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Transcript - WHO Radio Interview with Regional Administrator Karl Brooks on Water Quality Efforts in Iowa and Misconceptions about EPA
[Farm Broadcaster Doug Cooper] Karl Brooks is the Region 7 Administrator of EPA. He was at the Iowa State Fair visiting with a number of folks involved in agriculture, from Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey to commodity and agricultural groups.
[Karl Brooks] We've got a good talk over at the cattle barn. I'm going to be talking to Associated Agribusiness of Iowa – whole range of issues. One of the main messages that I'm going to deliver is that their industry is so sophisticated and it's so diverse that EPA needs to be learning and listening all the time. We'd like to think we do that. At the same time, I'll share a little bit my belief that we work better together when we take each other seriously and we try to get the facts right. I'm going to try to share a few facts about EPA's work with them and then stand by for some good questions I know I'll get.
[Doug Cooper] Well, you certainly will. And Iowa being a big livestock state, there's always concern about runoff from cattle feedlots and odor from hog confinement facilities, poultry facilities. Are those areas that you're involved in?
[Karl Brooks] You know, in Iowa, the main job that Congress gave EPA is to work with DNR and the livestock industry on the water issue. We're focused on water quality. We're in a good place in Iowa right now. We have worked very hard over the last about a half a dozen years with the industry, and really with leaders in the industry, to make sure that facilities that need discharge permits have those discharge permits and to make sure that they are taking the steps they need to do with the manure and with their discharges to keep it out of the streams. I mean, we've made substantial progress. I think EPA a decade ago might have been seen a little bit as the gorilla in the closet, maybe even the enemy by some producers. I think, now we're seen as a resource. We have a job to do. Livestock producers have a job to do. Usually, those jobs match up really well. So I'd like to think, especially northern Iowa, we've made great progress.
[Doug Cooper] What does a producer do if he gets on the wrong side of regulations with the EPA? What should he do?
[Karl Brooks] Well, almost always, the best thing to do would be to reach out, either to EPA – we have inspectors who are really knowledgeable about the cattle industry and the hog industry. The DNR works very closely with us and there's a bunch of folks in DNR who know the industry well. So start off with a phone call. Call up either DNR, EPA. Ask questions. We almost always want to get people into compliance. We don't run around looking for tickets to write. That's not really my mission or my colleagues' mission. We want to get the operation doing it right.
[Doug Cooper] No quota system.
[Karl Brooks] We have no quota system whatsoever, absolutely not. I guess you could say our main mission is to make sure that people who need permits have them and live by them, and we find the vast majority of folks want that permit and they want to live by it. They're good neighbors.
[Doug Cooper] What's the biggest misconception you think people have of EPA?
[Karl Brooks] It might be, in a place like Iowa, that we don't spend enough time with producers and with the various ag industries, so that we don't understand how complex the business is. I think we do. We, I'm here at the fair, my colleagues are all over the state all the time. We listen, we learn, we get it right. My boss, Administrator Lisa Jackson, was here a couple of months ago, spent a big long day in Iowa, ended up saying that ag producers in Iowa are some of the most innovative businessmen in this country and we owe a real debt of gratitude to them for the progress they've made.
[Doug Cooper] That message got through. I know that was the point of a lot of agricultural organizations in the state was telling her that.
[Karl Brooks] We'd like to believe that, hand-in-hand with agriculture, that's how we make the progress that we all agree we need to make. Everybody who farms or raises livestock here sees themselves as a good neighbor who wants to hand something on to the generation after us. That's really EPA's mission as well, is to make sure those resources are handed on in the same condition that we got them from our parents.
[Doug Cooper] Karl, tell me about auto emissions and fuel standards. I've read a lot of information lately that this is another thing that's going to make it more difficult for auto manufacturers, for example, to compete in the auto industry.
[Karl Brooks] Doug, let's share the good news. A couple of months ago, the American auto industry voluntarily agreed with EPA and the Department of Transportation to create a whole new generation of high-mileage, low-emission cars. This is the biggest advance we've made in fuel security and emissions control in over 30 years. And the industry worked with EPA voluntarily. So this is a deal that clearly is going to benefit the car owners or they wouldn't have gotten into it. And it's going to benefit every American. It'll cost us less to buy fuel for our car, it will drive longer on a gallon of gas, and it will leave the air cleaner behind. And it was such a good deal that, about two weeks ago, the truck industry here in America struck the same kind of agreement with EPA, so that the next generation of light duty trucks are going to be cleaner, they're going to use less fuel. Ultimately, that's dollars in people's pockets. They'll have a better vehicle for a longer period of time. This is what EPA can do when we use the science that we have and our legal authority to reach out and work with industry. It's very pioneering, it's historic.
[Doug Cooper] Now, is this going to cost more for the consumer initially?
[Karl Brooks] They may notice, along with the regular price increases that come with cars, some increase in cost, but the savings in terms of fuel are going to way counter-balance that. So a car buyer, a truck owner, it's going to cost less to operate that vehicle in the future because of this historic step.
[Doug Cooper] How much savings are we talking about? Not dollar-wise so much, but fuel. I mean, you say it's going to be better fuel mileage. What do you anticipate?
[Karl Brooks] I believe it's by about the model year 2025. Sounds like a long way off, but it's only about 10 years in the car maker's world. The vehicle will be twice as efficient as it is right now. In other words, you'll be able to drive about 45 to 50 miles per gallon in every vehicle across the fleet line. Now it's in the mid-20s.
[Doug Cooper] Karl, it's always good to visit with you.
[Karl Brooks] Pleasure Doug, thanks for having me here.
[Doug Cooper] Region 7 Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Karl Brooks. That interview took place at the Iowa State Fair. I'm Doug Cooper on the “Big Show.”
