[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 110 (Wednesday, August 10, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                PROMOTING NEW ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington [Mr. Swift] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SWIFT. Mr. Speaker, I am introducing today, the Landfill 
Technical Improvement Act of 1994. This legislation will allow us to 
utilize technical advances of the last decade in implementing our 
nation's environmental protection strategy.
  In 1984, Congress passed the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments. 
This Act required the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] to issue 
regulations restricting the disposal of, among other things, organic 
absorbents in hazardous waste landfills.
  In the past ten years, Mr. Speaker, natural absorbent technologies 
have been developed which may be more efficient for some uses than 
traditional sorbents produced from fossil fuels. Normal landfill 
conditions are anaerobic, and studies have shown that no biodegradation 
takes place in the anaerobic environment of landfills. In the anaerobic 
landfill environment of RCRA landfills, these sorbents will not 
degrade. These organic absorbents, made totally from recycled/reclaimed 
materials, may actually outperform current chemical absorbents. 
However, because of the 1984 amendments and EPA regulations resulting 
therefrom, these absorbents have been effectively shut out from the 
landfill disposition.
  This disposition issue threatens to undermine the existence of these 
new technologies, since that which cannot be disposed economically will 
not be used. Moreover, innovative and environmentally conscious 
technologies, such as those developed by a company in Bellingham, 
Washington, which manufactures organic absorbents from a local paper 
mill's sludge, are discriminated against. The Administration has 
clearly stated its preference for such recycled/reclaimed materials, 
but this outmoded regulation has prejudiced the widespread availability 
and use of these products. This is to the detriment of our national 
environmental goals.
  My bill would rectify this situation by permitting environmentally 
sound current and future landfill technologies to be utilized to their 
fullest extent.

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