[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 46 (Friday, March 29, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H3209]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          PRESERVING THE ENVIRONMENT AND OUR NATURAL RESOURCES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gutknecht). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Buyer] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. BUYER. Mr. Speaker, what I would like to do today is to address 
the House, and the subject is the environment and you, the environment 
and me, and the environment and us. I am one that believes in the 
preservation of our natural resources, to do that in a managed way. I 
also believe in clean water, our water quality, and clean air.
  I want my colleagues to know that I grew up on the Tippecanoe River 
in Indiana. When you grow up on the river, you do not belong to anybody 
but the river itself. My father taught me a lot of valuable lessons on 
the river, not only to myself but to my brother, the same lessons that 
his father taught him and I am now teaching to my son. Dad bought a 
small little farm there on the river. Dad is kind of a Johnny 
Appleseed. He planned everything, from 3 acres of strawberries to all 
these fruit trees and an acre of vegetable garden, and that is what we 
did. We managed all of that since I was 9 years old. So he taught us 
about being good stewards of the land, and how you have to take care of 
the land for the preservation so that you can make sure you have good 
yields year in and year out. So I know what it is like to be on my 
hands and knees and weed 3 acres of strawberries without the use of 
pesticides. It is a lot of work.
  The reason I took the moment to share that with you is the two issues 
I would like to discuss on the environment are the Superfund issue and 
that of out of State waste. Let me start though with out-of-State 
waste. I bring that up because in the Fifth District of Indiana, we 
receive two-thirds, almost in excess of 1 million tons of out-of-State 
waste is dumped into my congressional district. My constituents are 
forced to handle the millions of tons of waste generated by States and 
other localities that do not dump within their borders; they dump 
within our borders. And almost every day when I am on the road I get to 
witness, not far from the Tippecanoe River along the plains in Indiana 
is a mountain. This mountain is the largest thing that you could ever 
see, and it is a mountain of trash. It does not bother me that the 
trash is there. What bothers me is that in Indiana and States like 
Indiana who are trying to act responsibly on the issues of solid waste, 
and we create our solid waste districts and we minimize the amount of 
landfills that we have so that we can do things correctly and move 
toward proper management, the preservation of our environment, there 
are States that are not acting responsibly; all they want to do is take 
it and shove it into other States that are acting responsibly.
  So basically what we have is in America we have a nonsystem. When you 
have a nonsystem, it begins to penalize States that have a system, and 
that is what we have here. So I am very concerned on the issue of the 
interstate waste. The Supreme Court has already stepped forward and 
says it is the Congress that has to decide this issue. Now, it seems 
session in, session out, the issue has come up, and this Congress has 
not acted. Those in the States of New York and New Jersey have made 
their effort to move on the flow control issue in this House, and it 
failed. It failed because the issues of interstate waste and flow 
control must move together in this House.
  And I encourage this Congress to finally move with sensibility, with 
ration and reason and good thought with regard to how we manage our 
environment, and move a bill together to address the issues of flow 
control and interstate waste together in this House; because if we do 
not, we are not acting responsibly, like I think we should.

  Let me address the issue of the Superfund. The reason I want to 
discuss the Superfund is because we are also looking at reforming the 
issue. Fifteen years after the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program 
began, over $25 billion have been spent and only 12 percent of the 
toxic waste sites have been cleaned. I have a Superfund site in my 
congressional district. I have to take a particular interest in it. 
That is only an average of five sites, though, a year are being cleaned 
up. I believe that we have to stop, I think, let us stop the frivolous 
spending of taxpayer money on litigation. That is what is happening.
  This is an issue between those of us that want to preserve and clean 
up the environment versus those who want to line the pockets of the 
trial lawyers and the lawyer lobbyists. I think this game has got to 
end. So let us find a good balance here with regard to moving Superfund 
reform this year so we can stop it.
  I know the President is playing the environmental game, saying, ``I 
am an environmentalist, I want to do some Superfund reform,'' at the 
same time the trial lawyers are backing his Presidential run. You 
cannot have it both ways. So let us act responsibly again on the issue 
of Superfund, and let us act in a way that moves with our passion for 
how we want a healthier environment in this country, how we want not 
only the beauty and the spirit of what makes this country good, but 
also what makes us well.

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