[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 46 (Friday, March 29, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3184-S3185]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, over the last 30 years, we have 
greatly improved the environment in the United States. Our air and 
water in this country is the cleanest it has been in 40 years. Now we 
are at a crossroads in environmental policy. We can preserve all of the 
environmental gains of the past three decades and move forward to 
assure our children a safer, cleaner, and healthier environment. But we 
will not be able to do it under the old top-down, command and control 
solutions from Washington, DC.
  This approach is outdated and counterproductive. Rather than 
advancing our important environmental goals, the Washington bureaucracy 
and its extremist allies are actually harming the environment. Timber 
growers have been known to cut trees on the basis of even a rumor that 
their property might have an endangered species to be listed. Why? In 
order to avoid having Washington bureaucrats tell them they cannot cut 
down a tree that they have spent their lifetime harvesting.
  In central Texas, the Fish and Wildlife Service originally suggested 
setting aside an area the size of the State of Rhode Island to protect 
the golden-cheeked warbler. In order to do that, they told the property 
owners they could not cut cedar trees. Now, cedar trees have another 
harmful impact on the people who must have water for our cultivation of 
lands and to drink, because cedar trees absorb water to a greater 
extent than most other trees. If you do not cut cedar trees, which our 
farmers and ranchers are trying to do as much as they can, the water 
supply dries up, and it affects the water supply of the city of San 
Antonio and affects the ability of farmers and ranchers to use their 
land. The size of the area is a ridiculous amount--the size of the 
State of Rhode Island for one bird, when we could have set aside a 
reasonable number of acres for its preservation.
  In the Texas Panhandle, protecting a bait fish called the Arkansas 
river shiner may keep both the agricultural producers and municipal 
utilities from being able to have access to an adequate supply of 
water, even though there is a thriving population of the Arkansas river 
shiner in the State of New Mexico. Now, many of my constituents are a 
little fed up with a Government that gives snakes and salamanders 
priority over human beings and constitutional rights.
  The Endangered Species Act has worked well as a means of focusing 
attention on the need to preserve plants and animals from extinction. 
There have been many successes for high-profile species, but the 
heavyhanded means that are being employed to preserve hundreds of 
subspecies are increasingly counterproductive. If we cannot rely on the 
support and cooperation of the people who live with the animals that we 
want to save, I think those animals chances of survival are not very 
good. That is why I am making a priority of reforming the Endangered 
Species Act. We need to forge a new consensus about saving endangered 
species and making private property owners stakeholders, not 
adversaries in the process.
  The Superfund was created to identify and clean up hundreds of 
hazardous waste sites around the country, but the regulations written 
in Washington to govern cleanup are so complicated and cumbersome that 
almost no cleanup is getting done. Only 291, or about 25 percent, of 
the 1,238 worst hazardous waste sites have actually been cleaned up.

  Where is the money going? Billions of dollars have gone into this. 
The money has gone to lawyers, consultants, and bureaucrats in 
Washington. That is where the money has gone that should have been 
going to clean up these hazardous waste sites. Companies contributing 
to the cleanup have spent 39 percent of their money on lawyers, 20 
percent on negotiations, 9 percent on studies, and 15 percent on 
cleanup.
  It is not just business that is being sued. The Catholic Archdiocese 
of Newark has been sued for a landfill in New Jersey. The archdiocese 
purchased land to expand its Holy Name Cemetery and inadvertently 
became potentially responsible for its cleanup. One landfill site in 
New York has 600 defendants, including an Elks Club, an exercise gym, 
two nursing homes and a kennel, which has a septic tank that needs to 
be cleaned.
  Something must be done. We must put the money where it will benefit 
the public and the environment. This waste will go on and on unless we 
reopen the Superfund law and put some common sense back into it. 
Hazardous waste sites are local problems. We want to have a voice at 
the local level to be sure that the waste site in a town is cleaned up 
and made safe.
  Unlike other major environmental laws, it is all handled by Federal 
bureaucrats, not the State and local representatives. While the 
lawsuits have gone on for years and years and the consultants and the 
bureaucrats argue endlessly about how many parts per million is 
acceptable, our children are at risk.
  The Clean Air Act requires States and localities to meet a series of 
ambitious new pollution reduction targets in the years ahead. Achieving 
these goals will make the air we breathe cleaner and healthier. But the 
Washington bureaucrats have not been content just to set the standards. 
They are also trying to dictate how to achieve the goals, down to the 
smallest detail. In order to reduce auto pollution, emission testing 
requirements are part of the Clean Air Act. Rather than allowing States 
to decide, Federal regulators have been using threats to force States 
to set up entirely new automobile inspection networks, completely 
separate from the existing State auto inspection systems, and it is 
costing our consumers millions of dollars.
  What we need to do, Mr. President, is achieve better protection of 
human health and the environment by regulating smarter. The fact is, 
businesses--

[[Page S3185]]

big and small--private property owners, and commuters, are spending too 
much time, too much money, trying to comply with too much paperwork and 
too many regulations from too many Washington bureaucrats.
  If we are going to move forward for a safer, cleaner, healthier 
future, we must change the way Washington regulates. States and 
communities should be allowed and encouraged to take a greater role in 
environmental regulations and oversight. But the improvements we need 
in Washington go far beyond State and local involvement. We need to 
plan for the future, not just for today.
  Science and technology are constantly changing and improving, but the 
Federal Government is not keeping up with these changes, and the old 
regulations are outdated. Extremists in the environmental lobby are 
trying to keep the status quo. What we want are some immediate changes 
that will give us better regulations for the environment, to preserve 
it, and allow people the freedom to use their private properties and 
cultivate the land at the same time.
  Mr. President, I know my time has expired.
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the period of 
morning business be extended until the hour of 1:30, with Senators 
permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I will have 3 or 4 more minutes.
  Mr. President, here are the things that I would like to see done to 
change the regulatory harassment from Washington, DC. Let us put some 
common sense into the regulation. Let us do a thorough review of the 
environmental regulations that are now in place to determine what we 
need, what we do not, and make sure we do not add any new unnecessary, 
unproductive regulations.
  Washington should be required to disclose the expected costs of 
current and new environmental regulations. I think the public has a 
right to know how much they are going to cost, and whether they are 
going to get their money's worth.
  Three, in trying to make regulatory decisions involving the 
environment, the Federal Government should use best-estimate and 
realistic assumptions, rather than worst-case scenarios advanced by 
environmental extremists.
  Fourth, new regulations should be based on the most advanced and 
credible knowledge available--in other words, good science. We have a 
situation where we have seen the devastation of the timber industry in 
the Northwest. It has cost thousands of people their jobs. Their 
families and their livelihoods have depended on the timber industry. It 
has cost every person in America that has built a new home more because 
timber prices have increased. Why? To protect a spotted owl.
  Mr. President, what has happened is that reports have come back that, 
in fact, the spotted owl is not going into extinction, that it has been 
spotted in places nearby. So we have had a devastation of an industry, 
a devastation of people's lives and their livelihoods, their jobs, and 
whole communities have been ruined, when we did not even have good, 
sound science.
  In Texas, in the city of Big Springs, 15,000 people had to move a 
reservoir to protect a conclo snake that was later determined to be 
prolific in a county nearby. They spent $6 million in taxpayer money--
the money of hard-working people--to move a whole reservoir in order to 
accommodate a snake that was not really endangered.
  So, Mr. President, it is time to restore common sense to 
environmental law. This is how we would move forward for a cleaner, 
safer future for our country, and to protect private property rights 
and jobs as we do it. We can work together to keep endangered species, 
to clean air and water, and clean hazardous waste sites. We can do all 
of these things and still have a thriving economy.
  Mr. President, that should be our goal, and that is why we are trying 
to reform Superfund, reform the Endangered Species Act, and make the 
Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act 
good for people as well as animals and the environment. We need to work 
together so we can live together in safety.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized to speak 
for up to 15 minutes.

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