[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 12, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S9729]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             THE SUPERFUND

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, I rise to discuss that portion of S. 
343 covering the Superfund. As we know, Senate bill 343 establishes 
requirements to do risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis and 
includes Superfund cleanups that exceed $10 million in total costs.
  The administration, however, and some Senators, want this section 
removed from the bill on the grounds that the application of cost-
benefit analysis to Superfund through the regulatory reform process is 
somehow inappropriate. I think it is fair to say there is also a 
question of jurisdiction relative to the various committee references 
that this bill would ordinarily go to that portion--at least under 
Superfund. I am speaking of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
  However, laying that aside, because of the statutory requirements in 
the Superfund requirements itself, risk and cost-benefit analysis, in 
my opinion, are precisely the right tools that the Government should be 
using to carry out the requirements of that law.
  Provisions in the Superfund law specifically require cost-benefit and 
risk analysis. Superfund requires that the President select appropriate 
remedial actions that ``provide for cost effective responses'' and to 
consider both the short-term and the long-term cost of the actions.
  Superfund requires the President to publish a regulation called the 
national contingency plan [NCP], to carry out the requirements of the 
statute.
  Now, the NCP must contain, one, methods for analysis of relative 
costs for remedial action; two, means for assuring that remedial 
actions are cost-effective over time; three, criteria ``based on 
relative risk or danger'' for determining priorities among releases of 
hazardous substances for the purposes of taking remedial action.
  Now, the national contingency plan also requires a baseline risk 
assessment to be performed for every remedial action. This means that 
for every Superfund cleanup, a risk assessment is done right now.
  Superfund requires the President to identify priority sites that 
require remedial action through a hazard ranking system that must 
``assess the relative degree of risk.''
  Unlike other environmental statutes, the Congress explicitly wrote 
provisions into this law that cost and risk were to be taken into 
account. Yet, the same entrenched bureaucracies that have been running 
up the costs of these remedial actions for years now say we simply 
cannot have reform.
  But that is what we hear publicly. Within the administration there is 
a clear recognition that cost-benefit and risk analysis, however, do 
belong in the Superfund Program.
  I refer to a memorandum prepared by the Council on Environmental 
Quality. In that memo, the administration correctly pointed out the 
blatant inconsistencies between its posture regarding this section of 
S. 343 and its position on regulatory reform, as well as reform of the 
cleanup statutes.
  The memo states that opposition to the intent of the cleanup 
provisions of S. 343 is ``inconsistent with several administrative 
policies.''
  Further, ``The administration has repeatedly testified that cost-
benefit analysis is a `useful tool' in making cleanup decisions.''
  It also says, ``EPA, DOD, and DOE, have made well-publicized 
commitments to more realistic risk analysis in cleanup activity.''
  Executive Order 12866 requires cost-benefit analysis for regulations 
over $100 billion. Many cleanups exceed that amount and the total cost 
of cleanup activities approaches or exceeds $400 billion.
  Quoting, ``It will be hard, politically and logically, to defend 
application of the cost-benefit comparison to the former decisions and 
not the latter.''
  The administration also incorrectly states in that memo that 
supplementing existing decision criteria with cost and risk 
considerations allows an illegal departure from statutory standards in 
developing more reasonable alternatives.
  As indicated before, remediation under Superfund is currently 
required to base its decisions on risk and cost considerations. Senate 
bill 343 has been amended to clarify that statutory provisions cannot 
be superseded.
  Critics of this section argue that these reforms should be addressed 
in the Superfund reauthorization. Superfund authorization expired last 
year, and the taxing authority expires this year.
  I know many of my colleagues and other members of the Environment and 
Public Works Committee have been working hard, but Superfund 
reauthorization may not be completed this year. That is a real 
possibility.
  So, in conclusion, I would like to share with you the realization 
that the Superfund cleanup provisions of Senate bill 343 are entirely 
consistent with the existing law, and the planned administrative 
reforms that the Clinton administration is putting in place even now.
  Superfund is not a level playing field. Federal and State regulators 
have ignored risk and cost considerations throughout this process, in 
spite of the statutory requirements to consider these factors.
  The program is badly broken largely because the degree and costs of 
cleanup have proceeded virtually unchecked for years.
  Further, simply having these provisions in this bill has brought 
about a new willingness on the part of the regulators to be more 
realistic in the remedial action selection process.
  Finally, the Superfund provisions of S. 343 are consistent with the 
law, are a needed reform of the remedy selection process, and are an 
appropriate and necessary reform of one of the most expensive 
regulatory programs we have experienced in history.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Wyoming [Mr. Simpson], is recognized to speak for up to 15 minutes.

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