Letter to the Wisconsin Congressional Delegation
from Mike Ryan, Chairman, Wisconsin LECET Board of Trustees

On behalf of 8000 laborers and almost 900 signatory contractors who are labor-management partners in the Wisconsin Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust (Wisconsin LECET), I urge you to delay or stop the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ozone and particulate matter standards that were published on July 19.

These new standards will sacrifice construction projects and jobs to achieve questionable benefits based on even more questionable scientific data.

The economic costs of the EPA changes will be severe. By transforming over 400 counties around the country into "non-attainment areas", the new EPA standards would jeopardize hundreds of construction projects and thousands of jobs. The American Road and Transportation Builders Association estimates that these regulations will place 160,000 highway construction jobs in jeopardy, could lower the pay or threaten the jobs of another 350,000 heavy (other than highway) construction workers and threaten the jobs and cause temporary unemployment or income loss for another 400,000 workers in industries and professions that are related to construction.

Though we do not know yet whether Wisconsin will have additional "non-attainment areas" due to the new regulations, this still translates to more than 6,200 jobs and over $200,000,000 in highway funding at a minimum at risk in our state. Despite the fact that it will take a number of years for these EPA standards to filter down to us through state regulatory processes, this threat to our workers is unacceptable and unnecessary.

The current Clean Air Act, as amended in 1990, has been enormously successful. According to the EPA's own figures, emissions of the six principal air pollutants that it monitors decreased by 29% and pollution from automobile tailpipes dropped 96% from 1970 to 1995. These figures become even more impressive when you consider that during this same period, population grew 28%, production of goods and services doubled and 60% more drivers drove 80% more vehicles.

The EPA's new ozone and particulate matter standards will cost projects and jobs while doing little to improve the already impressive record of the Clean Air Act. That fact is why many members of the EPA's own advisory board disagree with the agency's approach.

I hope you too will disagree with the EPA approach and move to delay or stop these new standards now.

Thank you for your consideration.