Congressman August Pfluger, who represents Texas’ 11th district in the U.S. Congress, participated in a House Energy and Commerce Committee Environment Subcommittee hearing focused on permitting reform under the Clean Air Act.
During the session, Rep. Pfluger addressed concerns about how nonattainment designations can delay permits and impact economic growth without effectively solving air quality issues. He noted that current Clean Air Act permitting processes can extend project timelines for years, increase costs, and place significant burdens on companies.
The hearing featured testimony from Clint Woods of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management; Mark Gebbia of Williams; Ashley Kunz of Micron; and Danny Seiden of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Rep. Pfluger questioned Mr. Woods about how proposed changes in the Foreign Emissions and Nonattainment Clarification for Economic Stability (FENCES) Act could help states avoid penalties for pollution outside their control. “Mr. Woods, thank you for joining us. Your testimony highlights how states can be unfairly penalized for air pollution that they can’t control, whether it drifts across borders, international state borders, a number of things, whether it stems from wildfires, natural sources. The Foreign Emissions and Nonattainment Clarification for Economic Stability, or the FENCES Act, aims to correct that problem by making sure that states aren’t labeled as nonattainment when the pollution is literally out of their hands. And your testimony points out that nonattainment designations can delay permits, hurt economic growth, and don’t actually get after the problem that they’re trying to solve. So I want to ask a couple of questions. How would clarifying Section 179B, as the FENCES Act proposes, reduce permitting delays or protect the environment better than what we’re actually doing right now?”
Mr. Woods responded: “I think the bill goes a long way to clarify this provision that allows for state agencies like ours to capture the right thing. As EPA thinks about international background, other sources that are outside the control of a local agency as the primary regulator of air quality, there are several points in which the agency could consider it: when it sets the standards; when it does designations of an area, initially; when it looks at redesignating those areas into attainment or nonattainment; when it reclassifies. As my testimony lays out in great detail, as you get in nonattainment and then higher classifications from marginal to moderate to serious to severe to extreme, the penalties on permitting, on transportation funds and transportation conformity, and on fuel requirements become much more heavy handed and can just devastate and strangle economic growth, and are really at the core of the permitting issue. So we want the whole country to be in attainment, but the 179B provision is actually to avoid getting bumped up beyond marginal to those more significant penalties.”
Rep Pfluger also discussed infrastructure development with Ms. Kunz from Micron: “I’ll turn to Ms. Kunz and talk about infrastructure and the AI game that we know is here. And you know, just looking at the data centers of semiconductor facilities and other advanced manufacturing. We’ve heard from several witnesses that the current Clean Air Act permitting, especially the prevention of significant deterioration in the Title Five requirements, can add years to project timelines. And I’d like to hear your thoughts about Micron is building multiple large semiconductor fabrication facilities across the country. How can the Clean Air Act permitting timelines influence the schedule and the cost of these projects, while not necessarily achieving the desired goals?”
Ashley Kunz replied: “Thank you Congressman. From this perspective what we have seen is a lengthy environmental permitting and review process where we have duplicative reviews in some cases. We have interagency coordination of up to tens of agencies where at oftentimes we may receive conflicting guidance so within this—to streamline that process and remove those particular barriers within application process itself would be critically important to ensuring that we can start construction on time and deliver for our operational needs that will ultimately bring products our product to market for everything from automobiles to electronics to AI.”
August Pfluger has served as representative since 2021 after replacing Mike Conaway.
