Achieve the interests of local income local low income and minority communities. In cases where states may not be sure how to conduct Environmental Justice analysis or how to define an Environmental Justice community then i believe it would be helpful if the epa provided states with guidance and resources to help protect their most vulnerable communities which we all know have the least amount of influence to help themselves. Can you speak to this issue and assure me that one, epa is listening and working with the Environmental Justice as the agency prepares to finalize the rule skprks two, the agency will provide states with guidance data, tools and resources to help identify and protect these communities . I can assure you of that Ranking Member and i would also point out that our Environmental Justice budget is given an increase of 7. 3 million this year which will go a long way to helping us provide those tools. Gentlemans time is expired. Gentleman from texas, mr. Barton for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I could really have some fun with you today, but youre too nice a person. For a short period of time, anyway. Yeah. You have always been responsive professionally and at least accommodateing to take my phone calls and visit with me. So im not going to grand stand. But i do have a question thats or several. But the first one the president made this big announcement about china and a major breakthrough in a major agreement. But im told theres actually no written agreement no signed document. Is that true . Im not aware that thats the case. I dont know. I have not verified that. Okay. Well i have it on Good Authority from the professional staff of the majority of this committee that in reality all it was was a press release. Now, if thats true, and i want to say if but we cant find any copy nor can we obtain a copy of any document that was officially signed. Can you check that out and let us know . Its one thing to have a disagreement about policy. Its another thing to have a disagreement over what are in these documents when our president signs things. The accord as you well remember was signed by the Vice President on behalf of president clinton, but it never was ratified by the senate. In this case we dont even have something that we can debate, the pros and cons of and given the fact that this is a fairly visible issue, i think its a fair question if theres assigned agreement, lets see it. Do you agree with that . My understanding is it was a commitment at the highest levels in both countries and that the decisions was made to ensure that it that the actions that are commence rate with those obligations are captured in already existing agreements that we have with the country and that we will have an action plan moving forward developed through the formal negotiation process. Is that a long answer to say theres no signed agreement . No theres very much a commitment. A commitment. We have agreements to work towards that commitment whatever i mean when the president of the United States or the secretary ofr you represent the United States in International Exchanges if agreements are made something is signed. Something is signed. You dont just stand up and say, you know, we have this agreement and hug and everybody just loves each other. You actually have a document that at least if the senate, if it needs to be ratified by the senate or the house is a commitment. What you have here, i am told is a press release, a photo op, which is not unusual for this president , ill grant you. But in this case a 30year agreement should actually be documented. Thats all. So if youll if there is something thats signed, youll get it to the committee. Im sure that there was an agreement that was announced and ive seen those document skbrs youve seen document obama and whoever the chinese official is . Youve actually seen a signed document . Ive seen the documents expressing both of their commitments to this goal but you havent action items can be documented and tracked. I can show you the signed declaration of independence. I can show you lots of documents that have signatures on them. I can you and i can agree that im not going to go out and rob a bank. And you can agree that youre not going to rob a bank. We can hold a press conference. I dont think this has been discussed as this type of a binding agreement. I think it has been discussed as a path forward i got 30 seconds left. So im going to switch gears. Renewable fuel standards. We have mandates that simply cant be met. You have said publicly and privately that you want to fix it. You have promised the chairman of the Committee Even in a hearing that you would have a program to fix it. We have yet to see that. When can we expect to see something that that gives some real relief to this rfs mandate that simply cant be met . I think congressman, you know i have a real commitment to moving this issue forward. I wished it could have happened last year. The approach that epa took received considerable comment. Youll see something very soon, in the spring that will address that issue and hopefully move us forward can you give us a date . Very soon this spring . I mean by the end of march . I dont have a particular timeline, senator. Dont profane me now. I was giving you a little boost. I just want to make sure that we cross our ts and dot our is. I know we were not successful last year and i really want to get this out in a strong way and make sure it movesds forward. This time, i recognize the gentleman from new york mr. Tomko for five minutes. Thank you. Welcome, and thank you for your leadership and joining us this morning. I want to focus on Drinking Water programs. Pleased to see this years budget includes a modest increase over the current years funding level for the Drinking Water state revolving low fund. It seems every week i hear about significant water main breaks across our country. A few weeks ago or over the last few weeks, several have hit my district including my hometown of amsterdam. While i am pleased the administration is asking for more funding, im concerned that we are continuing to fall further and further behind on the maintenance and upkeep of these systems. It costs far more to deal with a wipe once it has burst than it is to have a Systematic Program of repair and replacement of infrastructure that takes care of our systems. Also we have many communities unablg to take on more debt. So a loan program isnt going to do it for them. They do need grants. In this agencys budget there is mention of new technologies and financing mechanisms that the agency will be exploring. The new Water Infrastructure and resill yans finance center wont provide funding. Is that correct . Is my interpretation of that budget correct . For this year, were standing up the program itself, yes. But were a little looking at what other states and localities are doing and see if we cant duplicate some of those parts that are happening already. Thats leading us in the right direction. Ive seen estimates of water leakage that rain nl from 30 to 50 . This is treated water thats leaking so it represents both lost revenues because that waters never delivered to a customer and it is lost investment because utility paid to pure fie that water. So water in dollars are flowing out of these pipes. Programs like water cents that encourage Water Conservation is good. Does the agency have some options for helping utilities to identify the leaks and address them . Well, we are actually have a fairly comprehensive program. It begins with our office of research and development that conducts research on what types of technologies are available to identify where those leaks are happening. And then we try to provide Technical Assistance to help identify opportunities for reducing those leaks. We will be looking at this. Youre absolutely right that as the Climate Changes, our water challenges get considerable. If you look at whats happening in the western part of the u. S. Theres a desperate need for Water Conservation. The last thing any of us would want to do was see water suitable for drinking being leaked out of the system. Right. Its indeed a precious commodity. We need to have a good collaborative effort to reduce those issues. The best in my opinion is to ensure the source water is as clean as possible to begin with. I support the waters of the u. S. Rule because i believe it is critical to efforts at source water protection. What other initiatives is the agency putting forth considering to assist communities with preventing Water Pollution and protecting source waters . In a number of different directions. One of our biggest concerns is that we see a lot of spills near source waters that are and in source waters that are challenging us from a distincting water percent spective. We are looking for states to ensure they get the guidance they need and that we do our job in terms offsetting National Standards so that the states that have their own Water Quality standards and identifying and categorizing their own waters have the information they need to protect themselves. We know weve had recent spills that indicate its not enough. Were trying to identify what other assistance we can give to states and get them to think a little bit more creatively about how they plan their Water Infrastructure needs. Plus we get an opportunity to move forward with some of the challenging storm water issues that are contributing to some of the pollution entering into our Drinking Water spies. We appreciate the partnership the agency has with the states when you ask for those dollars in the budget, when the budget increases somewhat, we know that a lot of those efforts go towards our states. Thank you for your input here this morning. I yield back. This time recognize the gentleman from illinois, mr. Shimkus for five minutes. Welcome. Do you agree that theres 84000 chemicals listed approximately in the inventory. Yes. How many do you think are currently in commerce . Out of the 84 lists, how many are actually used in commerce . Im sorry. I dont have the exact number. Thats part of the problem. And why were trying to move to get a handle on this. The if we work with industry on Chemical Data reporting, that should help us get a better idea of what that number is. Do you agree . Yes. So in your budget plan, you have originally 83 work plan chemical Risk Assessments that you want done by 2018. I look at the budget report. Weve got like five completed, five to ten in 15. Maybe ten in 16 which gives us 25. Take that from 83. Thats still 69 that budgetwise we dont seem to be able to get in a timely matter. I appreciate the effort. But, again, i want to use this opportunity as i think we can get there and this is a perfect example how we can work with you and my colleagues on the other side to move this forward. So as i mentioned a couple times, the i want to move to 111d debate just a little bit. And this is where we appreciate some of the responsibility because there is a concern that under 111d, coal fire generation, theres going to be some qdecommissioning. They are major generators. Theyre a base load production. Across the country, Nuclear Power is also stressed. And you can look at my own state, state of illinois where the state is trying to go through some gyrations to make sure Nuclear Power is still online. Has the epa taken into consideration the base load loss of not just 111d but what could happen if we lose Nuclear Power and what do you think can be used to sur plant that . We actually have looked at that issue and weve received a lot of comment on this as well. Because we the way in which the 111d analysis looks at this issue is it indicates that there is likely to continue to be over 30 generation through coal, even in 2030 at the end of the target timeline under 111d. Theres no question, that there are being investments made in that base load in order to make it cleaner from traditional pollutants. And we expect that base load to continue. One of the Biggest Challenges is to make sure we dont do this in a way that sends different signals to the communities we all care about. I want them, if theyre investing in these facilities, to know that they can continue and that investment will not be stranded. Is and i think were looking very closely at that issue. There are many ways in which we can achieve the goals that dont result in lower Energy Generation and base load from coal. And weve talked about the midterm standards before. And i know youve had a lot of input from the industry. I would just hope that you would really look at those because that could be a Tipping Point of moving things too fast where if the end goals can be reached without really upsetting the apple cart in the midterm. And you know weve talked about it weve put out some ideas for this and have great comments that will allow us to address this issue pretty effectively. I also want to weigh in on the rfs positively. Hoping that we do get a standard. And ive already talked to the folks in my district who are concerned and say 14 15 and 16 will have something. Im sure that will be highly fought and angered on both sides no matter what that is. It brings me to this debate on biodiesel and the epas authorization of importation of biodiesel without really having the rvos established. Is this is point of one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing . And how do we put that supply in for part of the calculation . Rfs is going to be looking at the range of availability of fuel supplies of the biodiesel. Fuel supplies are available domestically and internationally which is what the rule requires. That decision, i think was a little bit misunderstood and we can certainly talk about this, but there was there was already biodiesel coming in from argentina. What we approved is a more stringent way of tracking that to ensure it was a renewable fuel consistent with the underlying rfs principles. It was not intended to open up a new market. It was intended to affect the way in which the companies were assuring their compliance in a way that was more stringent. And we think its a model moving forward to make sure everybody is bringing into this country the kind of fuel that we are trying to support for production purposes. Gentleman from texas, mr. Green for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Administrator mccarthy thank you for being here today. Its always good to see you before our subcommittee. To say that the epa has a lot on its plate is an understatement. Im happy to ask some questions about the balance we are trying to strike between protecting the environment but helping our Business Industrial sector capitalize on whats required to be done. On april 12th epa released a new Source Performance Standards for volatile organic chemicals from the oil and gas industry. The 2012 nsps targeted hydraulic fractured natural gas wells. The reductions through green completion and expected a yield of 95 reduction including an estimated 1. 7 million tons of methanes. They were supposed to be implemented in a twostep process. Is that accurate that the nsps wont be implemented until the end of 2015 . My understanding is and im sorry congressman, i may be counting wrong. But i think thats right for the full implementation. We did recognize that there was equipment that needed to be manufactured and installed. We work with the industry to make sure we werent being overly aggressive about the ability to have the technologies available for full implementation enter have they quantified how much is actually yielded to this point . We do have a good signal from the Greenhouse Gas reporting program that its already been tremendously effective at reducing Carbon Pollution because Carbon Pollution is reduced as youre capturing those volatile organic compounds. I understand its already about 190 to 290,000 tons. Thats right. Is the estimate. Has epa quantified methane reductions as a coal benefit . We have. I can get those numbers. I think i have them. Its about 73 decrease. Excellent. . January this year, they released a strategy for reducing methane and pollution from the oil and gas industries. It stated potential sources that would be regulated, pneumatic pumps, leaks from well sites and compressor stations. Anyone thats been on a rigs knows youre also most likely to find natural gas. And the Energy InformationAgency States that more than half of all completed wells produce both oil and gas. Does the epa believe theres an overlap between the two rules . We believe there are synergies and were going to make sure we do not duplicate efforts. But we actually provide a good signal as to what their regulatory obligations are. In 2014, estimates indicated almost 200 million in additional gas could be captured and sold from the national gas sector. They have started using mod due lar equipment to capture the methane and either sell the product or power back to the producer. This is an effective and efficient way to encourage change. Aside from using it on site, additional capture is also going to require additional pipelines. In the budget doe has set aside some but not enough money. Has epa done anything similar . Epa has been working with d. O. E. To take a look at what pipelines need to be constructed in order to make sure we can still continue to enjoy the natural the inexpensive natural gas and the oil thats making us solid domestically. Recently the white house released a revised draft guide. And Climate Change in your studies whachlt are your views on how t