[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 23, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E603-E604]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               EARTH DAY

                                 ______


                          HON. PAUL E. GILLMOR

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, April 23, 1996

  Mr. GILLMOR. Mr. Speaker, as the House was not in formal session on 
April 22, Earth Day, I wanted to take the floor and talk about the 
importance of protecting the environment. While I recognize this day 
was used by many to feign interest in appearing ``Green,'' not to 
mention fund raise, I think it is time to cast aside the ``sound-
bites'' and have an honest and open discussion about the best way to 
improve our environment.
  While some people planted trees, posed for pictures with fuzzy birds, 
or made fiery speeches set against a scenic backdrop, it takes more 
than symbolism and scorecard votes to make our environment safe. Even 
though Russell Peterson of the National Audubon Society coined the 
phrase ``Think Globally, Act Locally,'' our national environmental 
policy has been void of local control, flexibility, or involvement. We 
need the efforts and input of every thoughtful and concerned person to 
move environmental protection from the sloganeering stage to a daily 
reality.
  Several times during this Congress, we have been presented with 
legislation in which it has been suggested that passing these bills 
would improve the environment. Now, without commenting on the merits of 
these bills, I want to suggest that many of them were dismissed out of 
hand because they did not follow a ``traditional'' protocol for 
environmental protection, greater regulation and/or use of expensive 
technology. This development troubles me in that collegiality of 
thought is continuing to be sacrificed on this issue.
  Many here in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, as well as those 
in the media, propose and advance the notion that the only way to 
enhance environmental protection is to use the most expensive 
technology available or institute more restrictive regulations. I 
reject that notion. While new technology or tough restrictions are not 
in themselves evil, it shows lack of foresight and depth of 
understanding that other means can accomplish the same end. The bottom 
line is that tighter regulations and ``Cadillac'' technologies cost 
money. And, regardless of what people may think, we only have a limited 
amount of resources, private and public, that we can commit to 
environmental protection. We should be placing our resources toward the 
most pressing environmental concerns of our day, and getting them 
remediated, not chasing allegations of hearsay or negligible, 
scientifically defensive problems.
  Let me propose one of my favorite examples of what I mean to 
illustrate this point. Federal regulations currently require cities to 
keep atrazine levels in drinking water below three parts per billion--
which on the surface sounds reasonable, nobody wants to be serving up a 
glass of weed killer to their friends or family. However, under these 
levels, a human would have to drink 3,000 gallons of water, or 38 
bathtubs, per day with three parts per billion atrazine to equal the 
dose found to be cancerous in rates. Of note, the U.S. Environmental 
Protection Agency issued a ``Health Advisory'' for atrazine, which 
states that a child can drink water containing 100 parts per billion 
for 10 days or 50 parts per billion for 7

[[Page E604]]

years without adverse health effects--this ``Health Advisory'' is much 
lower than the EPA guideline. Yet, the city of Columbus, OH found that 
compliance with this regulation could require a new $80 million water 
purification plant. For the same amount of money, the city could hire 
an extra 2,300 teachers at the average State teacher's salary. We must 
remember that protecting our environment has real costs and that we 
cannot squander those resources on minimal threat, extreme cost 
environmental boondoggles.

  Another thing that we, as Americans, cannot tolerate in our 
environmental trek, is a cumbersome bureaucracy that makes 
environmental protection difficult to attain. The Endangered Species 
Act first passed with strong bipartisan support, all of us can agree 
that we should not be willfully trying to eradicate the creatures 
important to our ecosystem. However, the two pronged efforts of the 
act, protection and recovery, have become stymied in bureaucracy and 
court cases so that many species have become protected, but very few 
species have been recovered at all. This undermines the real intention 
of the law.
  But as bad as the bureaucracy has been with the Endangered Species 
Act, the Superfund Program has been worse. This program, which was put 
into law 16 years ago to clean our Nation's worst toxic dumps, has been 
a miserable failure; it is the archetypical government program. 
Everyone believes this program needs to be reformed. We have spent 
billions of dollars on this program only to see hazardous waste sites 
sit uncleaned, with lawyers and bureaucrats drawing ever-increasing 
paychecks. The American people deserve a much better return on their 
investment. I have successfully offered an amendment to congressional 
efforts to reform Superfund that would force greater amounts of the 
Superfund's cleanup budget--the money that should be going to ``dirt 
moving'' activity, not bureaucrats, desks, and reams of studies--to go 
to site remediation. The private sector generally spends over 200 
percent less on administrative costs in cleanup projects than the 
Government. The money we save here could be used for tangible 
environmental improvements and I am hopeful that this important 
provision can be enacted into public law.
  Our country has made significant strides over the last 30 years to 
make our environment safer, cleaner, and healthier. We should not 
abdicate the responsibility to protect our air, land, and water that 
has been establish and been successful. However, we should not forget 
to reform or improve those laws that have actually perpetuated the 
problems. More of a bad thing does not make it a good thing, it only 
becomes a bigger bad thing--and delay is worse. This should be our 
credo in finding environmental problems, as well as in proposing their 
solutions. Trying something new, or looking at the problem in another 
way, does not immediately constitute an infringement on environmental 
protection, we all want a clean environment.

  Mr. Speaker, much of the public debate on the environment has been 
cast in purely partisan tones, yet, I am here to set the record 
straight that making our natural inheritance better for present and 
future generations should not be confined to party identification. If 
we were to keep score from that perspective, as most people do in this 
town, I would like to remind people that the Republicans were the first 
ones to embrace the cause of conservation. Teddy Roosevelt, the first 
real standard bearer for the National Park System, was a Republican. 
And, the Environmental Protection Agency was established by Richard 
Nixon and would have been elevated to Cabinet-level status under 
President Bush had certain political considerations not come to the 
fore.
  Our environment is too important to become a political football, 
filled with hot air every election cycle. Emotional pleas and 
incendiary direct mail pieces only clutter the burgeoning waste stream 
of environmental perspectives. We need a science-based policy which 
gives us solid, substantiated information; governing by fearmongering 
is no way to responsibly lead. Using informed, expert opinion and 
legitimate data, we can make our natural inheritance better for present 
and future generations.
  I am hopeful that this Earth Day will be an opportunity for us all to 
consider the environment and how we can make it better. Billions of tax 
dollars are spent to ensure our public health and safety, they should 
not fund unreasonable regulations or stifling bureaucracies. We should 
take a prudent, realistic course, that realizes we are currently able 
to accomplish a finite set of objectives, as our resources allow. And, 
we should see that local involvement in priority setting, on top of 
proven and substantiated research, lead us to environmental quality in 
which we can all take pride.

                          ____________________