Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 49 (Wednesday, April 17, 1996)

[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 17, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3561-H3568]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

EARTH DAY

The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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, my purpose tonight is to talk about Earth
Day and the lessons of Earth Day and what it means for us now in 1996.
I think many of our constituents know that Earth Day is 26 years old
now. It will take place this year on April 22, and the first Earth Day
was in April 1970.
The reason we are concerned and the reason that several Democrats are
here tonight to talk about Earth Day is because we are very concerned
that this Congress, under the Republican leadership of the gentleman
from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, has essentially tried to roll back the
bipartisan effort that has been made in the House of Representatives,
in the Senate, by Presidents of both parties over the last 25 years to
try to improve our laws and our enforcement with regard to
environmental protection.
In the last 14 or 15 months or so that we have been here in this
Congress, we have seen day after day, week after week, efforts by
Speaker Gingrich and the Republican leadership to weaken the laws that
have been on the books, and to provide less funding for enforcement and
investigation against polluters who are violating those laws.
Before I go on, though, I will yield to the gentlewoman from Florida
[Mrs. Meek] who would also like to address

[[Page H3562]]

this issue. I am very pleased she is here tonight, because I know how
important Earth Day is to her, and how important environmental
protection is to her.
Mrs. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].
Mr. Speaker, in recognition of Earth Day, I rise to talk about some
of the successes and failures since the first Earth Day in 1970. I have
a vivid recollection of Earth Day and what it has done for all
populations.
As a result of the increased awareness of environmental problems that
was a direct result of Earth Day, the landmark legislation to create
the Environmental Protection Agency passed the United States Senate in
1970 without a single dissenting vote, ushering in a new era of
America's stewardship of our air, our water, and our land.
Mr. Speaker, we have made great strides over the years in cleaning up
our air and our water. My home State of Florida has been a national
leader in protecting these precious resources. But there are those who
have been left out in the rising tide of environmental quality, which
has not lifted all of the boats.
Mr. Speaker, since that original Earth Day, we have learned that
racial minorities and low-income people experience high-than-average
exposures to selected air pollutants, hazardous waste facilities, and
to contaminated fish and agricultural pesticides in the workplace.
In 1992, a National Law Journal Investigation found that penalties
against pollution law violators in minority areas were lower than those
imposed for a violation in largely nonminority area. They also found
the government took longer to address these hazards in the communities.
In additional, they found that the racial imbalance occurred whether
the community was wealthy poor.
Discrimination against racial or ethnic groups and against the poor
in environmental efforts cannot be condoned. The effort to fight this
discrimination is known as the environmental justice movement. It is
becoming a very strong movement.

Many of my colleagues know, as most of the country knows, that the
current Republican leadership has assaulted the environment to serve
special interests at the expense of the land, the water, the air, and
the health of the people of the United States. Through budget cuts and
legislative riders, the Republicans have targeted not only the
environment, but also the minority groups and the poor. Not only is
their so-called environmental agenda good for polluters, it is bad for
the environment, and it is worse for poor people in poor communities.
Mr. Speaker, we need clean air and clean water, just as any other
person needs it, as much as the people from other communities. The poor
just as much as the rich need dangerous waste sites cleaned up. Poor
people do not have air filters, water filters, or vacation homes to
escape from these environmental hazards. They do not have lobbyists or
money to donate to influential committee members to slant legislation
in their favor. But we need to open our ears here in the Congress and
listen to these people as we consider environmental laws in Congress.
Polluted sites in poor urban areas often stand for years as health
and environmental hazards. I know this because of the district I serve.
They are eyesores, they are a breeding ground for crime, and places
where development of industry and jobs should be revitalizing the
community, but these environmental hazards are there preventing this.
At the same time, new businesses are developing areas far from the
cities and the city labor pool, destroying vegetation and wildlife, and
duplicating investments in infrastructure that have already been made
in these urban and poor areas. This makes no sense, no environmental
sense and no common sense, Mr. Speaker.
Dangerous waste sites must be cleaned up. I have introduced, last
year, a bill, H.R. 1381, the Comprehensive Economic and Environmental
Recovery Act of 1995, that would help achieve this goal. My bill and a
lot of others would provide low-interest loans to stimulate voluntary
cleanup of contaminated areas in targeted urban areas, and ensure that
local people are hired to do the work. My bill also includes provisions
for a training program so that local people can learn the skills
necessary for environmental remediation.
Mr. Speaker, I am not the only one who has sponsored such
legislation, but this Congress needs to pay that more attention. The
gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Dingell, one of our colleagues, in his
Superfund Reform Act of 1995 had provisions that would address this
environmental justice. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, these sections were
not included in the Republican bill, thereby setting back the cause of
environmental justice.
One provision of the Dingell bill would have required that the EPA
study priority-setting, response actions, and public participation at
waste sites to determine whether EPA's conduct was fair and equitable
to the population, to the race, to the ethnicity and income
characteristics of affected communities.
Why are Republicans unwilling to even allow a study of this issue?
What are they afraid of finding out? Another provision in the Dingell
bill similar to my provision would authorize a demonstration program
for recruitment and training of local people in remediation activities
and encourage the hiring of disadvantaged persons from the affected
community who have been trained in remediation skills.
Again, this provision was not included in the Republican bill. Poor
and minority communities do not deserve to be the dumping ground for
the country. My home State of Florida has shown leadership in
environmental justice by establishing a commission to collect
information and address this issue head on. In this Congress, however,
we are regressing, as I see it, moving backward, as we are in so many
environmental areas. We would be even further behind if it were not for
the strong support of the President for environmental justice and for
improving the environment

For example, his executive order on environmental justice will
address that problem. This year, as we celebrate Earth Day, let us
remember that environmental protection decisions should not be based on
race, ethnicity, creed, or on wealth. Let us recommit ourselves to an
effective and fair environmental policy so that the tide of
environmental quality will rise and lift all boats. We do pay attention
to that as Earth Day descends upon us. I thank the gentleman very much.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentlewoman will just let me comment
briefly on some of the themes she mentioned, because I think they were
very important, first of all it is interesting, coming from the State
of New Jersey, which of course is a very densely populated State, New
Jerseyans tend to think of Florida as having more open space, more
pristine area. It is not always the case, but that is the general
impression.
The fact that you are here talking about some of the urban areas and
eyesores, I do not even tend to think that is true in the State of
Florida, but obviously it is, and it goes to point out to me how
universal the concerns are about the environment.
The other thing I wanted to mention is that I think it is so crucial
to stress the need to have Federal programs to help with the cost of
cleanup. The gentlewoman mentioned specifically, I think she was making
reference to the Superfund program or something like that.
One of the biggest criticisms that I had of the Republican leadership
is when the Superfund bill came up for reauthorization before our
Committee on Commerce, we had Republicans who were making statements to
the effect that ``We do not really need the Superfund anymore, because
that can be dealt with by the States and the localities. They can deal
with those hazardous waste sites, they can come up with better ways of
funding and providing cleanup of hazardous waste sites on the State or
local level.''
I know that is simply not true. New Jersey, which has probably done
more than any other State to clean up sites that are not on the
Superfund list, nonetheless continues to have problems in terms of
coming up with the financing, and particularly when we are dealing with
urban areas where the property tax base is not there; for them to find
the money to do that kind of cleanup is just not going to happen,

[[Page H3563]]

which is why we need a Superfund program.
I also appreciate the fact that the gentlewoman brought up this whole
issue of environmental justice and that movement, because too often I
think people associate the environmental movement with rich people or
the elite, and you point out very well that that is simply not the
case, that people who live in urban areas, poor areas, have just as
much, if not maybe more, to be concerned about when it comes to
environmental cleanup.
The last theme, if I could mention it, the whole idea with regard to
jobs and the environment; your point that when we clean up sites, when
we deal with environmental protection, we are creating jobs, that is so
true. One of the biggest criticisms I have of the Republican leadership
is that they constantly try to juxtapose the environment versus jobs;
that somehow they are mutually exclusive, and to the extent we clean up
the environment, we displace people. That is simply not true.

{time} 1815

The fact of the matter is that environmental protection and the
progress we have made over the last 26 years since Earth Day in 1970
has really actually created more jobs and created a better economy and
allowed for more job creation. I appreciate the gentlewoman's coming
here tonight and expressing her views.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman
from Oregon [Ms. Furse].
Ms. FURSE. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone]. I
guess I am here to warn the American people about what I call 1-day
environmentalism. Interest in Earth Day really has to be continued and
kept in people's minds throughout the year. It is a yearlong problem to
keep protecting the environment and we need to do that.
I would be the first, Mr. Pallone, to say that the environment is not
a partisan issue. Americans, regardless of their political persuasion,
want and need clean air to breathe and clear water to drink. They are
concerned about it.
There are many Republican Members in this body who are strong
environmental leaders, but the Republican leadership of the Congress
has not been friendly to the environment. I think that that is the
point that we need to stress, that it is the way we do things beyond
the bills that are introduced. We have to look at what happens behind
the closed doors or in the economy, in the budget deliberations.
I think that the Republican leadership learned very quickly that the
American people did not want a frontal attack on the environmental
laws, because the American people believe that the environment needs to
be protected and they also feel confident that we have passed a lot of
laws that have protected the environment. So instead the leadership,
under the disguise of what they call deficit reduction and balancing
the budget, in fact put environmental laws on a starvation diet.
What happened was, rather than having a debate about environmental
laws, whether they were important, whether we wanted them, whether we
could afford them, what happened instead was that there was a slashing
of the funds for the enforcement of environmental laws, and we all know
in every community that you cannot enforce laws if you do not have the
money there to do that.
For example, I do not know if people around the country know that the
Environmental Protection Agency's budget was cut by 21 percent and
their law enforcement account was cut by even more, by 25 percent. What
does this mean?
It means that the people who we hire to protect the environment have
not had the opportunity nor the budget to go out and even inspect the
facilities they are supposed to inspect. That means the American
people's health is put at risk, and yet they are perhaps not aware that
these things are going on because they have not seen the law actually
taken down, so I ask that the American people look very carefully at
these budget decisions.
I was pleased that the gentleman mentioned this whole issue of jobs
and the environment. I have a report here that was put together by a
whole group of very well known economists, and it is called ``Economic
Well-Being and Environmental Protection in the Pacific Northwest.''
What these economists show--and they are not Republicans or
Democrats, they are economists--what they show is that there is a
direct link between a clean environment and a healthy economy, that
those two things go completely together. Of course we have seen that
particularly in the Northwest.
The Northwest, the population is growing rapidly, and one of the
reasons over and over and over again given by people who move into the
Northwest is they come there because of our wonderful environment and
the fact that we are on the cutting edge of environmental protection
laws. So people are moving to that.
I find that some of the Republican leadership have forgotten why we
have Earth Day, why we have these laws. I remember when the Cuyahoga
River caught fire. Can you imagine a great, powerful river so polluted
that it caught fire? It was the stimulus for the Clean Water Act.
In my own State, we have a great river called the Willamette River
that flows through the biggest city in Oregon. Just a few years ago
that river was unsafe to swim in, our children couldn't use it, there
were no salmon in that river.
Thanks to the Clean Water Act, that has been reversed. We now have a
clean river, we have salmon in that river. But if we cut the budget as
the Republican leadership is suggesting, we will not be able to enforce
those wonderful laws that have protected our environment and our
people.

So I think that we really have to focus on these cuts. These cuts in
the budget are, in my view, extreme and unwise and they are
underhanded. If we are going to say that everyone agrees that we must
protect the environment, we must be green all the way through. We
cannot be green on Earth Day, put on a little green hat, put on a
little green tie, a little green suit and say, look, we are pro the
environment.
What we really have to do is say we are pro the environment when it
comes to making those hard decisions on the budget. We cannot go behind
closed doors where the American people are not there and cut these
budgets and ravage these environmental laws.
So I challenge the leadership to put their money where their mouth is
on Earth Day and start funding these environmental laws again, because
then we will indeed be a clean environment and we will give the
American people what poll after poll shows they want. They want these
laws to be in place.
I am very glad you are doing an Earth Day event, but I do think we
need to say it goes further than 1 day. It goes throughout the year,
and we need to be honest with the American people.
I thank the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].
Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate what the gentlewoman from Oregon [Ms.
Furse] said. The gentlewoman again points out some very important
themes, I think, that we need to stress for Earth Day.
First of all, there has been tremendous progress. You talk about
clean water. My district is totally on the water, either on the
Atlantic Ocean or the Raritan Bay or the Raritan River.
In the late 1980's, 1988, 1989, when I was first elected and came
down here, we had beach closings. Some of the beaches were closed the
entire summer because of the wash-ups that were coming from New York
and north Jersey. Now that is totally changed. In the last few years
the water has been relatively pristine.
A lot of it has just been because of Federal grants and loans to the
local municipalities, to the counties, to upgrade their sewage
treatment plants. Money is a very important factor here. I think a lot
of people deemphasize money, but when you talk about clean water action
money means a lot, because money means you can build the treatment
plants, that you can do the enforcement, go out and catch the
polluters, you can do the investigations.
When the Republican leadership starts to cut back as they have on
these grants, we are getting less loans now for clean water because of
cutbacks with these stopgap spending measures. We have less
environmental cops on the beat, so to speak, less investigation being
done, and the direct

[[Page H3564]]

result of that is that we are going to see more pollution going into
our waterways reversing, hopefully not too much, but reversing the
trend of the last 25 years.
The other thing that I wanted to point out that you stressed, I
think, as well is that the problem that we face is with the Republican
leadership. I think that when Americans went out and voted for a new
majority, a new Republican majority in 1994, none of them, or very few
of them, thought that they were electing a Republican majority that was
going to put into leadership positions people that were going to make
an antienvironmental agenda part of their program here in the House of
Representatives. That is what we have seen with Speaker Gingrich, with
Dick Armey, with some of the other Members who are in the Republican
leadership. They have on a daily basis put forward legislation that
would weaken environmental laws. It is not so much the individual
perhaps Republicans that are doing this but the leadership. But they
are the elected leadership and we have to hold them responsible for
what is happening down here. It is a fact that this is what they are
doing. I want to thank the gentlewoman for joining us here today.
Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. PALLONE. I yield to the gentleman from West Virginia.
Mr. WISE. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for doing this once
again. You have been a tireless fighter in environmental causes. Let me
just say I too join as everyone in this Chamber, Republican and
Democrat, in appreciating the progress that has been made over the last
25 years and also saying we do not want it rolled back. But what
happens is people forget how the progress was made. The progress was
made by being willing to fund the environmental programs that are
passed, the progress was made by being able to do the enforcement, the
progress was made by people standing up and saying here are a set of
standards and we are going to vigilantly enforce them. The problem is
if you cut back the enforcement 25 percent, what message are you
sending out? I too like everyone in this Chamber have my own memories
of the Kanawha River in Charleston, WA, in which when I was growing up
you were warned not to swim in it, children getting meningitis every
summer, and the pollution that was in those rivers. Today because of an
effort made across the board, from environmentalists to industry, to
government, the result is that the Kanawha is clean again and that for
the first time fresh water fish are being pulled out of it, for the
first time people are now feeling good about the Kanawha. Same thing
with our air. The air used to be atrocious in the Kanawha Valley with
the second highest number of solid particulates in the country 25 years
ago. That is no longer the case. Everyone delights in that. So no one
wants to roll back the clock. The only problem is the way you keep the
clock ticking is to make sure that you keep the enforcement going and
that you keep the EPA able to do its job. Earth Day fascinates me,
hearing everyone say that we are all going to go out and plant a tree
or do something and I do not make light of planting trees but trees
cannot overcome a lot that is being done to the environment. But Earth
Day in some ways has become the Easter service of environmentalism, the
one day where everybody shows up, the one day where everybody brings a
shovel, wears a bonnet, and comes out and celebrates. But the problem
is you have got to be in the church or in the movement every day, every
week. And so Earth Day can remind us. Indeed, just like Easter, it is
good to have people coming out and renewing those ties. But then the
test is whether or not that carriers over to the next day and to the
next week.

There is a point that I think ought to be made. Sometimes I hear the
talk of burdensome regulation but it should be made that to step back
now is actually bad for business. We have a number of companies in the
Kanawha Valley and in West Virginia that have spent great sums to
comply with the law and indeed many of our companies have greatly
reduced emissions voluntarily far beyond what was required. What kind
of message do we send out now if you say we are going to step back,
that we are not going to fund enforcement so that that person who has
always been skating right on the edge, who has not been willing to make
the commitment, who has always played a bit fast and loose or who
simply has not been willing to upgrade as fast as others have, they
suddenly get rewarded? We give them a bonus for having never been as
enthusiastic as others in the business community have been?
The thing that has impressed me in talking to our chemical industry
at home is they understand the progress that has been made and they are
committed to continuing to make it. But it gets a lot harder for them
to justify if they see somebody else that may get off the hook now
because that EPA inspector can get by now once every 6 years or
something along those lines and only under the rarest circumstances. I
support a tough enforcement program. That is why I voted against
cutting the funding 25 percent.
There is a controversial pulp mill, for instance, that is now being
debated, whether or not to construct in my area. Some say that it ought
not to be built, others urge that it should. Regardless of how you
feel, the best way to determine what the environmental impact will be
is with a strong EPA. That is why I voted for the funding that would
give the EPA the ability to continue doing its studies that are so
necessary.
Environmentalism is good for business and indeed we are seeing more
and more businesses learn that and make profits from it as well.
Finally, I just want to say, I do not think anybody want to hurt
anybody but if you have got a doubt as to whether or not there needs to
be continued rigid enforcement, just look at your tap in your kitchen
or the faucet where you children brush their teeth and ask, am I
totally confident about what is coming out of that tap and will I be
totally confident if these cuts go through? Ask the victims and their
families in Milwaukee, where 100 people died just a couple of years ago
from cryptosporidium in the water supply. Ask those who have been under
a boil water order, which is not uncommon. I wonder why it is
regrettably that bottled water seems to be a growth industry in our
supermarkets. What that tells me is that the job is not only not
finished but it must be even more aggressively pursued.
So we have made progress, everybody agrees on that. But there is a
price to progress and there is a need to make sure we keep the progress
that we have made as well and to continue to progress. I thank the
gentleman for all he has done to keep that in front of the American
people.

{time} 1830

Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate the gentleman's remarks. If I could just
add again a couple of things that you pointed out and bring them back
to this issue of what the Republican leadership has been doing in this
House, one of the things that we keep hearing from the Speaker and
Republican leadership is we do not need the national laws, the
environmental protection on the national level, because the States are
doing a good job. Twenty-five years after Earth Day we can send those
responsibilities, if you will, to enforce the environment, to protect
the environment, back to the States.
As the gentleman so well points out, if each individual State has
different laws when it comes to Superfund or clean water or whatever it
happens to be, that does not solve the problem, because you get forum
shopping; in other words, where a company will say ``I will not go to
West Virginia. I will go to another State, because they have weaker
laws.'' And if each State starts competing, if you will have to have
weaker environmental protection to attract industry or whatever, then
the common denominator gets lower and lower.
Mr. WISE. I am from West Virginia and the gentleman is from New
Jersey. Both are centers for the chemical industry. If you want to
start a race for the bottom, pitting us against each other, each State
having to set its own standards, as opposed to having a minimum Federal
standard that at least sets the minimum benchmark, we all lose in that
regard.
Mr. PALLONE. I yield such time to the gentlewoman from California
[Ms. Pelosi] who has been an outspoken protector of the environment
here in the House.

[[Page H3565]]

Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and for his
leadership on this important issue, and for calling this special order
this evening.
I would like to follow up with the colloquy you were having with the
gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] on the idea that we absolutely
do need Federal standards. Not only do we need them, because you would
have a race to the bottom as States might wish to attract certain kinds
of industries which would not have to comply with State law, but also
because pollution knows no State boundary. Without minimum
environmental standards set by Federal law and Federal enforcement
actions, the health of our communities, the environment and economy
would be compromised across the board.
Testimony submitted by the Citizens Panel of the Chesapeake Bay shows
that Federal oversight and enforcement helped States work cooperatively
to address environmental problems. Before the creation of the EPA, the
six States on the Chesapeake Bay watershed allowed the waters to become
severely polluted. Without a strong Federal enforcement presence,
citizens in States like Virginia, which had cut its environmental
budget by 26 percent, would have little recourse against pollution
coming from other States.
It is hard for young people to remember or even to know how it was
before the EPA and before Earth Day. In the 40 years that the Democrats
have been in control of Congress, great progress, as the gentleman has
indicated, has been made. Twenty-five years ago my own beautiful San
Francisco Bay could be smelled before it could be seen. I hate to tell
you that. Major rivers caught on fire from industrial pollution. The
Great Lakes resembled stagnant toxic pools rather than centers for
recreation and commerce.
Since then, national environmental laws have led to cleaner air, safe
drinking water, and better controls of toxic waste and hazards. But the
work is far from done, and the Republican assault on environmental
budget will hamper such efforts.
Due to recent cuts, the EPA has halted 68 waste cleanups in
communities around the Nation. In New Jersey, your State, Mr. Pallone,
81 Superfund sites need to be cleaned up.
I had an able article from a California paper, ``Strapped EPA limits
cleanups. With funds cut off, agency slashes staff, narrows work to 10
of the most hazardous sites in California.'' This means that the head
of the EPA in our region has kept a skeletal crew of 35 to 40, down
from 900, to oversee the most serious problems and to tend to the other
business.
So we are faced with a terrible, terrible choice. This is not about
only endangered species; this is about endangering the health of the
people of our country, endangering our children. We are talking here
about clean air, clean water, safe drinking water.
I once has a volunteer in one of my campaigns, and when we asked her
why she was attracted too come into a campaign, she said, ``I realize
that politics has something to do with clean air and clean water, and I
guess I have to be involved in politics, at least as long as I breathe
air and drink water.'' And that is so true.
What has happened since Earth Day 26 years ago, the first Earth Day,
is that the people have become engaged. Our Republican colleagues see
the resistance to their backward looking policies. Now they are trying
to give the appearance of being green on Earth Day.
But while they may try to act green for a day, the record shows that
this has been the worst environmental Congress ever. The Republican
Congress has attempted to roll back years of environmental progress in
order to favor special interests.
Because of Republican cuts, EPA has missed thousands of inspections
and enforcement actions, cleanups have been slowed at 400 toxic waste
sites, and stopped at 60 Superfund sites. Six rules to clean our waters
have been delayed, causing hundreds of millions of pounds in pollution
that could have been prevented, and old growth forests are being logged
without environmental protection. This is a serious, serious assault on
the environment.
I heard our colleague talk about the environment and economics. I
wanted to cite a report from California that says that, to the
contrary, the environmental regulations do not produce a loss of jobs.
The report that we have from the California State Senate shows clearly
that rather than losing jobs, it promotes jobs. It promotes an
environmental protection industry, it promotes the fishing industry,
which depends on a clean environment. This whole methodology that there
is a job loss because we are trying to protect clean air and clean
water is just that, mythology and not reality. It is an excuse to take
actions, but it is not a reason to do so. So there is a great deal at
risk.

I want to commend President Clinton for standing firm in this budget
fight, standing firm to say, as Vice President Gore reiterated today,
that he will veto legislation that has harmful environment riders or
harmful anti-environment riders in them. Even with the riders gone, I
am glad the President stood tall on the issue, in terms of the cuts to
EPA which we have been talking about this evening and which have such
damaging impact on the environment.
I would say to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] I serve on
the Labor, Health and Human Services Subcommittee of the Committee on
Appropriations, and on that committee we hear from scientists all the
time. What they tell us is that pollution prevention is disease
prevention. This is not just an environmental issue, if you could say
``just an environmental issue.'' It is a public health issue. The
parents of this country, the families of this country, as the gentleman
from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] said, have to have the confidence that
when their children go to the faucet and pour a glass of water, that
they are not damaging their health.
So we have to have Earth Day, we have to uphold the principles of
Earth Day every day of the week and every day of the year. And in this
body we have a responsibility to make sure that whatever we vote for
here is in furtherance of protecting the environment, and we must
reject the extreme proposals of the Republican majority to set us back
on the last generation of improvement in the environment.
Once again I want to thank you for your leadership on this, your
relentless leadership on protecting the environment, and for giving me
this opportunity to participate in this special order this evening.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman for the
remarks that she made, and again she has made some points that I think
are really crucial in terms of this whole debate relative to Earth Day.
I think that the Republican leadership consistently tries to pretend
when we talk about the environment, that we are sort of the tree
huggers. Not that there is anything wrong with hugging trees, but they
forget the fact we are mainly talking about the public health and that
when we talk about clean water, air and cleaning up hazardous waste
sites, we are talking about direct health implications for the average
person, for children, for mothers, whatever.
Also, I am glad the gentlewoman brought out, she certainly knows as a
member of the Committee on Appropriations that we continue to operate
under these stopgap funding measures which are still creating
tremendous problems for the EPA and their ability to enforce the law to
clean up Superfund sites, to do proper investigations. I am a little
afraid that because we have not had the shutdowns that the Republicans
brought us a few months ago, at that time people were vividly aware of
the fact that the EPA was closed down, that Superfund sites were not
being cleaned up, that there was not anybody out there going against
the polluters or finding the polluters. But even though we do not have
the Government shutdown or any agencies shut down now, the amount of
money that is available for the EPA and other environment-related
agencies is significantly cut back because of these stopgap measures.

I think this one we are under now extends to the 24th, sometime next
week or so. We are just hoping if we get another continuing resolution
or another appropriations bill it is going to be one that provides
adequate funding for the EPA and these other agencies. Again, so far
the Republican leadership has not indicated they are going to do that,
so these agencies are being crippled in their ability to enforce the
law and do the things important to us.

[[Page H3566]]

Ms. PELOSI. That is why I am so pleased President Clinton has stood
firm on this issue, in addition to education and some other issues,
Medicare, Medicaid, VA, that the President has stood firm and said that
we cannot proceed unless we have the basic health and well-being of the
American people protected in how we go forward.
I would like to elaborate on one point just for half a minute that I
mentioned earlier, about a survey released last month in California by
the California State Senate, refuting the claim that if you have
environmental protection regulations you lose jobs.
This report looked at every major study by Government, universities,
and private think tanks since 1973. Not a single reputable study found
a negative impact from environmental laws. In fact, environmental
regulations have created jobs, particularly in manufacturing,
transportation, and utility industries, and as I mentioned, there are
other industries like the fishing industry which are totally dependent
upon a protected environment. There have been a boom in jobs in
environmental technologies and services. The report says California,
speaking for my State, California alone will have 200,000 environmental
workers by the end of the year.
The environmental debate is really about protecting public health, as
the gentleman has said. The jobs versus owls argument is dead.
Again, I thank you for allowing me this time.
Mr. PALLONE. You are absolutely right. In my district it is so vivid,
your point, in the sense when we had these beach closings in the late
eighties, billions of dollars literally were lost in tourism at the
Jersey shore. There were no jobs at all in the summer. So I do not
think I could find a better example. If we do not have clean water at
the Jersey shore, we do not have an economy.

For the life of me, I do not understand why a lot of the Republicans
or those in the leadership do not understand that. But a good
environment means good jobs. So thank you again for participating.
I would like to yield now to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Doggett].
Mr. DOGGETT. I thank you for yielding and for your leadership
concerning environmental protection. I thought that one of the other
really important aspects of this Gingrich attack on the environment,
this Gingrich attempt to essentially have unilateral disarmament of the
environmental law protection relates to the whole problem of clean
water drinking standards. Where I come from, the city of Austin, TX,
Colorado on the Rocks, with the Colorado River running through there,
is considered to be a pretty good drink. I have begun to get a series
of calls and letters from people throughout central Texas expressing
concern that this Congress, and particularly this House, given its
atrocious environmental record during the last year, intends to weaken
the safe drinking water standards.
Another concern that you may be familiar with, and the irony at a
time when so many in this House have talked about more local
responsibility, more community responsibility, is that they would come
in and limit the community's right to know about dangerous substances
in our water supply. I am wondering if the gentleman, in your
leadership role with reference to the environment, is familiar with
some of the dangers posed to our water supplies by the assault on the
environment?
Mr. PALLONE. Let me say, first of all, when you talk about the Safe
Drinking Water Act and the efforts to weaken those protections, it is a
real problem. We are hearing now that because of the fact that the
Republican leadership did some polling, they essentially found out that
they were not doing too well with their constituents and possibly
leading to next November's election, because they were perceived as
antienvironment.
Mr. DOGGETT. That is reality. That demonstrates the ability of the
American people to get past these stickers saying ``I have been to the
zoo'' or ``I planted a tree'' or ``I have a green sport coat,'' and get
down to the fact that some people who say they are green at election
time have been voting consistently to destroy the environment and to
have an assault on environmental law enforcement.

{time} 1845

Mr. PALLONE. Before we are finished with this special order tonight,
maybe one of the things we could do is to bring up this memo that was
sent out by the Republican leadership that essentially gets right to
the point the gentleman is making about going out and hugging trees and
going to zoos and all that to pretend that a Member is environmental.
Mr. DOGGETT. The gentleman is talking about the House Republican
strategy for this year. That is where they got the public relations
firm in to help them put a smiley face on their commitment to the
environment by doing things like petting their dogs and that sort of
thing?
Mr. PALLONE. I will read it directly. It will not take long. It is a
pamphlet that was put out, I guess in October 1995, after the 9-month
assault on the environment when they did the polling and found out that
the public really did not like it, and it is amazing to me where they
say, and I am just quoting, your constituents will give you more credit
for showing up on a Saturday to help clean up the local park or beach
then they will give a press release from someone in Washington talking
about environmental issues. And they specifically say that you should
go out and plant trees and go door to door and hand out tree samples,
and then, last, become active in your local zoo. Go for a visit,
participate in fund-raising events, become active on the zoo citizens
advisory board.
Now, do not get me wrong, I am all in favor of planting trees. I have
done it myself. I go to the zoo all the time. I am a member of the zoo
here in Washington and elsewhere. But the point is, this is just being
used as a way to cover up a poor environmental record.
Mr. DOGGETT. A gimmick.
Mr. PALLONE. Exactly. Going back to the gentleman's point on the Safe
Drinking Water Act, I am hearing that some in the leadership now are so
concerned about their poor record on that statute that they have
actually reached out to the Democrats and are talking about possibly
coming up with some compromise legislation. But I will believe that
when I see it.
Mr. DOGGETT. I am encouraged to hear that, though I read just this
week in the April 15 issue of Congress Daily an announcement concerning
a draft committee recommendation on clean water legislation, and it was
an expression of great concern by the environmental working group that
the committee draft, and this would be, of course, the Republican
majority committee draft, would weaken community right-to-know
provisions and allow new industry oriented peer review panels to veto
EPA standards. That is that the people that pollute the water would be
able to determine what pollution is and is not appropriate for our
public law enforcement agencies to protect us against.

I would just point out that this is not, as this very cynical
Republican strategy memo that the gentleman referred to, this is not
just something coming from Washington. One of the people who wrote me
within the last week is Pamela Garcia, who writes that Austin currently
has the highest pure water standards in the State of Texas and I would
like to see it stay that way. These high standards must be maintained
to protect those most at risk from contamination.
I had a third grade teachers write, a woman who has committed her
life to working with young people, to write to express concern about
what she had heard about this same weakness in the community right-to-
know provisions. Holly Long from Austin says that it may just be my
imagination, but I thought the Government of our country is a place in
the position that they are in to protect the rights of citizens that
they represent. We should have the right to clean water and that right
should be assured to us by the people that represent us.
I know the gentleman shares that view, that our job here is not to
get on the side of whoever has the strongest lobby in Washington, but
to stand up for people like Holly Long, who is out there trying to
teach young people and bring them into the whole American dream; that
we have a responsibility to ensure that she has an advocate here in
Washington fighting for the right to be

[[Page H3567]]

able to see endangered species in someplace other than a zoo, and to
not have all those trees clearcut in our old growth forests, and
certainly to be able to be sure when they get a drink of water out of
the Colorado River in Austin, TX, that it meets the standards that we
would expect and that the gentleman would want in New Jersey.
Mr. PALLONE. I agree, and I really appreciate the fact because I do
not think anybody else tonight brought up this sort of Republican
strategy which we have seen with a lot of the efforts to weaken
environmental laws, where provisions that I call sunshine law
provisions, let the light in and right-to-know provisions, the ability
of citizen groups to bring suit, the ability of the Federal Government
to provide grants to citizen action or activists who are going to look
into or investigate environmental problems where they live.

These kinds of protections that basically get the public more
involved and sort of let in the light so that we know what is going on,
those are the very things that in many of these bills that have come up
that we have seen the Republican leadership try to weaken those
protections.
Mr. DOGGETT. Empowering the local communities to address these
issues. And, of course, I am so amazed at those who will come here on
the floor of Congress and they will say, well, I am against pollution.
I mean I am not in favor of pollution, I am just against the
Environmental Protection Agency. Well, that is like saying I am not in
favor of crime, I am just not in favor of the police.
It is the Environmental Protection Agency and some of our other
protection authorities that are the law enforcement authorities with
reference to the environment, just as our police and our highway
patrolmen and highway troopers are the law enforcement for some of the
other areas that affect our lives.
Just to give you another example, if I might. I am sure you have some
of these from New Jersey, but another person who contracted me
expressing concern about what this Congress is doing, particularly in
the area of water quality, and I think again it really brings it home,
it is not a battle between political parties or between Washington and
Texas or New Jersey, but the fact that this affects the lives of real
people who are struggling out there in America to make ends meet and
who do not need the Congress getting in the way of their standard of
living.
Susan Truesdale writes me:

Clean water is important to central Texans like me and my
family. I can't imagine finding out 12 days after the fact
that the water that my family and I had been drinking,
bathing in, watering our pets and yards with, is contaminated
with something that could possibly kill us or make us
terminally ill. I don't want my kids drinking this stuff and
not knowing. Vote to protect the right of Texans to be told
immediately if our water is unsafe, for more protective
standards not weaker ones.

And remember, she says, that many of our most vulnerable citizens are
young people, are old people, people who have certain physical
problems, certainly young women who are pregnant, who are most
vulnerable to water that is polluted, to drinking water that does not
meet clean water standards.

So I think, it is important that you have spent this time this
evening bringing to the attention of our colleagues and to the American
people how really far-reaching this very extremist agenda to undermine
environmental law protection is, because I have found some people who
are out there beginning to notice it and beginning to say, do not let
this happen; that we have a responsibility to stand up and pose an
obstacle to those who want to undermine environmental law enforcement.
Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate the gentleman's remarks, and maybe I could
just briefly out sort the cynicism that I have seen around here on the
part of the Republican leadership to the whole environmental issue.
I sort of started this evening by saying that when the Republican
majority was elected in November 1994, they put forward a Contract With
America, so to speak. There really was nothing in there that would
stand out to anybody who was voting that would suggest that they were
putting forth an antienvironmental agenda.
But when Speaker Gingrich was elected and when the House organized
the Republican majority, very quickly we saw an effort by the
Republican leadership to bring to the floor what we call
reauthorization bills, where we revisit various environmental laws,
like the Clean Water Act, and use those reauthorization bills as
vehicles to try to weaken directly environmental legislation, whether
it was the Clean Water Act or the Superfund coming out of committee or
some of the other bills that we rely on as sort of the whole basis for
environmental protection here.
Mr. DOGGETT. This was after they began the weekly meetings with the
polluters behind closed doors here in the Capitol?
Mr. PALLONE. Absolutely, and it was well documented that much of the
legislation coming out of committee was actually written at those
meetings with the polluters or with the special interests, and that
they were even directing when they were coming to the floor.
They were not terribly successful in accomplishing that goal of
weakening those statutes directly because of course the Democrats in
the House battled them, and even when the bills passed the House, they
had difficulty getting them through the Senate because the Senate was
not as responsive to trying to weaken the environmental laws.

So very quickly, after that first 6 months of trying to go directly
at environmental protection standards and statutes, we saw the
Republican leadership sort of regroup and look at the budget, if you
will, and the appropriations bills as a vehicle to try to turn back the
clock since Earth Day 1970. So we saw, as was mentioned by some of our
colleagues here tonight, riders, legislative language, if you will,
weakening language put into the budget.
We also saw, and most importantly, efforts to cut back on the amount
of money that was appropriated for the agencies that protect the
environment, like the EPA or the Department of the Interior, and even
more so deep cuts in enforcement in those environmental cops on the
beat, as you point out. Then, of course, by the end of 1995 we got to
the point where we had these Government shutdowns, where those agencies
were shut down and were not able to function at all.
I think at that point, and you and I recognize, I think, that at that
point, at the end of 1995, Speaker Gingrich and the Republican
leadership started to do this polling which indicated to them that the
public did not like what was going on with their antienvironment
crusade. That is when we got the memo saying go out and plant the trees
and join your local zoo.
Mr. DOGGETT. My concern is that that is all they plan to do; that
they want to have good public relations but that they intend to
continue, as far as I know they have not stopped their closed-door
meetings with the polluters and special interest lobbies that they have
here every week; that they will have the smiley face out there but they
will still be trying to sneak attack with the environmental riders and
the slashing of the law enforcement budgets for those that are there to
try to assure that we have the clean drinking water that people in
central Texas want and the clean air that I know people across the
country want.
Mr. PALLONE. Exactly. That is one of the main points that we are
trying to make here tonight and that the gentleman is making very
effectively, which is that we cannot be fooled, if you will, by the
fact that we are not seeing legislation coming directly to the floor
now to strike the Clean Water Act, for example. Because we are still
having, with these stopgap funding measures, significant cuts in
enforcement, in the ability for environmental agencies to actually
operate and to enforce the law.

That is continuing on a regular basis, and all efforts to try to sort
of paper that over by suggesting that we are going to be a little
better on the environment now is really nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Mr. DOGGETT. Or we could expect the same type of thing that we saw
last year when there was a bill out here that was called the Clean
Water Act amendments, but most everyone that looked at it referred to
it as the dirty water act. Most of the commentators who studied it
noted that it was not surprising that it was a dirty water

[[Page H3568]]

measure that actually weakened, in the name of clean water, the
existing law, because it had been written behind closed doors by the
various polluters who had a vested interest in this matter.
Mr. PALLONE. Exactly. And the fact of the matter is a lot of the
provisions in that dirty water bill are still attached as riders to
these appropriations, as well as some of these stopgap spending bills
that continue to come up, so they are not going away. They are still
there, but now they are sort of hidden a little more.
I think it is incumbent upon us, as Democrats, and whether Democrat
or Republican Members of this body who feel that the environment needs
to be protected, in celebration, if you will, of Earth Day, that we
continue to be vigilant and make the point that this Congress has been
terrible, has been the worst Congress on record with regard to
environmental protection. We have to bring to the light and to the
public the fact of how they are going about this, and how the
Republican leadership continues with this antienvironmental agenda.
So I want to thank the gentleman again for being here tonight, and I
know we are going to continue to make this point leading up to Earth
Day next Monday and beyond.
Mr. DELLUMS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to focus our attention on the
upcoming Earth Day commemoration. Earth Day is a day we should all
pause and consider where we are, where we have been, and where we are
going. Earth is our home; we have no other. If we exhaust her
resources; if we pollute her water, air, and land, there is no other
place we can go. Rachel Carson first apprised us of the danger to our
environment in ``The Silent Spring'' in 1962. Consciousness about the
overharvest of renewable resources, endangered species, and pollution
resulted in efforts on the local, state, national, and international
levels to address these issues. Acting in the best interest of all the
people and in the long term, Congress passed a number of laws that
significantly improved the living environment of all Americans and
helped to heal the damage done out of ignorance and greed the previous
decades.
The Clean Water Act was passed in 1972. It protects surface and
ground water. It provides water quality standards to control industrial
and municipal pollution. It also provides federal grants to help states
modernize public sewage treatment plants and reduce sewage discharges.
As a result of this act, millions of pounds of industrial pollutants
have been eliminated from our drinking water and from our rivers and
lakes. Although the nation's waters are cleaner than they've been for
decades, 40 percent of the Nation's waters are still not clean enough
for fishing and swimming. Thus, we still need to maintain a strong
Clean Water Act.
However, the Republican majority wants to substantially weaken the
Clean Water Act. They want to exempt 70,000 chemicals from the act,
allowing industries to pollute the Nation's waters as much as they like
without any hindrance. They want to slough off the costs of their
industrial production onto the American people. The big industries want
the American people to pay for industrial pollution, and we will pay--
with environmental losses. Fish will be poisoned, rivers and lakes will
die, and we will be unable to swim and fish. The Republican majority
wants to reduce funding for cleanup projects, which may reduce taxes in
the short-term, but it will raise them later, because if we don't clean
up the mess now, our grandchildren will have to do it.
The Safe Drinking Water Act has also been the focus of Republican
attacks. The Republican majority killed Safe Drinking Water Legislation
in 1994, and has made significant cuts in funding the safe drinking
water infrastructure. Currently, a weaker bill--the Safe Drinking Water
Act Amendments of 1995--is being considered. Without a strong Safe
Drinking Water Act, we will pay with our health, from the potential
negative effect of ingesting chemicals over the long term.
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability
Act [CERCLA] Superfund was created in 1980. Its purpose is to clean up
the most polluted hazardous waste sites. It requires polluters to pay
75 percent of the costs of cleaning up the sites they pollute. The
Federal Government pays the balance of the costs. Of the 1,400 sites
identified for cleanup, only 349 have been completed. Because of the
lack of commitment to cleanup by previous administrations, 60 percent
of these sites have been cleaned up during the Clinton administration
alone.
The CERCLA Superfund needs to be made more effective and efficient,
not less. The Republican majority wants to change CERCLA to provide
fewer cleanups. Instead of cleaning up hazardous waste sites, they want
to merely contain them. They also want to shift more of the cost form
the polluters to the government, making government--the taxpayers--pay
50 percent of the cost instead of 25 percent. The Republican majority
has also halted designation of new sites and reduced the amount
appropriated for cleanups.
The Republican majority has also been giving away America's natural
resources to special interests. In years past, Congress created the
National Park system, wildlife refuges, and National Forests. In 1995,
the National Park system alone enabled 270 million people to commune
with Nature. The National Park system includes National Parks,
seashores, preserves, scenic riverways and trails. While these areas
are in need of maintenance, the Republican majority has cut its
operating funds.
In addition, the Republican majority wants to open up the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil and natural gas
without important environmental safeguards. ANWR is home to a wide
variety of animals and plants, which will be negatively affected by
drilling. They are also attempting to open up over 20 million acres of
America's Redrock Wilderness to development.
The Republican majority wants to open up national forests to logging
above the levels that are sustainable over the long term. They want to
allow logging in old growth forests, the home of many endangered
species of animals, birds, and plants. In the guise of salvage logging
of dead and dying trees, they have passed legislation that opens up
logging in these ancient forests, without compliance with environmental
laws. The Republican majority is even proposing to dissolve the Tongass
National Forest (America's largest rainforest), transfer ownership to
the State of Alaska, and open it up to logging and other development.
Thus, the heritage of all Americans is being sold to oil and timber
companies, who don't care about the long-term health of the forests or
the animals, birds, and plants that are dependent on them for their
survival.
The Republican majority has also been attempting to gut the
Endangered Species Act. Masquerading as reform, the bill was drafted by
timber, mining, ranching and utility interests who would prefer to do
business without regard to the harm it causes to endangered species and
their habitat.
The Republican majority has resisted reform of the Mining Law of
1872, which allows mining companies to take minerals from federal lands
without paying royalties for them. Companies need only pay $2.50 to
$5.00 per acre to carry off all the minerals they can extract. These
are nonrenewable resources that are literally being given away to
mining companies. The American people has a right to a reasonable
return for their common property. But the Republican majority is
resisting this needed mining reform.
The Republican majority has done all they can to cripple federal
environmental laws. In addition to weakening individual environmental
laws, they are attempting to undermine the enforcement of environmental
laws by drastically cutting the budget of the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and by limiting the authority the EPA has to implement and
enforce those laws.
In the guise of ``regulatory reform'' the Republican majority is
attempting to undermine the environmental laws passed during the past
25 years. Calling environmental safeguards ``red tape,'' they are
trying to trick the American people into allowing big businesses: to
pollute America's water, air, and land; to pay less than full value for
America's timber and minerals; and to destroy America's wilderness and
wildlife. In true Orwellian fashion, the Republican majority is trying
to steal the common heritage of the American people, obfuscating it
with anti-government rhetoric.
Earth Day is an excellent time for all of us to take the time to
consider what kind of home we want to live in, and what kind of home we
want to leave for our grandchildren. Will there be clean water, air,
and land? Or will they be polluted, ugly, and toxic? Will we have any
forests left? Will there be any wilderness and wild animals left? Clean
water, air, and land is the birthright of all Americans. Forests,
wilderness, and wild animals are our heritage too. Will our
grandchildren curse us because we wasted their inheritance?

____________________