[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 193 (Wednesday, December 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14146-H14148]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2000
     IMPACT OF THE BUDGET AND APPROPRIATION BILL ON THE ENVIRONMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ensign). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I do not plan to use the entire time. What 
I wanted to do tonight and what I will do is to explain the budget and 
appropriation bills that have been proposed or passed by the Republican 
majority in this House and how they have a negative impact on the 
environment.
  As you know, Mr. Speaker, we had some previous speakers who gave 5-
minute special orders previously: The gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. 
Lowey], the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro], and also the 
gentleman from New York [Mr. Hinchey], that outlined some of the 
concerns that myself and Democrats in general have about the impact on 
the environment of the budget bill that has been passed by the Congress 
and which the President today fortunately vetoed, and also the 
appropriations bill that funds the Environmental Protection Agency, the 
VA-HUD-and independent agencies, an appropriations bill which has 
already been sent back to Congress twice but which will come back up 
again, probably as early as tomorrow.
  Throughout this Congress, we have watched the Republican leadership 
step by step as they work to completely undermine 25 years of 
environmental progress in order to make it easier for special interests 
to pollute the environment at the expense of Americans' health and 
environmental heritage.
  Despite what the Republicans may think, the election last year was 
not a mandate to roll back our most successful environmental laws. In 
fact, a recent Harris poll found that 76 percent of Americans think 
that air and water laws as they now stand are not strict enough; not 
that they should be downgraded, but they are not strict enough.
  Despite this, undercover efforts by the new Republican majority to 
attack environmental protection through budget and appropriation bills 
is the paramount example of what lengths the leadership will go to 
fulfill their promises to special interests, despite the potential 
impacts to Americans' health, environmental heritage, and economic 
well-being.
  Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased tonight, as we were waiting to 
address the House during the special orders, that we actually received 
from the President his veto message on the budget bill. One of the 
things that he stressed, and I would like to just read some sections 
from his veto message, is that this budget bill impacts the environment 
in a very negative way and takes away too much money from environmental 
protection.
  If I could just read some excerpts from his veto message to the House 
of Representatives, he says: ``As I have repeatedly stressed, I want to 
find common ground with the Congress on a balanced budget plan that 
will best serve the American people, but I have profound differences 
with the extreme approach that the Republican majority has adopted. It 
would hurt average Americans and help special interests. My balanced 
budget plan reflects the values that Americans share''; and among those 
values that the President mentioned was to protect public health and 
the environment.
  He stressed in his veto message that ``the budget proposed by the 
Republicans would cut too deeply into a number of programs, and 
specifically hurt the environment.'' He went on to explain how various 
programs in title V of the program of the budget bill were specifically 
geared toward downgrading environmental protection.

  What I wanted to do tonight, Mr. Speaker, was to talk about, if I 
could, some examples of how in fact the budget bill, as well as the 
appropriation bill that we are likely to consider tomorrow, will turn 
back the clock on environmental protection. In fact, one of the 
previous speakers tonight, I believe it was the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro], specifically said that what the Republicans 
are doing in these spending and budget bills is turning back the clock 
on environmental protection. My friend, the gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Hinchey], who spoke previously, talked about how, specifically 
with the Clean Water Act, we have made so much progress in the last 10 
or 15 years.
  When I was first elected to the Congress back in 1988, the main 
reason why I believe that I was elected was because in the summer of 
1988, we experienced in my district along the shore in New Jersey, a 
summer where all kinds of material washed up on the beaches: medical 
waste, sludge material, plastics. You name it, was on the beach. Most 
of our beaches were closed for the summer, and we lost billions of 
dollars to our local economy because of the tourists that did not come.
  After 1988, in the Congress, and it was on a bipartisan basis, laws 
were passed that prohibited ocean dumping, that tried to protect 
against the disposal of medical wastes into the waters of the New York 
and New Jersey harbors. And, lo and behold, after two or three years, 
the beaches started to come back, the water quality improved, we did 
not have the washups that we had during the summer of 1988. So this 
year, this summer, in 1995, we had probably one of our best beach 
seasons ever, and people constantly remarked about the improvement in 
water quality.
  But the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Hinchey] pointed out that if 
you look at these appropriation bills and if you look at the budget, 
you are seeing significant cutbacks in the amount of money that is 
available under the Clean Water Act. Loans that the Federal Government 
provides to municipalities and counties throughout the country to 
upgrade their sewage treatment plants are severely cut, so that makes 
it more difficult for the communities to actually get sufficient funds 
to upgrade their sewage treatment plants. Specifically in New Jersey, 
in the part of New Jersey that I represent, we are very concerned about 
what we call combined sewer overflow. In many of the municipalities in 
north Jersey, as well as New York City and outlying areas of New York 
City, in the metropolitan area, there are sewage systems which are 
combined with stormwater systems, which means that essentially when it 
rains, the sewage and the stormwater get combined and there is an 
overflow, and raw sewage goes out into the New York harbor, and of 
course, makes its way down to the Jersey shore.
  What we need are Federal dollars which have now been available and 
continue to be available over the last few years to try to either 
separate those sewer and stormwater systems, 

[[Page H 14147]]
or at least prevent the overflow that occurs during the storm. If we do 
not provide funding on the Federal level for loans or grants to upgrade 
sewage treatment plants or to separate combined sewer systems, sewer 
overflow problems, then what we are going to have is an increase, once 
again, in the sewage and the pollution that goes into our harbor areas 
and ultimately down to the Atlantic Ocean. That is what the gentleman 
from New York was talking about.
  Mr. Speaker, the amazing thing about clean water and the efforts for 
clean water, and this was something that my predecessor, Congressman 
Howard often remarked to me before I was elected to Congress, was that 
this was one of the few environmental areas where money makes a 
difference. You could take a small amount of money in the overall terms 
of the Federal budget and use it to actually upgrade your sewage 
treatment and improve your water quality. The technology exists, with a 
relatively small amount of money, to do that. So why cut the funding 
that is coming from the Federal Government in order to clean and 
upgrade our water? It makes no sense from a health point of view, it 
makes no sense from any kind of environmental point of view, whether it 
is to upgrade sewage treatment plants or to provide for some of the 
other things that improve our water quality.

  The gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] talked about the 
Superfund program. The Superfund program, she stressed, works. A lot of 
my colleagues on the other side of the aisle act like the Superfund 
program does not work. It may be that all the Superfund sites have not 
been cleaned up, but a lot of them have. She specifically mentioned the 
Raymark site in Stratford, CT as a model for the Superfund program.
  What is happening with the Republican budget and with the Republican 
appropriations bill with regard to the Superfund program? We find that 
the Superfund program in the VA-HUD appropriations bill, the EPA 
appropriations bill, is cut by 19 percent. There is a rider in it that 
says that no new Superfund sites can in fact be designated. The bottom 
line is that that means that the Superfund program will be downgraded, 
that a lot of sites that need to be put on the national priority list 
will not be, and that sites like Raymark in Stratford, CT, which serve 
as models for the Superfund program, will not get additional funds 
necessary, or other sites will not get additional funds necessary to 
continue the cleanup of hazardous waste sites.
  That is not what the American people want. Over and over again they 
indicate, through polling or through contact with us, that clean water 
and the cleanup of hazardous waste sites are very important to them. 
Let us not turn our back on the Superfund program the way that is being 
proposed with this budget and also with the appropriations bill that 
deals with the EPA.
  The President specifically mentioned in his budget message tonight a 
number of provisions that were actually placed in the budget bill. This 
is the example of the undercover efforts that I mentioned by the new 
majority, that if they cannot get a bill passed through the normal 
course of things, they put language into the appropriations or into the 
budget bill to try to get environmental programs, or to try to despoil 
the environment.
  One of the things that the President mentioned in his veto message 
tonight is he specifically says, and I quote: ``Title V of the budget 
would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,'' ANWAR, as it is 
called, ``to oil and gas drilling, threatening a unique pristine 
ecosystem in hopes of generating $1.3 billion in Federal revenues, a 
revenue estimate based on wishful thinking and outdated analysis.''
  This is one of the major points that was raised by the President in 
vetoing the budget, and rightly so. We know that the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge is a very pristine area, a very delicate ecosystem 
where oil and gas drilling could effectively destroy the whole nature 
of the refuge area. Yet, in the budget bill we have language that not 
only says that we are going to drill for oil and natural gas, but that 
we have to start within the next year, and specifically eliminates any 
environmental safeguards or any environmental impact statements that 
have to be done before that drilling were to take place.

  Again, why? Special interests. Obviously, the oil companies want to 
be able to drill. They suggest that somehow there is a significant 
amount of revenue that is going to be made available. Yet those 
involved in Alaska oil know that the reality is very different. It is 
seriously questionable whether the Federal Government will ever get any 
of the revenue from the drilling.
  In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, no effort really has been made by 
this majority in this Congress to try to deal with our energy 
dependence. Some of the advocates for drilling in the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge say, ``This is good. We can drill for more oil 
domestically. We will not have to depend so much on foreign oil.'' But 
they do not do anything or they do not do anything significantly to 
increase mass transit, they do not look into alternative fuel vehicles, 
they do not look into what I call renewable resources, as opposed to 
nonrenewable resources, that will make us less energy-dependent. 
Instead, they just want to go ahead and drill.
  I suggest that the President was right. I commend him not only for 
vetoing the budget bill, but for specifically mentioning the ANWAR or 
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as one of the reasons why he 
decided to veto the bill.
  Mr. Speaker, let me give a few more examples of how this whole 
process of legislating through the appropriations bills is taking 
place. Traditionally in this Congress and in this House, if you want to 
legislate as opposed to appropriate or spend money, you go to the 
authorizing committees. For example, with the Arctic National Wildlife, 
you go to the Committee on Resources, you would have a hearing, you 
would vote out a bill that allows drilling for oil and natural gas, for 
example. It would come to the floor, it would be passed here after open 
debate. The same thing would happen in the Senate. It would go to 
conference before it went to the President.
  All that is being bypassed with these appropriation and budget bills. 
These provisions are being put into the spending bills, if you will, 
without all those initial processes taking place. That is not the way 
to proceed, and we are seeing it happen over and over again. It 
happened today. I was on the floor today and it happened today with 
regard to what we call deep ocean disposal, a form of ocean dumping.

  Those of my constituents at the Jersey shore know that ever since 
1988 we have had the Ocean Dumping Act passed, which specifically 
prohibits offshore dumping of sewage sludge as well as a number of 
other things that were contaminating our coastal environment. Just 
yesterday I was informed that an ocean dumping provision was sneaked 
into the appropriation conference report for Commerce, Justice, State, 
and the Judiciary, which we voted on today, just a few hours ago. This 
provision, which was not in either the House or Senate version of the 
appropriations bill, authorizes NOAA, the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration, to study deep ocean waste and isolation 
technologies, and basically to start a research program that has 
unlimited possibilities to dump sewage sludge and other kinds of 
contaminated material in the deep ocean off the coast of New Jersey or 
wherever; again, an effort to sneak in this kind of anti-environment 
legislation into the appropriations bill.
  In fact, Mr. Speaker, the VA-HUD and Independent Agencies 
appropriations bill, the one that covers the EPA, which we will 
probably take up as early as tomorrow, had 17 riders like this when it 
originally came to the floor of the House of Representatives, 17 anti-
environmental provisions that were simply thrown into the bill that had 
absolutely nothing really to do with spending money or with the 
appropriations process.
  Twice on the floor of this House we had to vote by majority vote, 
bipartisan, we had to vote to take those riders out. Even though we 
voted twice to take the riders out, the conference report came back 
just last week and still had some of the riders in it. It had riders in 
it that bar the EPA's role in wetlands permitting, in the wetlands 
permit process.
  Right now the EPA basically has the ability to veto development in 
wetlands if they think it has a terribly 

[[Page H 14148]]
damaging impact on the environment. That is taken out in a legislative 
rider that is still in the bill, even though the House voted twice to 
take it out. It also has the provision which I mentioned before, which 
says the EPA cannot add new Superfund sites to the national priority 
list without some additional approval. So again, that is in the bill, 
even though we voted twice to take it out.
  In fact, if you look at the VA-HUD appropriations conference report, 
which will come again to the floor tomorrow, it actually cuts the EPA 
by 21 percent. It cuts funding for the Environmental Protection Agency 
by 21 percent and it cuts enforcement of our environmental laws by the 
Environmental Protection Agency by 25 percent.

                              {time}  2015

  So not only are they cutting the overall agency's budget, but they 
are also cutting enforcement even more severely. Why? Because 
essentially, in many cases, they want the laws to not be enforced. They 
would rather that the polluters get away with not having to pay the 
fine, not getting caught.
  The EPA and environmental protection are cut more than other agency 
in this whole Federal budget, in this whole appropriations process, 
more than any other agency in the Government, and that shows again the 
Republican leadership and the bias against environmental protection in 
an effort to try to undercut all efforts, or most major efforts, to 
protect the environment.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to give a few more examples, if I could, of how 
efforts were made in this budget process to put antienvironmental 
provisions in. One example, again, that we voted on, on the House 
floor, was H.R. 260, the National Park System Reform Act, which after 
being defeated on the floor of this House under suspension of the 
rules, mysteriously appeared in the budget reconciliation bill.
  This is a bill that would set up a commission, and as one of its 
purposes, choose national parks and recreation areas that would 
possibly be closed. I took it to heart because within my own district 
at Sandy Hook, Sandy Hook is a unit of Gateway National Recreation 
Area, the sponsor of the legislation actually mentioned Sandy Hook as 
one of the national park units that he thought possibly should be 
closed or suggested should be closed by this commission.
  However, even though we worked hard to defeat that bill on the floor 
of the House so that this commission to close the parks would not be 
set up, all of a sudden it came up in the budget reconciliation bill 
that was about to come to the floor of this House. We managed again, 
through a coalition of Democrats and some Republicans who were 
concerned about the environment, to make sure that that provision was 
ultimately not in the conference report; and it fortunately was not in 
the conference report, but there were a lot of other things that were.
  Another item that the President mentioned in his veto message was the 
transfer of Federal land for a low-level radioactive waste site in 
California without public safeguards. This is an interesting provision 
that was put into the conference bill. In fact, what happened is that 
in the State of California, there was an effort to set up a low-level 
radioactive waste site to take waste not only from California, but from 
a number of other States.
  The Secretary of the Interior said about a year ago that he would 
agree to this transfer subject to certain conditions being met to 
protect the environment. In other words, Secretary Babbitt wanted to go 
through a process whereby there were hearings, there was an opportunity 
for the public to be heard, and certain limitations would be put on the 
types of radioactive waste or the amount of radioactive waste that 
could be put into this site before the land transfer would be approved. 
This is Federal land in California, not very far from Los Angeles, that 
essentially now is under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land 
Management.
  This budget bill would transfer the land for the purpose of setting 
up a low-level radioactive waste site for the State of California and 
other States without any safeguards. In other words, the conditions 
that Secretary Babbitt had articulated were simply eliminated and not 
mentioned in the budget bill. Instead, the budget bill said that it was 
not necessary to meet environmental safeguards; it was not necessary to 
do the public process with the hearings, and we would just transfer the 
land, and the State of California and the other States could do 
whatever they want and use it for a low-level radioactive waste site.

  Again, a bill was introduced by a California Member to do this; it 
was put into my subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Energy and Power 
which had jurisdiction over it. We never had a hearing, the bill never 
came up, we never reviewed the bill. All of a sudden it is in the 
budget bill. But thankfully, now the President has indicated that this 
is another one of the antienvironmental measures, if you will, that is 
in the budget bill that he is not going to accept, and that he is going 
to insist be taken out in whatever negotiations are going to occur.
  Mr. Speaker, I mention these items not because I think that there are 
not a lot of areas where we need to improve environmental protection, 
not because I think that we need to spend money endlessly on 
environmental protection, but because I believe very strongly that the 
normal process is being evaded and that the American public is really 
not being made aware of what is happening with regard to this budget, 
this Republican budget, and the appropriations process and 
environmental protection.
  I want to stress before I conclude this evening that we, myself and 
the other Democrats who feel strongly about environmental protection, 
will not allow the Republican leadership to try to pull the wool over 
the eyes of the American people with regard to cuts in environmental 
protection so that the essential interests can get away with 
environmental delinquency. The budget and appropriations bills are not 
to be used as a vehicle for environmental destruction. The President 
has promised to veto several of these bills, as he did this evening, 
based on the hateful environmental provisions that are contained 
therein. I and my colleagues on the Democratic side, along with some 
Republicans, fully support him and commend him for his strong 
environmental stance.
  As this budget negotiation continues over the next few weeks, and we 
hopefully come to an agreement on the budget bill that balances the 
budget and at the same time protects the environment, I think we need 
to be very vigilant to make sure that whatever is finally negotiated 
does not give away the store, if you will, to the polluters and 
strengthens environmental laws and strengthens enforcement, rather than 
weakening it and turning the clock back over the last 10 or 20 years on 
what this House and what the Senate have done to try to protect the 
environment in this country.

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