[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.
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