[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 52 (Monday, April 22, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3762-S3766]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              EARTH DAY, 1996: A DIFFERENT SHADE OF GREEN

  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, on a day set aside to recognize the 
importance of protecting our environment and preserving our natural 
resources, I am pleased to join with my colleagues in this frank 
discussion of the substantial progress we have made and the steps we 
have yet to take.
  But first, it is important to recognize that environmental protection 
is not a partisan matter. It is not about Republicans or Democrats. 
This is one issue which should bring us together, because on this 
issue, we share the same goal: We all want a clean America, where our 
children can breathe clean air and drink clean water. And there is not 
a man or woman in this Congress who would demand anything less for 
their families.
  I am so proud, Mr. President, that over the past 20 years, we have 
made such great strides toward achieving that goal.
  Our urban landscapes are no longer polluted by the thick, black smoke 
of industrial smokestacks. Our lakes and rivers are no longer the 
dumping ground for toxic sludge. We are recycling newspapers, glass, 
and plastics in record numbers. Through efforts such as the 
Conservation Reserve Program, Congress is working in partnership with 
the American people to ensure our generation leaves behind a cleaner 
Earth than the one we inherited.
  We acknowledge that government at all levels can and should play a 
strong role in protecting our environment. Maybe that is why the United 
States spends more per capita on environmental protection than any 
other Western, industrialized nation.
  The question is no longer whether or not we want to protect the 
environment--we all do. The question is, How do we achieve it?
  It is an interesting coincidence that just a week ago, the American 
people were filing their Federal income tax returns and thinking about 
Government and how it impacts the family finances.
  Today, exactly 1 week after Tax Day, we are marking Earth Day. And 
once again, the American people have an opportunity to think about 
Government--this time, its impact on the environment. But in the 26 
years since Earth Day was first celebrated, Americans have grown 
concerned with Washington's environmental activism: What it is doing to 
jobs and salaries, and the bite it takes out of the family checkbook.

  What they are telling us is yes, government ought to protect the 
environment. But they are also saying it can do better by the 
taxpayers, too. And so they have asked this Congress to find a better 
balance, a ``different shade of green'' for Earth Day, 1996.
  Over the past two decades, the Federal Government has worked toward 
better environmental protection by passing new legislation and imposing 
necessary new regulations. But in our zeal to protect the environment, 
we have often neglected to consider the serious, unintended 
consequences of the actions we are taking here in Washington.
  We have cleaned up neighborhoods by clamping down on pollution, but 
we have handcuffed job-providers from finding better ways to achieve 
the same results.
  We have sought out and protected wetlands and other unique 
environmental areas, but we have often commandeered people's land, 
without compensation, to do it.
  We have demanded a great deal of the American people through our 
environmental regulations, but we have forgotten about the burdensome 
costs and confusing bureaucracies our vigilance have imposed on 
everybody.
  It is hard to measure the benefits of our well-intentioned, 
environmental safeguards when these Federal regulations come at such a 
high cost.
  The American people are telling us that Washington has gone too far, 
especially given the estimates that complying with environmental 
regulations cost an estimated $850 billion every year. That is $850 
billion no longer available to pay higher wages and better benefits, 
and creating new jobs.
  Is it possible that the environmental policies of the past have a 
cost that can be measured in terms greater than just dollars? Could 
they be costing human lives as well? According to researchers at 
Harvard University, the answer is yes. Because the government has 
increasingly focused its precious resources guarding the public against 
minuscule, theoretical risks, they are ignoring much greater dangers--a 
situation Dr. John Graham of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis 
labels ``statistical murder.'' It is a policy, say researchers, that 
costs 60,000 lives every year.
  In other words, we have spent a lot of our taxpayers' hard-earned 
money on wasteful and nonproductive programs, rather than spending 
those dollars on finding a cure for, say, cancer, leukemia, or heart 
disease.
  That kind of micromanagement, undertaken at such a horrible cost, is 
the wrong approach. No wonder so many average Americans feel they are 
being victimized by oppressive environmental legislation. In many 
cases, the Government has caused more damage than it has improved, and 
our goal should be to balance environmental protection with the need 
for economic growth as well. We always talk about the best welfare 
program being a job, but we have unnecessarily lost thousands of jobs 
because we have ignored

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the end result of bad policy. If we are ever going to achieve balance, 
the solutions will not be dictated from Washington, DC, where layers of 
bureaucracy and waste cloud every decision. Sensible relief will only 
be found outside the beltway, by reining in the Federal regulators and 
giving our constituents the freedom to achieve the environmental goals 
everyone shares.
  The Government can set goals or limits, but we should then step back 
and let the creative genius of Americans work on the solution in less 
costly, innovative ways. Expensive, one-size-fits-all dictates from 
Washington are not the answer, nor is using old technology to treat new 
problems. If experience has taught us anything over the past 26 years, 
it is that wisdom and compassion does not flow from the Federal 
Government.
  That has clearly been the lesson of the Superfund program, a classic 
example of Washington-knows-best gone wrong.
  Let us look at the facts.
  Mr. President, 25 billion taxpayer dollars have been spent over the 
past 15 years cleaning up toxic waste sites on Superfund's National 
Priorities List. Yet as of today, only 12 percent of these sites have 
actually been cleaned up. Excessive administrative costs and a bloated 
bureaucracy have eaten away a lot of the money, while billions of 
dollars have gone to line the pockets of trial lawyers, who continue to 
delay Superfund's important work. The lawyers are benefiting while the 
American taxpayers get burned.
  The end result? Fewer hazardous sites are being cleaned up and more 
Americans are being put at risk.
  Clearly, the Superfund program is broken. Congress has an opportunity 
this year to reform Superfund and redirect the taxpayers' dollars away 
from the bureaucrats and lawyers, and toward meeting the original 
intent of the law: and that was cleaning up the environment.
  The Endangered Species Act is another well-intentioned, but 
problematic, piece of legislation.
  I have always believed the Federal Government can assist landowners 
in being the best stewards of their lands. But the Endangered Species 
Act provides an incentive for them to actually harm endangered species.
  Under the act, if a landowner is told by the Government that their 
property is home to an endangered species, they are stripped of their 
ability to use their own land. Not only are they deprived of that 
land--and the enjoyment and revenue it might generate--but they are 
also denied any compensation from the Federal Government.
  While that is obviously not the intent of the Endangered Species Act, 
it has become an unfortunate, perverse byproduct of the legislation.
  One way Congress could improve the endangered species legislation is 
to provide incentives for property owners that would enable them to 
protect the environment, instead of forcing them into desperate actions 
when they've been threatened by Federal bureaucrats.
  Mr. President, what is most often lacking in Washington's attempts to 
improve the environment through regulation is an effort to get the big 
picture--a scientific approach to assess the various risks, and then 
direct resources where they can do the most good. Risk assessment and 
cost-benefit analyses are commonsense approaches undertaken out in the 
real world, but sorely missing in the Federal Government.
  When businesses or individuals make important decisions, they usually 
perform their own version of a risk assessment. To best serve the 
taxpayers--who deserve to know what kind of bang their getting for 
their bucks--Federal agencies ought to be targeting their resources in 
the same way, eliminating overzealous regulation by asking the 
Environmental Protection Agency to focus on real solutions to real 
problems. This will not only free up more funds for financially 
strapped Federal agencies, but also provide a higher level of 
environmental and public health protection.
  Giving our job creators more flexibility in meeting national 
standards is another way to eliminate the pervasive command and control 
approach that has infected many Federal programs. A pilot program 
called Project XL is proof that these efforts do work.
  I have been working on Project XL with the Minnesota Pollution 
Control Agency, Minnesota-based 3M, and the EPA. This popular program 
allows participating companies to come up with their own methods to go 
beyond minimum environmental compliance. Allowing business to best 
determine how to meet all Federal standards is an innovative idea that 
should be expanded. As long as those standards are met, the path 
traveled to reach compliance should be open to experimentation.
  And finally, the Federal Government needs to promote a better 
partnership between all levels of government, job providers, 
environmental interest groups, and the taxpayers. The most effective 
way for the Federal Government to play a strong role in protecting the 
environment is to do it in concert with those closest to the problems. 
Local solutions, not Washington domination.

  That means setting reasonable national standards and giving technical 
advice to State and local governments and businesses. I have always 
believed that Minnesota taxpayers and our elected officials in St. Paul 
are much more aware of local problems and how to solve them than 
Washington will ever be.
  ``It is not easy being green,'' went the lyrics of a popular song 
from the 1980's. Maybe not, if being green in the 1990's means 
promoting an environmental agenda that flies in the face of common 
sense and treats the taxpayers with contempt.
  Americans are looking for a different shade of green, Mr. President, 
an approach to the environment that strengthens the protection of our 
precious natural resources, promotes better health and safety measures, 
and helps rein in the exploding regulatory costs that are threatening 
people's paychecks.
  Government does have an important role in ensuring a strong 
environmental safety net. But we can do better. In closing, Mr. 
President, by reforming the system and providing balance, we will 
enhance environmental cleanup and preservation while we protect 
landowners from undue Government interference, reduce costly, arbitrary 
regulations, and ultimately, save more lives.
  So, Mr. President, on Earth Day, 1996, that is the shade of green 
this Congress is working to deliver.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I thank my colleague from Minnesota. I yield up to 10 
minutes to the Senator from Arizona.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. I thank the Chair. And I thank the Senator from Georgia for 
his effort to organize this group of conversations regarding the 
protection of our environment.
  I noticed from some of the comments that certain Democrats, anyway, I 
should say, have appeared to take offense that Republicans are actually 
working to protect the environment, apparently under the belief that 
Earth Day is a special day for them to demagog and politicize 
environmental issues. The real purpose of Earth Day is to recognize 
important work being done to protect our environment.
  Today I want to discuss briefly two specific projects undertaken by a 
broad group of interests in my home State of Arizona that do exactly 
that.
  The first has to do with ranchers in southeast Arizona who are acting 
as true stewards of the lands for the purpose of protecting the 
grasslands on which they currently are grazing. Many ranchers are 
working in harmony with nature not only to earn a living but also to 
protect the environment upon which they are earning that living. They 
are using their natural resources in a way that it is meant to be used.
  In his forward to Dan Dagget's book called ``Beyond the Rangeland 
Conflict--Toward a West That Works,'' David Getches, who is chairman of 
the board of trustees of the Grand Canyon Trust, said of ranchers on 
the Colorado Plateau--I am quoting--

       It's not hard to find ranchers on the plateau who share 
     some of our most heartfelt values. Most want their 
     grandchildren to know a region with a healthy ecosystem and 
     places of wonder, beauty and solitude. And most can 
     understand that economic stability and permanence of 
     communities are intertwined with the permanent health of the 
     surrounding land, water, and wildlife.

  Certainly Professor Getches is correct because some of the people who

[[Page S3764]]

care the most about the land are those ranchers. I speak specifically 
of a new group called the Malpai Borderlands Group which is the essence 
of this commitment for protection. I met with representatives of the 
Malpai Group over the Easter recess when I was in Douglas, AZ. I was 
very impressed with the work they are doing as a combined group of 
ranchers, representatives of environmental groups, Federal agencies, 
and other people in the community.
  The area in which they are working together is an area of thousands 
of acres in both New Mexico and Arizona which is the home of a great 
many endangered species and an environment that needs help. The land 
ownership is about half private and half Federal agency, the Federal 
lands being the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service as 
well as some State trust land.

  But in 1990 this group got together to begin discussing ways of 
dealing with what they thought was a deteriorating situation, an attack 
on ranching generally, and also a deteriorating environment. The 
grasslands, with some shrubs, were moving inexorably to shrub lands 
with some grass. And this occurred for many reasons. But the principal 
one was the absence of a very natural element--fire.
  For years fire used to sweep through this area every decade or so 
and, in effect, cleanse it of all of the woody shrubby plants which 
then promoted very shortly thereafter fresh new grass for the wildlife 
then to thrive on. But because of the fire suppression that has not 
occurred in the last 100 years or so, the result is that the grasslands 
have gradually now become woods where there are shrubby lands that 
cannot support grazing.
  So the agenda of this group was to address both the threat of 
fragmentation of the landscape--selling off smaller parcels for 
development--and the decreasing productivity and loss of biological 
diversity accompanying the encroachment of these woody species on the 
grasslands.
  What they did is form the 501(c)3 organization called the Malpai 
Borderlands Group with 45 rancher members. And its 19-member board 
includes local ranchers, a scientist, and a businessman, and, as I 
said, representatives of various environmental groups. It has a 5-year 
plan for ecosystem management that targets three key concerns.
  First, conservation and land protection, including such things as on-
the-ground projects, use of fire, and holding of conservation 
easements; second, sustaining rural livelihoods, including innovative 
approaches to grazing, possibly the cooperative marketing of beef, and 
exploring other opportunities with low impact to the environment; and, 
third, science and education, including a comprehensive resource 
inventory of the area.
  The Malpai Group has taken an evolutionary, if not revolutionary, 
approach to ranching, working with biologists, soil conservation 
specialists, BLM and Forest Service representatives, and the Nature 
Conservancy to find ways to keep this area literally a working 
wilderness.
  As I alluded to, reintroducing fire is a crucial element of the 
Malpai group's plan to restore the range. As a result, they have worked 
in several experimental areas restoring that element of fire and 
bringing back the grasslands.
  The success of this group, as I said, is really due to a commitment 
of the landowners. Participation is purely voluntary. The enthusiasm of 
this group of land stewards is clearly a shining example to those who 
would like to create such organizations and protect their own areas, 
working together.
  As Bill McDonald, Malpai Borderlands Group president, says of the 
group: ``In a political climate where the traditional position on the 
issue of land use is usually to be at one end of the spectrum or the 
other, we find ourselves in the `radical center.' We invite you to join 
us right there.''
  Mr. President, I joined that group just a couple of weeks ago to try 
to help them clear away some of the bureaucratic underbrush that might 
prevent them from moving forward with their very important, innovative 
experimentation.
  Now, the second key thing relates to the forests in the arid 
Southwest. Natural fire is not just a friend of the grasslands but has 
also helped to maintain the health of our forests over the years. Once 
again, because of fire suppression and other problems, our forest 
health has deteriorated because that natural phenomena that used to 
keep it healthy is no longer part of our management process. Instead, 
what happens is that because we suppress fire, the fuel in the forests 
builds up and the growth begins to become very concentrated, with the 
result that when the fire comes, it burns not only the underbrush as it 
used to do, thus clearing the forest of the smaller, scrubbier kind of 
plants, but quickly crowns to the top of the trees and literally jumps 
from tree to tree, devastating entire forests.
  The other problem with the forests is the health condition today. Too 
many trees are crowding into too small an area which then sucks all of 
the nutrients and the moisture from that area, thus providing a more 
disease-prone forest. Rather than the open and rather park-like 
environment that existed 100 years ago, tree densities now make a very 
unattractive and unhealthy forest. Mr. President, 100 years ago the 
tree density was typically 20 trees per acre, with most trees of a 
relatively large diameter. By contrast, the present forest averages 
about 850 trees per acre, with an average diameter of less than 4 
inches. I have three cross sections of trees in my office. One is about 
this big, one this big, and one is this big. All three trees are 60 
years old, but the big tree exists in the open park-like environment, 
and the little tree exists in a cramped environment with 850 or 1,000 
trees per acre. Obviously, all are competing for the same nutrients and 
water.

  What we need to do is open the forests up. Two professors from 
Northern Arizona University have begun an ambitious program to do 
precisely that. Professors Wally Covington and Margaret Moore have 
begun to use what they call adaptive management techniques to restore 
the southwestern ponderosa forests to their natural presettlement 
conditions. Their partners are the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. 
Forest Service, and Northern Arizona University. Their work is being 
supported by Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Secretary Glickman, and others in 
the region who understand the importance of bringing environmental 
groups and other persons interested in forest health together to 
reintroduce some of the natural methods of forest management that have 
been lacking in recent years, including both the thinning of the small, 
unhealthy trees and the use of fire to get rid of the brush and the 
fuel which could, of course, create the fire danger.
  In October 1995, these scientists initiated the Southwest forest 
ecosystem restoration project near Mount Trumbull, AZ. This is roughly 
a 5,000-acre pilot project in which these new management techniques 
will be utilized to determine whether or not they can truly restore the 
health of the forest and whether these management techniques would then 
be useful throughout the arid Southwest. They will remove the dense, 
young growth to restore the open forests of large older trees and hope 
to do ecological sampling that include overstory trees, understory 
trees, understory shrubs, grasses, wildflowers, and forest floor fuels. 
Sampling will also extend to birds, mammals, and insect communities.
  I saw a pilot project just west of Flagstaff which had only been 
under experimentation for 2 years, but it is amazing that sap contents 
of the trees--which did not mean anything to me before I heard about 
it--had grown by an order of magnitude in just 2 years, thus making the 
tree almost impervious to bark beetles.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, we worked with the other side. We have 
another speaker. I ask unanimous consent our time be expanded by 7 
minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I yield 2 additional minutes to the 
Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. I see the majority leader is here.
  Just increasing the sap content of the trees makes them more 
impervious to beetles, and thus disease, thereby creating more 
nutrients in the grasses because the forest has opened up. Wildlife 
needs less grass because the protein

[[Page S3765]]

content has quadrupled. There are so many benefits to this kind of 
management that it is clear we need to expand it to broader sectors of 
our forest environment.

  The point is there are innovative things being done to protect our 
fragile environment, with land stewards and environment groups and 
others all working together. These two examples I have discussed today 
show that through this kind of cooperation and innovation, we can truly 
protect the environment in a very bipartisan and cooperative way.
  I commend these two experiments to my colleagues.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I compliment the Senator from Arizona 
on his remarks.
  I yield up to 10 minutes to the Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Georgia for 
yielding.
  As we celebrate the 26th anniversary of Earth Day, Americans will 
again have an opportunity to reflect on many of our past environment 
successes and, frankly, some shortcomings, which I hope we will be able 
to address. We should also take this opportunity to set a course to 
correct any past failures regarding the protection and restoration of 
our precious environment, as well as dwelling and focusing on those 
that have been successful.
  Let me, as many of my colleagues before me have done, set the record 
straight once again, Mr. President. We are all environmentalists here 
in the Senate. I think most of us would call ourselves 
environmentalists in the United States of America as citizens. This is 
a beautiful country. It is home to all of us. The environment is not a 
Democratic issue. It is not a Republican issue. It should be a 
bipartisan issue. I very frankly and honestly, as one who has worked 
for the past 2 years on the Superfund bill, take great issue with those 
who would somehow accuse me or anyone else in my party of being 
antienvironment. Yet that is happening.
  Unfortunately, the political environment has become so partisan 
during this Congress that it is almost outrageous. My children, I 
think, would like to drink clean water. I certainly recognize the fact 
that President Clinton's daughter might like to drink clean water. I 
hope you will recognize that my two sons and my daughter would like to 
drink clean water as well.
  My family breathes the same air as Vice President Gore and his family 
and the President and his family. I have enjoyed fishing and hiking in 
the trails and ponds and lakes and streams of New Hampshire, probably 
some of the same lakes and streams that some of the people in the 
administration have. We are very proud of the fact that in northern New 
Hampshire we have the great northern forests which are protected by 
landowners, as well as the Federal Government. But landowners take good 
care of that land and have been good stewards. We are very proud of 
what they have done to protect that land.

  I think most of the environmental laws on the books today were 
initiated--not just signed; were not vetoed, certainly--but were 
initiated by Republican Presidents--Theodore Roosevelt, George Bush, 
Richard Nixon, to name just a few. They have very strong environmental 
protection records. Our National Park System was started under 
President Theodore Roosevelt. The EPA was started under Richard Nixon. 
The Clean Air Act amendments and the Oil Pollution Act were under 
George Bush. They were all initiated under Republican administrations. 
Yes, the Congress, many Democrats in Congress, sent those bills to the 
President's desk. My point is it is a bipartisan matter, and these 
bills were signed.
  One statute, though, I have been involved in stands out as one of the 
least effective. That is a bill called Superfund. Mr. President, $30 
billion has been spent over 15 years to clean up 50 sites. If you do 
the math on that, it does not work out very well. I have devoted many 
hours on developing appropriate reforms to this failed program. Our 
goal is to change this program from one of litigation and wasted 
resources and delay to one that actually cleans up hazardous sites 
expeditiously.
  While Republicans and Democrats agree on the need for reform, there 
is still some disagreement on how to get there. One of the basic 
problems with the current Superfund Program is that it is more focused 
on process than results, more focused on litigation and arguing than on 
getting results.
  I issue a challenge now to my Democrat colleagues on the other side 
of the aisle and say that we are ready--Majority Leader Dole is ready, 
I am ready, and Senator Chafee is ready to get a bipartisan Superfund 
bill and put it on the President's desk. I challenge my colleagues not 
to play politics with this bill and help us get it there.
  A number of environmental laws are long overdue. For 3 years, I have 
been involved in efforts to reauthorize the Safe Drinking Water Act as 
was Senators Chafee, Kempthorne, and others. The vote was 99 to 0. I 
find it hard to believe that we can be accused of being 
antienvironment.
  There is no doubt that the environmental movement in the 1970's 
served an important purpose. Our air and water are cleaner today and 
continue to improve. Now is the time to reflect on the successes and 
build upon them and address some of the failures, so that we can get 
more bang for the buck. Let us face it, many of the things that have 
been done to clean up the environment have been done, but pollution 
controls from this point forward will be very expensive. We need to be 
able to pick and choose the best technology and be up to speed on that. 
Carol Browner, the EPA Administrator, said, ``We need to develop 
better, smarter, cheaper regulations.''
  I could not agree more. Is the environment getting cleaner? Yes, 
thanks to a lot of bipartisan leadership over a lot of years. Are there 
less expensive efforts to achieve the same or higher level of 
protection? I think the answer is yes. I think we have an obligation to 
look at those least expensive methods, and one condition is that it 
does not detract in any way from the pace of cleanup of the 
environment.
  To what degree should the Federal Government mandate regulations on 
States and local communities without providing adequate resources to 
comply? That is another question we need to ask. But there are a number 
of themes that my Republican colleagues and I believe should be the 
foundation for effective improvements in current environmental law. One 
should be that we ought to promote sound, effective market-based 
environmental regulations, because when you bring the market in, you 
save the taxpayers money and you bring the businesses in as a 
partnership. Therefore, since they are responsible for some of the 
problems, they are willing to help us clean them up. We must recognize 
that States and local communities often do a better job of protecting 
the environment within their borders than the Federal Government can. 
So, partners, not enemies.

  We must incorporate better risk management and cost-benefit analysis 
in our environmental regulations that will enable us to prioritize our 
goals. We must base our environmental decisions on the highest quality, 
peer-reviewed science, not questionable, unreliable data and unfair 
politics. Finally, and most important, our goal is to enhance, not 
detract from, a cleaner environment, to enhance it. That is our goal, 
not just to save dollars for the sake of saving dollars. If it detracts 
from our environment, then we spend the money. And if we can spend less 
and do more and accelerate the pace, why not do it? We have an 
obligation to do that.
  I ask my colleagues to take a look at that and realize that just 
because we say we can do it better, not less efficiently, that does not 
necessarily mean it is negative. We all want a clean, healthy 
environment to pass on to future generations. It is one of our most 
important responsibilities.
  However, the American people also believe we need to reduce 
Government waste and bureaucracy, to update environmental programs, to 
address problems more effectively and allow American business to remain 
more competitive. If we can do all of those things and enhance the 
environment, we ought to do it.
  My Republican colleagues and I are trying to accomplish these goals. 
We consider such things as cost benefits and risks and rewards not as 
trivial, but as very important. We must strive to prioritize risk 
reduction and get the biggest bang for the buck in every American 
program. That is just common sense.

[[Page S3766]]

  Environmental policy is at a crossroads, Mr. President. We have a 
historic opportunity to improve our environmental laws so that they 
better serve the American people. That is not to say that we have 
failed in the past. We have many, many, many successes, including the 
Merrimack River in my State, which is now beginning to see fish and 
recreation again. It should not be controversial. We all live on this 
planet, and we should be working together on this. If there is anything 
we ought not to be partisan about, it ought to be the environment.
  I will close on this point. This week, as Earth Day commences, the 
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee begins hearings on a 
Superfund bill. During the Earth Day festivities, Americans will be 
presented with a number of conflicting images of what is good for the 
environment and what is not. It is my hope that the President and 
Members of Congress, as I said earlier, will rise above the urge to 
exploit this event for short-term political gain and join our efforts 
to inject common sense and fairness into the Nation's Superfund 
Program, which is the one program which I happen to be involved in 
because I chair the subcommittee.

  So, Mr. President, at this point, I yield the floor and thank my 
colleagues, and I thank the Senator from Georgia for the opportunity to 
speak on this very important issue.
  Mr. COVERDELL. How much time remains, Mr. President?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. One minute remains.
  Mr. COVERDELL. I thank all of the Senators who came to the floor to 
honor Earth Day and to talk in very meaningful terms about how to 
manage our environment. This legislation, wherever it falls in the 
environment, should be guided by a working relationship between the 
Government and the stewards of the land. In too many cases, recently, 
we are seeing the Government taking on the form of arrogance. We have 
threatened the constitutional rights of personal property. That is a 
very high law, the Constitution. If it becomes public policy to take 
interests of private property owners, the public will have to assume 
the responsibility for that. That has to be a working partnership. We 
have to protect our constitutional rights. We must learn to work 
together on this legislation. We have heard words like partnership, 
balance, working together, common ground, nonpartisan. This is the 
answer to our modern environment.
  I appreciate the Senate's time this afternoon, and I yield back 
whatever seconds are remaining.
  Mr. DOLE addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, is leader time reserved?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The leader time has been reserved.
  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, first, I thank the distinguished Senator 
from Georgia for his efforts this morning on Earth Day and on the 
environment. I will be making a statement later on that.
  I thank Senator Smith for his efforts on Superfund. He has been 
working on this, I know, month after month after month, and we have 
been trying to come together with a bipartisan bill. Hopefully, that 
will be accomplished and we can pass Superfund legislation in the next 
30 to 60 days.

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