[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 16, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H3399]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to comment on some of the 
comments that were being made on the other side of the aisle by 
Republicans about Earth Day and progress on the environment.
  It is certainly true that a lot more needs to be done on 
environmental protection, whether it is cleaner air or cleaning up more 
of the hazardous wastesites under the Superfund Program. But to suggest 
that the answer to that or the way to do that is to cut back on the 
number of people who work for the EPA, or to cut back on the 
investigators and those who go out and enforce the existing 
environmental laws, or to weaken those laws so that they do not provide 
as much environmental protection, well, that makes no sense at all.
  If you are concerned about the environment, you do not turn the clock 
back 25 years on a bipartisan basis in this House and the Senate and in 
the Presidency to try and improve environmental quality and to increase 
enforcement. That is what Speaker Gingrich and the Republican 
leadership are trying to do here in this House. They are trying to turn 
back the clock.
  They are saying we do not need the people to do the investigation, we 
do not need the enforcers. We are going to let industry do its own 
thing. The bottom line is that you are not going to improve the quality 
of this Nation's environment unless you do more to protect the 
environment, have stronger laws, and have better enforcement. That is 
what we need.
  That is not what is happening here. Unfortunately, we are leading up 
to Earth Day this year with this Republican leadership working in the 
opposite direction.

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