To. To follow up with respect with the fema certified with as implemented the Flood Mapping Program with deifies three council. It was created in 2012 to the point in time that it has not yet established by a fema so what is the timeline for that very Important Council to begin reviewing and improving the accuracy . If we refer to the fema flood map . Those rules were created we solicited the applications and i dont have the data but were in the process of implementing that so there was a solicitation. I just have to get you you could tell from many members on the subcommittee and across the country, the issues involving for flood mapping and the law that was signed into law last week are so very critical across the country and we want to work with you to try to ease the pain that this is causing you and so many homeowners across the country. With that, i want to thank you so much for your valuable testimony. It is so clear to me and anyone listening that your local, state, and federal experience is so very valuable if you leave the agency which sees, it seems, more and more action regularly across the country and i want to support and appreciate your respon responses to questions about your budget. Members of the subcommittee may have more questions and we ask you respond in writing. Thank you for your service. Pursuant to hearing record the record is open for seven days and without objection we stand adjourned. For seven days and of the committee stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations] tonight, epa Administrator Gina Mccarthy talks about the budget and the clean water act. The secretary of the airforce investigates cheating in the nuclear core. And a hearing on the transportation hearing programs. The Environmental ProtectionAgency Issued new clean water acts that governor stream and wetlands. Epa adman Administrator Gina Mccarthy presented the budget. This is two and a half hours. The meeting will come to order. Thank you for rearranging your schedule for the hearing. We are having vote for get away day so i appreciate you working on this. Welcome to fiscal year 2015 Budget Hearing for the Environmental Protection agencies. We are joined by Gina Mccarthy and mary ann forlic to discuss the budget. I believe this is ms. Mccarthys first meeting. Thank you for being here. We look forward to the budget and discussing your ongoing work. The Budget Proposal is a level of 7. 89 million which is 3. 8 below the enacted level. The budget is reduced for the fifth consecutive year. The Budget Proposal is good bringing the budget in line with historic level and in line with the levels under sequestration but avoids employees furloughs and other things with across the board cuts. We make targeted cuts about how we spend the money as we rein in the deficideficit. I apprec appreciated eyeate the agencys payroll tax being investigated. This has been a priority for the subcommittee since 2011. I am glad to see we are aligned. I am pleased to say that the fy 2015 fte reduction compared to 2011. Previous budgets often proposed payroll levels above the onboard personal leaving us to wonder how epa would use the funds. As we move forward, i have concerned about the state of the aging Water Infrastructure and the california drought. We had a hearing to discuss of ways to finance the water structure needs. There are options out there to compensate the clean water Drinking Water funds. It is important from a security and economic standpoint that we have a protective and efficient water structure system. We discount the value of clean Drinking Water whenever we need it. That is until it isnt there. The budget is full of tough choices but one proposal i will let you know is unacceptable proposed elimination of the diesel grants that support the r retro fit of the old Diesel Engines. As the program is important as Diesel Engine power over 95 of commercial trucks. According to the epas own estimates every 1 spend on upgrades resulted in 13 worth of health and environmental benefits. So i dont understand why the administration would propose to eliminate this program with such a high return on investment particularly when it aligns with the environmental benefits while creating jobs. The budget eliminates funding for the rural Water Protection grants and state raidon grants where 22, 000 people a year die from cancer from raidon. The Administration Proposes other programs we dont have the funding to pay for in a con strained budget. These are the wrong priorties to cut. They achieve results without the heavy hand of topdown regulations. The budget proposes increase funding for the overzealous enforcement agenda. It doesnt lend to Building Partnerships or policies that lead the economic growth. The epa serves to kerry out that agenda. When the president issues a directive stating the epa must regulate a rule to regulate the existing power plant gas it is care the whitehouse doesnt care what the rule says or the impact to the jobs. Whether the whitehouse directs you to veto a mining permit before a company had the opportunity to apply it is clear the administration isnt serious about creating jobs. And the latest example was revealed tuesday when the epa proposed the greatest expansion over land and Water Resources in the history of the 42 years of the clean water act. Every Small Business and farmer could be subject to epa fines if they disturb a puddle on their land. Epa stated that science would support tuesdays ruling. But the associate science study on streams and wetlands to downstream waters has yet to clear the review boards. The administration is wanting to go alone without the cost of impact on rules, jobs and without care for what the Scientific Community has to say. This subcommittee will continue to take whatever actions are necessary to inject common sense into the rulemaking process and provide certainty to farmers and Small Business so they will not have to look over their shoulder fearing the epa. So the sum of the trends point to the right direction, devil is in the details and i look forward to working with you on the details and keeping the line of discussion open. With that, i will save buy my additional remarks until after your testimony. Now to yield to mr. Moran. Thank you mr. Chairman. We may have a couple points of disagreeme disagreement on the bill but we will remain friends. Welcome administrator mccarthy. This is your first hearing and we want you to know we greatly respect your dedication to Public Service and that of your staff particularly taking on this role which is about as difficult a role as any in the entire administration. But you have a long record of protecting the Publics Health and environment which is presumed to be an unpartisan objective. And you worked for the then governor mitt romney. So i would trust this is a nonpartisan, noncontentius hearing. I understand you came from the air side of the epa, but i expect we will send a considerable amount of time on the water regulations that were released on tuesday. They have been a Long Time Coming and i do support and appreciate the fact you have taken the initiative to do what has needed to be done for a long time. I want to say thank you for listening to my colleagues and issueing a proposed rule instead of just guidance. We hear the guidance skids the rulemaking. So hopefully that complaint is off the table now. I am sure i dont have to remind you that epa has done more than its share of deficit reduction. It cost about 2 billion 2010 and it is disturbing that epa would be the first in line for additional spending reductions and that your request would be 7. 9 billion this year with all of the environmental challenges we have. I share the chairmans concern about the deteriation of the aging water structure. I wonder if we should have o ber up here so we can under why the administration is gutting state funds and proposing staffing reductions to 1500 fulltime equivalents. 200 less than you will have on board this year. I appreciate your request to add over 35 million for federal and air regulation but we have seen what happened to those in the past. The reductions are mostly accepted and the increases are denied. So i appreciate your fiscally responsible request. But i question the ramifications it will have for the environment. Year after year, when you propose cutting something, that is accepted when you propose increasing something it is rejected. But your Mission Remains as important as ever while we debate over Climate Change in congress, we should bear in mind Ronald Reagan getting the montreal agreement done. He had a conservative and clear and successful record on deregulation. But he was stirred by the whole in the ozone and the montreal protocol was meant to save the layer and there are evidence that it may have been not what slowed down Global Warming as the chemicals might have caused the Global Warming. We have a good leadership that faces the facts of environmental trust. A Million People died as a result of air pollution exposure. We have made approvemeimproveme the clean air but there is more to do to reduce particlets and mercury. I tried to start a tradition of quoting republican president s like nixon, roosevelt, and lincoln on the need to protect the environment. But it hasnt done a wit of good. Look at the bills. Anyways, it doesnt seem to have produced much in the way of divdeneds so i am going to suspend this practice. Even though i have a great quote. Do you want the quote . What is that chairman . Say it. We stand where two roads diverge, but unlike the roads in robert frost poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have been travelling is disceeceptivdeceptively easy. We progress with spreed but it ends with disaster. The other fork that is lessly travelled offers the path that preserves the earth. The point being the regulations are going to be tough. I know you have gotten pushback around the country. But the road less travelled is the one we need to chose. I look forward to your service, hearing your testimony and working with you. Thank yap you administrator. We are joined by the appropation chairman rogers. Thank you for taking time to contribute to this important conversation. We are moving quite quickly along on the hearings this year. We have begun earlier than we ever have to my knowledge becauseee didnt have to wait on the Budget Committee or anything else. I want to do 12 bills this year and so does my counter part in the house and senate. So these hearings are proceeding than every and earlier than usual certainly. So we have proven we can get the job done if they give us the equipment to do it. When they gave us there common number from the ryanmurray budget deal, we were able to n construct with this committee, the bill in 30 days, including the two major holidays. So we can do the job and we are proving we can and that is where were now. Madam chairman, unfortunately, i found myself at odds with our agency every since i have been here and certainly ever since you have been here. And that is not changed today. For years, it seems the epa has worked hard to devise new regulations that are designed to eliminate coal mining, coal burning, useage of coal period and that means jobs where i live, especially in my district. There has been a relentless attack by your and your predecessors on jobs in the coal industry. These are jobs that are critical to the local communities where these workers live. They are their only jobs there. I have had 8,000 of my miners laid off. They went from 80,000 to trying to find a job at mcdonalds to support a family. And i dont find any heart beat up here concerned about the wellbeing of these americans. I just dont see it. I see relentless ongoing attack, not just from the epa, but all of the agencies that have to do with coal mining. It is sad. It is tragic. It also makes me mad. And so dont look for any friendship out of this seat. Now having said that, the nation needs this inexpensive electricity from burning goal. You are going to need it. There is not enough wind, sun, or nuclear or anything else that can produce the power that is in place by burning coal. So whether you like it or not, and i know you dont, you are going to have to use coal to keep your lights on. And so the uncertainly driven by the bureaucratic overreach that the courts have severely cautioned you on several times, this overreach that we see coming on, beats all of the others by ten lengths. You are going to push businesses overseas. We will have job losses not just in the coal business because inexpensive electricity is one of the biggest attractions america has for creating fa factories and jobs and your policies will drive up the cost beyond belief. We almost have a burn out with the extreme cold and weather, especially in the northeast, the industry all but crashed. And you are going to see that again except more frequently. And you are going to pay a heavy price out there in the country when your policies have caused the problems that we are going to see. But i dont see anybody in your agency that is even thinking about that or thinks about it or cares about it. I was disappointed on monday to read that the Supreme Court decid decided not to hear a case in which the epa was retro activeally denying permits that were approved years before. All that does is continue the cycle of uncertainty that the industry feels never knowing if a government operator is going to shutdown a mine operation m simply because they dont like coal. They are creating standards the epa knows are impossible to meet with commercially available technology. This shows how serious the president is about one Campaign Promise of 2008 the bankrupt anyone who plans to buy new coal power plants. That undattitude underlies all the administration efforts. Mining permits are almost impossible to aa obtain ad p productive minds are idle. It is time for the burrirurr tow for all of the above Energy Policies which the president is paying lip service to and it should include coal. It is time for the senate to step up and pass the bills that will protect coal jobs that the house sent to them. I am dismayed at this weeks news as well that despite years of concern by this committee and others, the epa and core of engineers are working to create new rules that will place strict new standards on thousands ou ouch of socalled streams in the country even thou. By creating this new definition, the administration again is striking at kentucky and others economy and workforce every hollow and valley in my region has a stream running through it. Sometimes dry or intermitant what have you will be in your jurisdiction. No economic active, no road construction, no coal mining, nothing will occur on those lands without the sayso of the people in washington, d. C. Another layer of tape will be added to the knot that already has a stranglehold on the people since the administration declared a war on coal. This is unbelievable. There are tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, creaks and streams and dry beds that would be subject to your oversight and no one can do anything on the lands without getting your approval. That aint going to happen, madam administrator. Right here is where a good part of the fight is going to take place in this subcommittee. Thank you. And we are joined by ms. Loyd who is here. Do you have an Opening Statement . Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chairman rogers, Ranking Member moran, welcome administrator mccarthy. It is pleasure to welcome you to the first meeting. To be blunt the fy 15 request of 7. 89 billion is unacceptable at 310 million below current levels. Last year i voiced concern that americans dont see the importance of the epas work in their every day lives. Despite existing environmental programs, the epas successes in improving the environment with the passage of the clean water act amendments of 1990s and the laws of the 1980s establish the Super Fund Program address the most aagraze grnlgs threats to our wellbeing. My colleagues and friends, although we may have disagreements, they dont value your purpose. The house votes on a bill to roll back the epas ability every week to pull back and democrats opposing them overwhelming and republicans supporting them overwhelming. This budget request seems to indicate that epa doesnt fully value the importance of its its own work in the lives of millions. I am concerned about the cuts to the state Revolving Loan funds that support drinking and waste water. According to the American Society for Civil Engineers in new york that has the oldest infrastructure in the country, there is a 56. 7 billion need for drinking and waste water upgrades. In 2011, drinking Water Infrastructure survey, epa found that 384. 2 billion in Drinking Water upgrades are needed over the next 20 years. And in 2008, epa reports that approximately 300 billion is needed for waste and storm Water Infrastructure. The price tag has grown while the epa investments have declined since this started. I am also disappointed by cuts to the Long Island Sound, great lakes, Staffing Levels at the epa which strongly sugge