of the new RMP rule.

Sincerely,                                 

Grover G. Norquist                                                      
President                                                                     
Americans for Tax Reform

 

Photo credit:  55thStreet