[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 65 (Monday, May 23, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 23, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
         H.R. 3679, THE JUNIOR DUCK STAMP CONSERVATION PROGRAM

  Mr. WELDON. Mr. Speaker, I will not take the entire hour, but I did 
want to rise today to focus on two pieces of legislation that this body 
passed today, both of which I was involved in. I had hoped to be here 
to manage the time on our side of the aisle as these two issues were 
brought before the full House. But because of a previous commitment in 
Philadelphia for a Women's Entrepreneurial Conference and because of 
heavy traffic on I-95, I was unable to make it in time to monitor the 
debate.
  However, I do want to focus on both of these issues, now that they 
have in fact passed this body and, hopefully, will be adopted by the 
other body and become law.
  The first is the reauthorization of the Junior Duck Stamp Program, 
which is a piece of legislation that the chairman of the Oceanography 
Committee, of which I am ranking member, led the approval for.
  H.R. 3679, in fact, reauthorizes this program which is of great value 
to young people all over the country. As a former environmental 
educator myself and one of two Members of this body on the 
Migratory Bird Conservation Commission that oversees the proceeds of 
the sale of duck stamps, I understand the importance of this program to 
encourage young people to have higher awareness and a much greater 
appreciation for conservation and environmental issues. And while I 
support the legislation, I was particularly happy that Chairman Ortiz 
agreed to a substitute amendment that we actually passed on the floor 
of the House today that contains clarification language for that 
program but also authorizes the transfer of a bequest in the amount of 
$2.5 million by a former constituent of mine from my congressional 
district.

  Mr. Antonio Cusano, known by his friends as Tony, passed away last 
year. In his estate he left a bequest in the amount of $2.5 million 
which is going to be used, because of our enacting legislation today, 
as a matching fund to create between $5 million and $5.7 million to 
construct an environmental education center and refuge headquarters at 
the John Hines National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum, PA.
  This facility has been a long time coming. Those who are familiar 
with the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge understand that this 
particular refuge has been perhaps undersupported by the Congress and 
by the administration for the past 20 years. In fact, we have not had 
the funding necessary not just to build the Environmental Education 
Center but to also support adequate staffing at that operation.
  Under the capable leadership of the refuge manager, Dick Nugent, 
however, we have in fact been able to meet many of the concerns that 
the Congress had in mind when they initially authorized the creation of 
this wildlife refuge.
  Because the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum is within 
the boundaries of the city of Philadelphia as well as neighboring 
Delaware County and abuts the Philadelphia International Airport, it is 
in fact one of the largest wildlife refuges in an urban environment. So 
it is very important that we preserve it not just because of its value 
to the ecosystem but because of the importance of having an aggressive, 
proactive environmental education center for the children and the 
adults in the Philadelphia, five-county Pennsylvania area as well as 
Delaware and southern New Jersey.
  Chairman Studds worked with us on the language in the compromise 
amendment very aggressively. I would like to thank him publicly for 
that cooperation, along with our ranking Republican, Jack Fields.
  In addition, my colleague on the committee, Jim Saxton, was extremely 
helpful in including this change to the Junior Duck Stamp Program.
  With the refuge having been established in 1972, yet over the past 22 
years not having an adequate facility at the refuge, it has been 
extremely difficult for the staff to provide intense environmental 
education programs at the John Heinz Center. With it being the largest 
remaining fresh water marsh in Pennsylvania, we think it is an 
extremely opportune time for us to reach out using this $2.5 million 
bequest and working with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to 
double that amount of money to build this new center.
  In fact, what the authorization we are approving today and the 
allocation that will follow in the amount of $2.5 million will do is 
allow us to provide this money to the National Fish and Wildlife 
Foundation. This Foundation and its Secretary, Amos Eno, who is very 
supportive of our effort, has committed itself to raise the remaining 
funds that are required to build this environmental education center.

  Once again, I repeat, for my colleagues and for my constituents, we 
are not talking about taxpayers' money involved in this initiative. We 
are talking about taking a bequest that has been left to us for this 
purpose and seeing that the Foundation raises the matching amount of 
money from private donations. I have agreed to get involved in an 
aggressive way in raising those dollars.
  A few words about Tony Cusano, who lived in Crum Lynne, Delaware 
County, only one short mile from the refuge itself.
  Tony died at the age of 85. He was a star quarterback at a local high 
school, Ridley Park High School. In 1927, he earned a scholarship to 
the University of Pennsylvania, was employed by General Electric, and 
retired in 1967.
  Tony had a reputation in the county and in Crum Lynne in that area of 
Delaware County for being someone who was always looking to help other 
people. He did not want to seek publicity, and his bequest actually was 
unknown until the terms of his estate were made public and we found out 
this opportunity presented itself to support this new education center.
  So, Mr. Speaker, for the children of the Philadelphia region and the 
tristate metropolitan area, I am excited about the House taking action 
on this important legislation today. It opens the door for us in the 
region, working together with my colleague, Tom Foglietta, and Senator 
Harris Wofford and Senator Arlen Specter and our colleagues in southern 
New Jersey and Delaware to really take a giant step forward in building 
this new environmental education center at the John Heinz Refuge. I 
want to thank my colleagues for their aggressive support of this 
legislation and all of those involved as members and committee staff 
who helped make this success possible today.


              H.R. 3982, Ocean Radioactive Dumping Ban Act

  Mr. Speaker, the second bill that was acted on by the body today, 
which I was the original author of and had my good friend and colleague 
Solomon Ortiz as a major cosponsor, was the Ocean Radioactive Dumping 
Ban Act of 1994.
  H.R. 3982 is legislation that is extremely important not just because 
of what it does but because it again allows America to regain our 
leadership role in the world community on the status and the 
environmental excellence that we want to see take place among all 
countries that deal with the oceans of the world.
  We had substantial cooperation on this issue from Chairman Studds and 
his staff, Chairman Ortiz, ranking minority member Jack Fields as well 
as the staff of the committee. Lisa Pittman of the committee's minority 
staff was especially helpful. Terry Schaff on the Oceanography 
Subcommittee and Chris Mann with the Chairman's office persevered with 
us and allowed us to bring this legislation to the floor in a very 
quick manner. In fact, by our standards, it is a lightning-quick 
manner.
  I would also like to thank Congressman Norm Mineta and Congressman 
Bud Shuster of the Public Works Committee. They cooperated on this 
legislation.
  They could have requested sequential referral on this issue. They did 
not. They deferred to us and allowed us to bring this issue up today 
and have it enacted by the House and approved today.
  This piece of legislation basically developed out of the practice of 
this country which was to allow nuclear waste dumping, radioactive 
waste dumping in the oceans but only after there had been some type of 
action by the Congress. Even though that had not taken place, America, 
because it still allowed nuclear waste dumping, had lost its leadership 
role in the world community in terms of getting other nations to state 
emphatically that they will prohibit the dumping of nuclear waste in 
any of the waters of the world. This is extremely important to 
international law, because we have had countries that have now publicly 
admitted that they in fact have been dumping nuclear waste.
  The most prominent country being the former Soviet Union.
  The Ocean Radioactive Dumping Ban Act that we passed today corrects 
the position with American again taking the leadership role. It allows 
us to say to the rest of the world that we are now going to, by 
legislation and by official enactment, prevent forever the dumping of 
nuclear waste into the world's oceans. It is extremely important 
because up until last year, our policy was somewhat weak on this issue.
  Whereas at the London Convention other nations of the world who have 
nuclear waste problems had agreed to stop the dumping of waste and 
agreed to it in the permanent ban, the United States was one of only 
two nations that in fact had refused to agree to that international 
ban.

                              {time}  1500

  Led by the Members of Congress who were active in the GLOBE 
organization, Global Legislators for a Balanced Environment, which is 
headed up by Senator John Kerry, of which I am an active member, we 
were able to convince the Clinton administration earlier this year to 
reverse that decision and to in fact have the United States take a 
leadership role at the London convention and sign on as a signatory to 
complete banning of nuclear dumping.
  What we are doing today and what we have done today in the House is 
simply reinforce that decision with an act of Congress. This new 
position puts us again the forefront, and now leaves only one nation 
that in fact has not agreed to prohibit the dumping of nuclear waste in 
the oceans of the world. That nation is Russia.
  Mr. Speaker, we have a terrible problem with what has happened in the 
former Soviet Union. As we saw in a hearing that I chaired last 
September, as a matter of fact, September 30, 1993, our Subcommittee on 
Oceanography, Gulf of Mexico and the Outer Continental Shelf of the 
Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, in detail explored the 
issue of the threat of contamination from the Russian dumping of 
nuclear waste. For four decades the Soviet Union and now Russia has 
been dumping nuclear waste in the oceans of the world; specifically, 
the Arctic Ocean and the Sea of Japan.
  The information gathered by our subcommittee which is now available, 
and interested colleagues can get a copy of this document, or 
interested constituents can request if from their Member of Congress, 
the details of this dumping are really enough to scare anyone in this 
world in terms of the potential damage of our ocean ecosystems, not 
just around the former Soviet Union, but throughout the world.
  Mr. Speaker, what really kind of brought on the hearing that we held 
last September was the release of a report by Boris Yeltsin in Russia 
entitled ``The Yablakov Report.'' The Yablakov Commission report 
actually for the first time publicly revealed the fact that the former 
Soviet Union and now Russia has admitted to dumping 2\1/2\ million 
curies of radioactive waste in the Arctic Ocean and the Sea of Japan.
  Let me give a comparison of that, since most of us are not 
scientists. Three Mile Island at its worst, during the height of that 
potential disaster and real disaster, if one was there at the time, 
Three Mile Island gave off a total of 15 curies of radioactive 
contamination during the worst point of that incident, 15 curies.
  The Russians in the Yablakov report have admitted to dumping 2.5 
million curies. The number is actually probably much higher than that, 
but even far worse than the 2.5 million curies they have already dumped 
is the fact that they now admit they have 10 million curies of 
radioactive contaminated particles sitting on ships in Murmansk Harbor. 
The Russians do not know what to do with this material.
  What scares the rest of the world is that they are not willing to 
sign on an international ban that would say they would not dump this, 
so in fact they have left the door open.
  We must acknowledge that there are some within the Russian federation 
who are working aggressively within that country's boundaries to make 
sure that does not occur. Nicolai Veransoff, who was one of the leading 
environmental legislators in Russia, is in fact leading the charge 
within Russia to make sure that that does not happen, that those 10 
million curies of waste are not dumped, but he is one person. In fact, 
when we have that much contamination sitting and do not have the 
technology to dispose of its properly, our options are somewhat 
limited.
  We had a difficult time convincing the Russians that they should take 
this issue seriously, partly because we as a nation have been unwilling 
up until last September to publicly acknowledge that we have two 
nuclear submarines that now lie on the bottom of the oceans of the 
world. We have been unwilling to publicly reveal to the Russians 
something that we in fact had criticized them for.
  We have all know for years that they have had the Komsmoletz, a 
nuclear powered submarine that accidentally went under and is now 
laying on the bottom of the ocean floor, and perhaps leaking 
radioactive contamination, but in criticizing the former Soviet Union, 
we as a nation were unwilling to admit that we also had had some 
accidents with nuclear vessels.
  At our hearing last September, and following that hearing, the U.S. 
Navy publicly admitted on the record that we have those vessels, which 
we are monitoring closely, and while they in fact were involved in 
accidents, and are in fact on the bottom of the ocean floor, we are 
monitoring the ships themselves, so that there in fact is no leakage of 
the nuclear contamination.

  Now that we have in fact come clean and we have in fact acknowledged 
our own problems in the nuclear area, in relation to the oceans, the 
Russians now see that we are also willing to go that one step further 
and now pass legislation to completely ban the dumping of nuclear waste 
by anyone within the confines of this great Nation.
  As we meet with the Russian leaders this summer, and I have the 
privilege of chairing the Oceans Task Force for the global legislators 
organization, which will include or which does include legislators from 
Japan, from Russia, and the former Soviet Republics, as well as from 
the European Community, as we meet and discuss an international policy 
on protecting the oceans, we now can again claim world leadership, 
because we have passed by legislation the change to our laws which 
totally and completely prohibits any dumping of nuclear waste.
  With this new effort and this momentum that we have gained, we hope 
to get Russia to finally agree to join the rest of the nations of the 
world in not allowing any dumping of nuclear waste to occur, whether it 
is in the Arctic Ocean, the Sea of Japan, the Atlantic, the Pacific, or 
whatever place that might be.
  While working with the Russians to achieve this ban inside of their 
country, we are also working aggressively to help them solve their 
problem with nuclear waste. As a member of the Committee on Armed 
Services, I was very happy to see us allocate portions of the Nunn-
Lugar money in last year's Defense Authorization Act that is being used 
right now to assist the Russians in coming up with technologies that 
can allow them to deal with the problem of nuclear waste: How to store 
it, how to transport it, and ultimately, how to deal with it on a long-
term basis.
  Right now, American firms and American experts are working with the 
Russian leadership to help them find ways to deal with this 
contaminated material that is currently stored at Murmansk Harbor. Just 
1 short month ago, a delegation of Members of Congress from this body, 
of which I was a participant, visited Murmansk Harbor for the first 
time. We saw at this port facility, where they have the bulk of the 
North Fleet of the former Soviet Navy headquartered, we saw examples of 
what has happened to the water surrounding Murmansk: The dead fish and 
the discoloration and the problems that have been caused by a total 
lack of environmental concern.
  What we are now saying is, America has taken a step forward in terms 
of leadership. We are putting our hand out in a form of friendship to 
work with the Russians to help them deal with the current problem they 
have, and to help them establish long-term solutions, not just in the 
area of nuclear contamination and nuclear waste, but in the area of 
general environmental problems.
  This legislation, H.R. 3982, that we passed today, helps us regain 
and recapture the leadership of the world community.
  I just want to thank all of my colleagues, and particularly my own 
subcommittee staff member, Richard Russell, who formerly worked with 
the World Wildlife Fund, and who has been the real staff leader on this 
entire issue, for allowing us to bring this issue to the forefront of 
the Congress, to have it now enacted by this body, and to help us 
expedite the approval in the other body as quickly as possible so we 
can have President Clinton, who has indicated support for this 
initiative, sign this piece of legislation into law and once again have 
America be the premier country in the world on ocean policy, on 
environmental concerns, and on the issue of disposing of nuclear waste.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to give this special order.

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