[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 126 (Tuesday, August 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H8071]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Hefley] is recognized during 
morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with you this morning 
a story of a friend of mine named Tom.
  Tom owns a ranch north of Colorado Springs. A few weeks ago, he was 
on his way from the ranch to his place of business, and as he got out 
toward the road, he found--I have forgotten the exact number--but it 
seems like it was a dozen barrels, 50 gallon drums, some of which were 
turned over, some of which had spilled liquid onto the ground. Others 
had liquid in those barrels.
  And his initial reaction was to go back to the house, get the tractor 
and the forklift and lift those barrels up and take them back to the 
house and decide what to do with them.
  Then he thought again and said, no, we ought to do the right thing 
about this. We ought to call somebody in charge and have them come and 
take a look at what we have got here. Do not know what it is. We ought 
to take a look at it.
  So he called the officials, and within 2 hours, every agency known to 
man was out there, practically, some in moon suits. There were 
ambulances. There were fire departments. There were sheriff's deputies. 
There were highway patrolmen. Everybody you could imagine was out there 
on Tom's property, and they were trying to figure out what it was and 
what to do with it and how it got there.
  And in the course of all this activity, someone happened to mention 
to Tom, we do not know what it is, but the way, if there has to be a 
cleanup, you have to pay for it.
  Tom says, ``What do you mean I have to pay for it? I am the victim. 
Someone dumped this on my property. What do you mean I have to pay for 
it?''
  They said, ``Oh, yes, that is the law. You have to pay for it.''
  He said, ``Aren't you going to investigate? Aren't you going to find 
out who dumped this on my property?''
  Well, maybe we will find that out. Maybe we will not.
  So he did his own investigation, and he discovered the name on one of 
the barrels of a local oil and gas company. He went to the local oil 
and gas company. He discovered that they had sold the barrels sometime 
around Christmastime to a salvage company.
  He went to the salvage company. He discovered that the salvage 
company had sold it to a soldier who was getting ready to be mustered 
out at Fort Carson.
  He discovered from a little more investigation that there was a 
practice of buying barrels, getting a U-Haul trailer, filling the 
barrels with water, driving the U-Haul trailer up onto a scale, getting 
a weight slip, and then taking the weight slip to the Government, 
because the Government will pay you for that last move when you leave 
the fort.
  So it was a fraud on the Government that was being perpetrated. The 
scale happened to be half, three-quarters of a mile from Tom's ranch. 
So he weighed the barrels and brought them and dumped them on Tom's 
property. It was water that was in the barrels, but it cost him about 
$1,500, if I remember correctly, to find out through the analysis that 
it was water, and they said initially that it could have cost him up to 
$22,000, maybe even more, depending on what was in those barrels.
  So with a little work and common sense, Tom had solved his mystery. 
He had saved himself $22,000 or more and proven himself a better and 
more conscientious investigator than the Government agencies charged 
with dealing with the hazardous waste.
  All of this was due to a Federal law, the Resource Conservation and 
Recovery Act. In those States which have not adopted statutes dealing 
with the cleanup of hazardous waste, RCRA says the cleanup costs fall 
to the owner of the property where the waste was found, and this is 
called corrective action.
  Now, Tom, the victim, admits that he could have, if he had had to, 
paid for the cleanup. But he wonders, what if those barrels had been 
dumped on the property of an elderly couple getting by on a fixed 
income? Tom may have been able to handle the cost. The elderly couple 
might have bankrupted as a result of it.
  Friends, this is a dumb law. This is an unjust law. This is a law 
that punishes the victim. It is the kind of law that sets neighbor 
against neighbor and makes people question whether we have any idea 
what we are doing here in Washington.
  It seems only fair that, in these cases, some efforts should be made 
to find the polluter and make them pay instead of dumping the bill on 
the property owner; and, frankly, if the dumper cannot be found, maybe 
this is a Government responsibility for us to pay for the cleanup. To 
do otherwise is to undermine the quick cleanup of these kinds of 
problems.
  Our Nation's environmental laws are based upon the idea that people 
want a clean environment and are willing to make certain sacrifices to 
see that that happens. To do that, you have got to give people some 
assurance they are not going to be punished for doing the right thing.
  My friend, Tom, could have just simply taken those barrels back to 
the barn and never said anything about it. He wanted to do what was 
right. He could have been punished severely for doing what was right. 
Given what he has been through, do you think he is ever going to do it 
this way again? We must change this kind of nonsensical law.

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