Fedorchak highlights chemicals vital to North Dakota farmers and ranchers
Washington D.C. — Congresswoman Julie Fedorchak (R-ND) participated in her first Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment hearing today titled, “A Decade Later: Assessing the Legacy and Impact of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.” She highlighted how domestic production of chemicals is critical to growing our economy, improving supply chains, protecting public safety, and competing globally.
Below is a transcript of Rep. Fedorchak’s opening statement:
Good morning, Chair Griffith and Ranking Member Tonko. This is my first meeting of this subcommittee, and first hearing as a member of E&C. I'm really excited to be here and get started.
Thank you to our witnesses for your time this morning. Chemistry and chemical products play a significant role in North Dakota's economy.
In 2023, we exported $665 million worth of chemical products. Additionally, feedstock chemicals are essential to the production of fertilizers that fuel our $12 billion-and-growing agriculture sector.
The farmers and ranchers in that sector produce the food that hopefully, at some point today, we’ll get to eat for lunch or maybe dinner.
In 2024, the Biden administration's EPA finalized changes to chemical risk evaluations, changing from “statutorily mandated” to a “zero-risk” hazard-based approach. We've talked a lot about that this morning already.
We all want to make America safer for our children, and I agree with my colleagues that we should always be trying to do better.
But let's be clear: this change in approach from the EPA is a sea change in approach, and it creates more regulatory uncertainty and makes Americans less safe—not more safe—by pushing manufacturing overseas, jeopardizing American jobs, threatening supply chains by exposing them to intrusion by foreign adversaries, driving up costs for North Dakota farmers and ranchers and thereby for everything that we purchase.
These too are real impacts and real risks for American families.
I appreciate that the EPA is taking a cumulative risk assessment of chemicals—we should also take a cumulative risk assessment of EPA regulations, because there are far reaching impacts that go beyond just what we're talking about here this morning.
CLICK HERE to watch Fedorchak’s full exchange and questioning. Today’s hearing witnesses were:
Chris Jahn, President & Chief Executive Officer, American Chemistry Council
Geoff Moody, Senior Vice President, Government Relations & Policy, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers
Dr. Richard Engler, Ph.D., Director of Chemistry, The Acta Group
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