[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 137 (Wednesday, September 6, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12678-S12679]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SMALL BUSINESS AND SUPERFUND REFORM
Mr. PRESSLER. Mr. President, I wanted to bring to my colleagues'
attention the concerns of several prominent South Dakotans regarding
the Superfund Program.
Like many of my colleagues, during the August recess, I spend
considerable time back in South Dakota talking to my constituents.
While in South Dakota, one issue came up on a number of occasions:
Superfund reform. This issue is important to small business men and
women throughout South Dakota. In fact, several South Dakota small
business leaders just launched a new coalition, South Dakotans for
Superfund reform. Recently, the coalition leadership's comments on
Superfund, and an op-ed from Rob Wheeler of Lemmon, SD, were published
in local newspapers in the State. I ask that these articles be printed
in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. PRESSLER. We all agree that the current Superfund Program does
not work. It is one of the most expensive environmental programs on the
books. Despite the vast amounts of taxpayer dollars that are poured
into the Superfund, the program has a very low success rate. One of the
prime causes of this low success rate is a confusing and costly
liability system. This system is unfair to small businesses and
encourages excessive and costly litigation.
I am encouraged by the draft proposal drawn up by my esteemed
colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Smith. As chairman of the
Superfund, Waste Control, and Risk Management Subcommittee, he has
assumed the daunting task of rewriting the existing Superfund law. I
look forward to working with him to create a new Superfund law based on
fairness and common sense. We should not insist on a system that calls
on small businesses that complied with past laws and regulations to
shoulder the burden of cleaning up our hazardous waste sites.
I believe these newspaper articles represent not only the concerns of
South Dakota small business leaders, but of all small business men and
women across the country. They are the innovators who collectively make
our economic engine run. For that reason, we must take these concerns
to heart as we reexamine the Superfund Program.
Exhibit 1
[From the Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), Sept. 5, 1995]
Message to Clinton Clear--Reform Superfund Program
(By Rob L. Wheeler)
I attended the White House Conference on Small Business in
June--one of about 2,000 entrepreneurs and business owners
from across the country invited to Washington by the Clinton
administration.
At the end of the four-day event, the White House asked us
to put together a list of the most important steps the
federal government could take to really help small
businesses. One of the top recommendations may come as a
surprise: overhauling the Superfund program.
Superfund was created by Congress in 1980 to clean up the
nation's worst hazardous waste dumps. Fifteen years have
passed since then and more than 1,300 Superfund sites have
been identified by the Environmental Protection Agency. Over
$20 billion in government and private sector funds has been
spent. But only 6 percent of those sites have been cleaned up
completely.
With a record of failure like that, it's no mystery why the
Superfund is nearly universally regarded--by
environmentalists and business owners alike--as the single
most ineffective piece of environmental legislation in
history.
Why is the Superfund such a hazard for small businesses?
[[Page S 12679]]
It starts with the Superfund's liability scheme called
``strict, retroactive, joint and several liability.''
Retroactive liability means a small business owner can be
held responsible for action that took place before the law
has passed. Even if you didn't act negligently, even if you
followed every law and regulation completely--you're still on
the hook. Joint and several liability means the company can
be forced to pay 100 percent of the cost of cleaning up a
Superfund site even though it was only responsible for a
small fraction of the pollution.
With marching orders like that, you can guess the EPA's
standard operating procedure: Find any organizations even
remotely connected with a Superfund site; then drag them into
court to make them pay the clean-up bill. So far, over 20,000
small businesses, hospitals, towns, and community groups--
even a Girl Scout troop--have been stamped as ``polluters''
by the EPA and face potentially crippling legal liability.
All that litigation costs money--a lot of money. More than
20 percent of all Superfund dollars get spent in the
courtroom, not to clean up the environment. That translates
into an incredible $6.7 million in lawyers' fees and court
costs per Superfund site. No wonder the EPA keeps about 500
lawyers on staff just to work on Superfund liability issues.
So our first recommendation for Superfund reform is
repealing retroactive liability for waste disposal prior to
1987, when small businesses were first required to keep
detailed disposal records. The conference also recommended
changing ``joint and several liability'' to proportional
liability, so those liable would only pay to clean up what
they're responsible for.
Another recommendation was that Congress should require the
EPA to use ``sound science and realistic risk assessments''
in identifying toxic sites and establishing cleanup
standards. That just sounds like common sense; you'd thing
that danger to health and safety would be the only criteria
for selecting Superfund sites. But you'd be wrong. Today's
EPA standards are so seriously flawed that according to a
recent federal government study, more than half of the so-
called hazardous sites on the EPA's National Priorities List
don't even pose a threat to human health.
There are several other reforms on our list, but they all
share a common goal: creating a new Superfund that focuses on
cleaning up the environment, not harassing innocent
businesses. These reforms have a good chance of passing
Congress, but the Clinton administration--which asked for our
recommendations to begin with--is now resisting.
Recently, a group of business and civic leaders from across
the state got together to form South Dakotans for Superfund
Reform--a grass-roots coalition dedicated to the type of
Superfund reform we proposed to the White House. Our goal is
to work with South Dakota's elected representatives in
Washington to fix Superfund this year.
There are currently four Superfund sites in South Dakota,
including one that has been on the EPA's list for more than
10 years. And 15 small businesses and other organizations in
South Dakota have been targeted by the EPA. Unless Clinton
and Congress fix Superfund, those busineses--and the jobs
they provide to South Dakotans--will remain in jeopardy.
The Clinton White House should be on notice. If it's
serious about helping small business, it needs to stop
blocking Superfund reform. Washington conferences on small
business are fine. But real action speaks a lot louder.
____
[From the Rapid City Journal, Aug. 24, 1995]
S.D. Group Criticizes Liability Rules
(By Dan Daly)
The 1980 Superfund law was a good idea gone awry, according
to a group of business people who launched a political
coalition called South Dakotans for Superfund Reform.
The environmental cleanup program has become expensive,
ineffective and unfair, coalition members said Wednesday.
Just 15 percent of the nation's 1,355 sites on the
Superfund priority list have been cleaned up, according to
the group's literature, and half of Superfund dollars go to
lawyers and regulators.
But the group's main complaint was about the retroactive
liability rules that place blame for pollution--and the job
of paying for cleanup--on companies and landowners ``remotely
associated with a hazardous waste site,'' according to the
group.
``The reality is that this . . . involves innocent
landowners, innocent new businesses that come onto a site
unknowing about these things,'' said Carol Rae, state
chairman of the coalition's steering committee. ``What we
want to do is establish reasonable rules and limits on
natural resources damages.
``It's not that any of us here are out to say that we do
not want environmental protection or to be responsible
corporate or private citizens,'' said Rae, vice president of
external affairs for Chiron Corp., parent company of Magnum
Diamond Corp. in Rapid City.
None of the business people at Wednesday's news conference
are themselves liable for Superfund cleanup projects. In
fact, only a handful of South Dakota sites have been on the
Superfund list.
Their interest, said Rae, is as taxpayers and regulated
businesses.
Rae, Kroetch and Rob Wheeler of Wheeler Manufacturing in
Lemmon, who was also at Wednesday's news conference, served
together as delegates to the recent White House Conference on
Small Business.
Rae said the conference delegates identified some 2,000
issues important to small business. Changes in Superfund
laws, she said, ranked fifth on the list.
She and seven of the group's steering committee members
held a news conference in Rapid City Wednesday to outline
their position. Members ranged from Richard Krull, manager of
the Merillat Industries particle board plant in Rapid City,
to Art Kroetch, president of Scotchman Industries in Philip.
The group itself was organized by Steve Knuth of Sioux
Falls, who is working for the National Coalition for
Superfund Reform. Knuth formed a similar group earlier this
year to push for changes in product liability laws.
____
[From the Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), Aug. 25, 1995]
Superfund Reformers Start Group in S.D.
South Dakotans who want Congress to change the nation's
hazardous waste cleanup program, called Superfund, have
organized to promote reform.
South Dakotans for Superfund Reform represents people of
various business and community backgrounds with ``the desire
to see an end to Superfund's unfair and punitive liability
system,'' said committee chair Carol Rae of Rapid City.
The group announced its plans Thursday at a Sioux Falls
news conference.
Congress enacted the Superfund law in 1980. Since then, the
Environmental Protection Agency has placed more than 1,300
sites on its National Priorities List, but has cleaned fewer
than 15 percent of them. More than $25 billion in public and
private money has been spent on the program--nearly half
mainly on lawyers and bureaucracy, Rae said.
____________________