For immediate release: July 29, 2011

(WASHINGTON, DC) – A year-long campaign by Congressman John Carter to save the Portland cement industry from faulty new jobs-killing EPA regulations has paid off with breakthrough bipartisan legislation.

Carter today praised the introduction of H.R. 2681, the Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act of 2011, by U.S. Representatives John Sullivan (R-OK) and Mike Ross (D-AR), with Carter as an original co-sponsor.

“This badly-needed reform shows that both parties can still come together on commonsense reforms,” said Carter. “Congress is now responding in strength to EPA rules that are not only overly harsh, but likely counterproductive in achieving environmental improvements.”

Carter began the effort against the new EPA regulations in 2010 through the revival of the Congressional Review Act, under which he filed resolutions of disapproval against the rules in both the 111^th and 112^th Congress, drawing national attention to the impending job losses.  The former Texas judge followed up with amendments calling for revision of the EPA rules in February as part of H.R. 1, the Continuing Appropriations Act, and again in H.R. 2584, the FY 2012 Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, scheduled for a floor vote this weekend.

H.R. 2681 would replace the EPA’s series of complex rules affecting the manufacture of Portland cement that would create significant construction cost increases, and shutdown an estimated 20% of the American cement industry.   The resulting shift of cement manufacturing overseas could ironically result in greater global mercury emissions, including airborne dispersion in North America, due to the near total lack of environmental controls in countries such as China.  

Portland cement is the world’s number one building product.  The Portland Cement Association estimates the draconian EPA rules will cost the industry up to $5.4 billion in added costs per year, cost 3-4,000 jobs in the cement industry, and another 12-19,000 in the construction industry.

The Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act would require EPA to produce new rules within 15 months, extend compliance deadlines from 3 to 5 years, allow cement manufacturing plants to continue to use alternative fuels, and ensure that the new rules impose the least burdensome regulatory alternatives consistent with the President’s Executive Order 13563.