Bill Flores on Environment

Attack EPA ozone standards and power plant caps

Flores attacked the EPA, particularly its proposed ozone standards and carbon pollution cap on power plants. But Flores never mentioned the economic benefits of improving public health by cutting coal pollution and shifting to clean energy. Those tend to outnumber the cost: The EPA's climate rules on power plants could save $55 billion per year by 2030, versus $9 billion in costs.

Flores's other points are hardly worth arguing: If climate change is junk science, then 97% of scientists are part of the ploy. Yet these facts fail the "smell test," Flores claims. He might try living next to an unregulated coal plant to see what that smells like.

Stop considering manure as pollutant or hazardous.

Congressional Summary:Amends the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) to exclude manure from the definition of "hazardous substance" and "pollutant or contaminant" for purposes of such Act. Defines "manure" to mean:

1. digestive emissions, feces, urine, urea and other excrement from livestock;
2. any associated bedding, compost, raw materials or other materials commingled with such excrement from livestock;
3. any process water associated with such items; and
4. any byproducts, constituents, or substances contained in, or originating from, such items or any emissions relating to such items.

Opponent's Comments (Jim Ruen on AgProfessional.com, Oct. 3, 2011): Since when can a fertilizer dealer operate without concern for environmental regulation and impact? Let's face it, we aren't talking about Ma and Pa Kettle with their six milk cows and three sows here spreading a load of manure on the back 40. We are talking about CAFO units with thousands of animals and tens of thousands or more tons/gallons of manure. While a few maybe spreading on their own land, most are selling it to area farmers. At a time when fertilizer dealers and companies have to be conspicuously careful with how they handle product, why shouldn't mega-livestock operators be equally regulated as they sell their "waste" product for its nutrient and soil building value. Since when do commercial N, P and K producers or handlers get a free ride from the EPA...or Congress?

Member of House Natural Resources Committee.

The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, or Natural Resources Committee, has jurisdiction over issues of:

• Fisheries and wildlife, including research, restoration, refuges, and conservation.
• Forfeiture of land grants and alien ownership, including alien ownership of mineral lands.
• United States Geological Survey.
• International fishing agreements.
• Interstate compacts relating to apportionment of waters for irrigation purposes.
• Irrigation and reclamation, including water supply for reclamation projects and easements of public lands for irrigation projects; and acquisition of private lands when necessary to complete irrigation projects.
• Native Americans generally, including the care and allotment of Native American lands and general and special measures relating to claims that are paid out of Native American funds.
• Insular possessions of the United States generally (except those affecting the revenue and appropriations).
• Military parks and battlefields, national cemeteries administered by the Secretary of the Interior, parks within the District of Columbia, and the erection of monuments to the memory of individuals.
• Mineral land laws and claims and entries thereunder.
• Mineral resources of public lands, including the Outer Continental Shelf.
• Mining interests generally.
• Mining schools and experimental stations.
• Marine affairs, including coastal zone management (except for measures relating to oil and other pollution of navigable waters).
• Oceanography.
• Petroleum conservation on public lands and conservation of the radium supply in the United States.
• Preservation of prehistoric ruins and objects of interest on the public domain.
• Public lands generally, including entry, easements, and grazing thereon.
• Relations of the United States with Native Americans and Native American tribes.
• Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline (except ratemaking).

Rated 0% by HSLF, indicating an anti-animal welfare voting record.

112th Mid-Term Humane Scorecard: The Humane Society Legislative Fund has posted the final version of the 2011 Humane Scorecard, where you can track the performance of your federal lawmakers on key animal protection issues during last year. We rated legislators based on their voting behavior on measures such as agribusiness subsidies, lethal predator control, and the Endangered Species Act; their cosponsorship of priority bills on puppy mills, horse slaughter, animal fighting, and chimps in research; their support for funding the enforcement of animal welfare laws; and their leadership on animal protection. All of the priority bills whose cosponsorships we're counting enjoy strong bipartisan support; in the House, each of the four now has more than 150 cosponsors.

The Humane Scorecard is not a perfect measuring tool, but creating some reasonable yardstick and allowing citizens to hold lawmakers accountable is central to our work. When the Humane Scorecard comes out each year, it helps clarify how the animal protection movement is doing geographically, by party affiliation, and in other categories. It helps us chart our course for animals by seeing where we have been effective, and where we need to improve.

No EPA expansion of regulated waters.

Congressional Summary:

A BILL to preserve existing rights and responsibilities with respect to waters of the United States.
• The EPA Administrator are prohibited from developing, finalizing, adopting, implementing, applying, administering, or enforcing the proposed Definition of 'Waters of the United States' Under the Clean Water Act (April 21, 2014); or any substantially similar proposed rule.
• FEDERALISM CONSULTATION: The EPA Administrator shall jointly consult with relevant State and local officials to develop recommendations for a regulatory proposal, taking into consideration differences in State and local geography, hydrology, climate, legal frameworks, economies, priorities, and needs.

Argument in opposition: (by Rep. Bishop, D-NY-1)

The enactment of H.R. 5078 would, unfortunately, lock in place the interpretive guidance of the Bush administration: traditional Clean Water Act protections over a significant percentage of waters has been called into question or have simply been lost. These are protections that existed for over 30 years prior to the issuance of the first Bush-era guidance in 2003 and are now all but lost, making it harder and more costly for individual States to protect their own waters should their upstream neighbors be unwilling or unable to fill in the gap in protecting water quality.

Pollution needs to go somewhere, and since pollution does not respect State boundaries when it travels downstream, it will have an adverse impact on the quality of life and the quality of the environment of those downstream States. Under H.R. 5078, the EPA would be prohibited from ensuring that polluters in Connecticut continue to reduce excessive amounts of nitrogen in the Sound, leaving my constituents in the State of New York without any recourse to stop them.

Voted YES to require GMO labeling.

A BILL to require the Secretary of Agriculture to establish a national disclosure standard for bioengineered foods.

Cato Institute recommendation on voting YES: President Obama quietly signed legislation requiring special labeling for commercial foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs)--plants and animals with desirable genetic traits that were directly implanted in a laboratory. Most of the foods that humans & animals have consumed for millennia have been genetically modified, by cross-fertilization. Yet the new law targets only the highly precise gene manipulations done in laboratories. Anti-GMO activists oppose the new law because it preempts more rigorous regulation. And that's exactly the goal of this bill, to the frustration of the anti-GMO crowd.

JustLabelit.org recommendation on voting NO (because not restrictive enough): Senators Roberts (R-KS) and Stabenow (D-MI) introduced a compromise bill that would create a mandatory, national labeling standard for GMO foods. This bill falls short of what consumers expect--a simple at-a-glance disclosure on the package. As written, this compromise might not even apply to ingredients derived from GMO soybeans and GMO sugar beets. We in the consumer rights community have dubbed this the "Deny Americans the Right-to-Know" Act (DARK Act). We need to continue pressing for mandatory GMO labeling on the package.

Heritage Foundation recommendation on voting NO (because too restrictive): The House should allow [states, at their choice,] to impose [a more] restrictive labeling mandate, but prohibit the state from regulating out-of-state food manufacturers engaged in interstate commerce. Instituting a new, sweeping, federal mandate that isn't based on proven science shouldn't even be an option.

Legislative outcome: Passed by the Senate on July 7th, passed by the House on July 14th; signed by the President on July 29th