{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://raskin.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-raskin-s-remarks-epa-public-hearing", "Rep. Raskins Remarks at EPA Public Hearing", "2017-12-04", "2017", "2017-12", "Democrat", "House", "MD", "Jamie Raskin", "R000606", "raskin.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08) offered the following remarks (as prepared for delivery) today regarding his opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s (EPA) proposal to roll back regulations on glider vehicles:\nI thank you for the opportunity to testify on this critical issue. Thank you to Bill Charmley, the Director of the Assessment and Standards Division in the Office of Transportation and Air Quality, for leading this panel, as well the rest of the staff of the Office of Transportation and Air Quality.\nI also want to thank the various groups working to keep the public informed on this critical issue, including: The Union of Concerned Scientist, The Environmental Defense Fund, The International Council on Clean Transportation, and The American Lung Association; Your dedication to advancing policies to protect the health and safety of all Americans is essential as so much of our environmental safety net is turning into a tight rope.\u00a0\nClimate change is not an \u201cissue\u201d but a civilizational emergency and the whole context within which we must decide every other problem.\u00a0 There is no higher duty today than reversing damage to our environment and protecting our land, water, and air for our children and generations to come.\nIt is for this reason, I am here today to express my strong support for the EPA\u2019s 2016 decision to apply greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks to glider vehicles.\u00a0 Although a seemingly esoteric issue, the consequences of reversing the common sense 2016 standard are far from esoteric.\u00a0 I am baffled and confounded as to why the EPA would even consider repealing such an important, well-designed and effective public health rule.\nThe EPA has been working for over a decade to control the levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate matter emitted from diesel engines because it is well-established that the public health consequences of these emissions are profoundly severe.\u00a0 Both the American Cancer Society and the World Health Organization list diesel exhaust as a Group 1 known carcinogen to human beings alongside things like asbestos, radiation and cigarette smoking.\u00a0 Long-term exposure to diesel exhaust has been linked not only to the killer disease lung cancer but to stroke, heart disease, pulmonary disease, chronic respiratory illnesses, asthma, bronchitis, and chronic infections.\u00a0 And while these killer conditions affect the whole population, they always pick off the weakest ones first: children, the elderly, the sick, people with compromised immune systems.\nThankfully, the EPA took action 10 years ago to dramatically reduce these deadly killers by establishing strong pollution controls on new diesel engines.\u00a0 The trucking industry responded swiftly, unbegrudgingly and admirably to the new requirements such that today, NOx and particulate matter emissions from modern diesel engines are more than 90-percent below what they were 15 years ago.\u00a0 That is a huge victory for the public health to eliminate so much toxic pollution.\nWith this success, I am mystified as to why the Pruitt EPA would consider reopening a loophole to allow outdated killer diesel engines to re-pollute our air in the form of glider vehicles.\u00a0 Where is the lobby for turning the clock back to more and more deadly air pollution?\u00a0\nAs you know, glider kits permit older, dirtier engines to be reused in new truck bodies.\u00a0 This means that glider trucks put decades-old engines back on the road--engines that emit particulate matter, a definite human lung carcinogen, and ozone precursors (NOx) at rates of concentration as much as 40 times higher than the pollution that the new diesel engines create.\nJust one year of glider truck sales \u2013 approximately 10,000 trucks \u2013 will produce emission of ten times more NOx pollution over the truck\u2019s lifetime than is emitted by all the \u201cdefeat device\u201d Volkswagen vehicles in the U.S.\u00a0 According to a conservative estimate by the EPA, one year\u2019s worth of new glider truck sales would lead to as many as 1,600 premature deaths among women, men and children in our country.\nThe EPA rightfully took action last year to mostly close a loophole that had been allowing certain companies to put outdated, dirty engines into new truck bodies to escape public health regulations.\u00a0 If the loophole does not remain closed in this reasonable way, it is estimated that by 2025, while gliders would represent just 5-percent of the long-haul trucks on the road, they would be responsible for\u00a0fully 1/3 of all soot and NOx pollution\u00a0produced by long-haul trucks.\u00a0 These excess emissions would have serious adverse health consequences, producing around 12,800 deaths that we could have been prevented, in addition to countless additional emergency room admissions and incalculable numbers of health problems among our people.\nMost of the industry, including Volvo, which has a presence in my home state of Maryland, opposes rolling back this regulation because it would lead to a sharply tilted playing field.\u00a0 Large companies like Volvo and other high-road companies have long complied with and upheld the strict pro-public health emissions and fuel efficiency standards. Unsurprisingly, it is approximately 25-percent cheaper to build glider trucks, because they pay no mind to how much harmful pollution they spew into the atmosphere, giving gliders a decisive and unfair competitive advantage over their health-honoring competitors.\u00a0 Reopening the glider loophole of low-road production would put the business investments of the high-road companies \u2013 and their employees\u2019 jobs \u2013 at risk.\nIn a September 11th letter to the EPA, Volvo, Navistar and Cummins, Inc. wrote: \u201cGlider kits should not be used for circumventing purchase of currently certified powertrains. The Phase 2 provisions as finalized maintain the glider kit option for the market while ensuring a level playing field for all manufacturers of trucks and engines.\u201d\u00a0 And even the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, the American Trucking Associations and the Truck Renting and Leasing Association have all voiced concern about the proposed exemption.\nGliders are not meant to compete with new trucks and new health standards, but they do serve a legitimate purpose for a small group of truckers who invested in dirtier engines before the change. Recognizing this reality, the EPA allowed a small-volume exemption for up to 300 vehicles, halting the rampant exploitation of the loophole while still maintaining\u00a0a volume of gliders that could keep true \u201csmall businesses\u201d in business.\u00a0 This is a fair compromise that should be honored rather than repealed.\nI can find no reason, much less a compelling one, to execute a sharp policy U-turn at this moment, except for the most abject and indefensible cronyism.\u00a0 One of the largest manufacturers of gliders is a company called Fitzgerald Glider Kits, located in Tennessee. In fact, Fitzgerald is the ONLY small manufacturer with sales volumes above 300 vehicles per year, and therefore the only company that would benefit from the proposed reversal of this life-saving commonsense public health rule.\nAfter failing to secure a legislative repeal of the glider kits rule via the annual appropriations process, Fitzgerald\u2019s owners met directly with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt in May of this year.\u00a0 Lo and behold, just a few months later, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that he would be re-examining the glider provisions of the heavy-duty regulations.\u00a0 The proposal largely mirrored the predictably suspect arguments from Fitzgerald\u2019s petition for reconsideration.\nFitzgerald\u2019s petition included new information on glider vehicle criteria pollutant emissions which purported to show that glider vehicles were less polluting than non-glider vehicles. It is important to note that the study, run by Tennessee Tech University (TTU), has been criticized by experts for its poor and shoddy quality and has provoked serious ethical questions about the University\u2019s academic independence and its cozy relationship with Fitzgerald. Tennessee Tech University\u2019s study was done at Fitzgerald\u2019s request, paid for with grant money from Fitzgerald, conducted at Fitzgerald\u2019s facility, and shortly after, like magic, Fitzgerald endowed TTU with a new research center. \u00a0Meantime, the independent professional experts at the EPA recently published the Agency\u2019s own study of glider vehicle emission tests that directly contradicts TTU\u2019s findings.\nIt isn\u2019t clear who exactly benefits from all this backroom dealing (besides the small number of glider assemblers like Fitzgerald)\u2014but it certainly isn\u2019t the American people.\u00a0 I urge the EPA to reject Fitzgerald\u2019s attempt to repopulate our streets and highways with the oldest, dirtiest, and deadliest diesel engines and instead maintain the current glider kit rule, which is a fair and principled compromise in the public interest.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://raskin.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-raskin-s-remarks-epa-public-hearing"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.8007000908255577, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}