{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://morgangriffith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=363414", "Griffith Introduces EPA MACT Act", "2013-12-04", "2013", "2013-12", "Republican", "House", "VA", "Morgan Griffith", "G000568", "morgangriffith.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA) yesterday introduced the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Maximum Achievable Contraction of Technocrats (MACT) Act, H.R. 3641.\u00a0 More than nine out of every ten EPA employees were considered \u201cnon-essential\u201d and were furloughed during the recent partial government shutdown.\u00a0 Griffith\u2019s EPA MACT Act would require the EPA Administrator to reduce the EPA\u2019s workforce by 15 percent within three years.\u00a0 It also allows the EPA Administrator to have an additional (4th) year if she deemed it necessary to achieve the goal.\r\nAfter introducing the EPA MACT Act, Griffith issued the following statement:\r\n\u201cThis is the time of year when folks make their Christmas lists, or lay out their hopes and aspirations for the new year.\u00a0 The overwhelming majority of citizens of the Ninth District of Virginia would welcome the inclusion of the EPA MACT Act on their wish lists.\u00a0 It may be asking a lot of Santa for this bill to become law, but the economy of the Ninth District and our people can\u2019t take any more job-killing, unreasonable EPA regulations.\r\n\u201cMany in my area and in coal communities across the nation may wish for the complete elimination of the EPA, but the EPA MACT Act is a more balanced approach.\u00a0 It recognizes that the EPA has put forward some reasonable regulations in the past, and that the agency ought to have the resources in order to be able to continue enforcing those reasonable regulations.\u00a0 Our environment and our communities are better because of earlier actions.\u00a0 Further, the EPA oversees some important programs, such as the grant programs that provide clean water to underserved areas.\u00a0 \r\n\u201cBut, for example, should fire hydrants be subject to EPA drinking water regulations that exempt shower valves and bathtub faucets?\u00a0 My kids often will get a drink from the shower or bathtub faucet, but have never had a drink from a fire hydrant.\u00a0 Do you know many people who regularly drink from a fire hydrant?\u00a0 I don\u2019t.\u00a0 But in October, EPA issued guidance saying that fire hydrants installed after January 4, 2014 must comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act.\u00a0 Communities across the country could have to spend millions of dollars replacing their fire hydrant inventories in order to both keep the public safe and comply with this ridiculous guidance.\r\n\u201cJust yesterday, the House unanimously passed a bipartisan bill that rejects this guidance.\u00a0 But when will it stop?\u00a0 The EPA has been worrying over the \u2018pollution\u2019 emitted by cows (methane) for decades,* and they have even deemed carbon dioxide as harmful! \u00a0Carbon dioxide is one of the gases that all humans emit when exhaling.\u00a0 If you were to take their reasoning to an extreme, the EPA might one day claim to have the authority to regulate the number of children we can have.\u00a0 After all, new human beings will obviously emit the \u2018harmful\u2019 gas carbon dioxide when they start their first cry!\u00a0 I\u2019m not suggesting that the EPA is even thinking about doing that now, but former Chairman John Dingell \u2013 who wrote the Clean Air Act \u2013 has said that he never anticipated that the Clean Air Act would be used to regulate carbon dioxide.**\r\n\u201cClearly, EPA regulators are waging a war on common sense, American manufacturers, jobs, and more.\u00a0 There are real businesses that have closed and real people who have lost their jobs as a result of unreasonable EPA actions.\u00a0 The American people need some relief without delay.\u00a0 This bill would give a small measure of hope to those who face the prospects of the business they work for being shuttered and the loss of their jobs because of an overzealous EPA producing massive new unreasonable regulations.\u201d\r\nA copy of the EPA MACT Act is attached.\r\n\u00a0\r\n###\u00a0 \r\n*http://epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/ch4.html\r\n**http://www.mlive.com/opinion/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2011/06/viewpoint_congress_never_inten.html  \r\n###", 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": ["http://morgangriffith.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=363414"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.637537032365799, "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"}