[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 24, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3786-H3787]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            LYON COUNTY WANTS EPA TO HALT SUPERFUND CLEANUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Mica] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I come before the House this evening to talk 
about the environment. Last evening, I spoke to my colleagues about 
education, and this has been Earth Day this week, and Earth Week. 
People talk about saving the environment. And last night I talked about 
paying more for education and getting less. Tonight I wanted to address 
the House and my colleagues about paying more for preserving and 
protecting the environment and getting less.
  Just a few hours ago the House passed, I believe, the 13th or 14th 
continuing resolution, and that is a temporary resolution to fund the 
Government for one more day, and you know we have had a tremendous 
amount of difficulty in trying to nail down the budget and nail down 
the expenditures for this year that we are in, 6 months into.
  What we have not been able to do on our side of the aisle is really 
tell the American people or convince a majority of our colleagues here 
that we, in fact, are paying more in education. Tonight I use as an 
example the environment and getting less for cleanup. And part of the 
contest that the Congress is engaged in is not just a question of how 
much more money you spend on these programs, but how you spend it: Are 
we protecting the environment?
  One of the things that I have learned as chairman of the House Civil 
Service Committee is where the bodies are buried or where the public 
servants are working in the large bureaucracy we have, with so many 
people employed by the Federal Government. Particularly, my concern is 
Washington, DC, and then some of the regional offices, if you just take 
a minute and look at what part of this debate is about with EPA.
  The total number of EPA employees has grown to almost 18,000 EPA 
employees. There are 6,000 EPA employees in Washington, DC. Now, that 
6,000 is equal to about the total number of employees in EPA about a 
little over a

[[Page H3787]]

decade ago. If this were the only figure, this 17,000, it would be huge 
by any measure. But, in fact, you find thousands and thousands of 
contract employees. If you wonder where the rest of these employees 
are, there are 6,000 in Washington, there is another approximately 
1,200, a 1,000 to 1,300 in 10 regional offices across the country.

  When I get down to my State of Florida, we had a total, I believe, of 
65 EPA employees in this particular fiscal year.
  So people who think that EPA is out there in the States protecting 
the environment, it is not so. They are in Washington, and they are 
passing countless rules and regulations. A tremendous amount is spent 
on administration.
  And then some of the programs we have heard talked about like 
Superfund. Superfund, I have explained to the House, over 80 percent of 
the funds on Superfund have been spent on attorney fees and studies.
  I had a gentleman visit me in my office yesterday, and he said a 
Superfund site in Florida was identified in 1984. He said it went 
through a half a dozen project administrators and they still have not 
done anything to resolve the problems of the Superfund site. That is in 
Florida.
  Here is a site in Nevada. Lyon County commissioners, and this is part 
of a release from them, asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 
to halt mercury cleanup program of the Carson River. The mercury that 
they were going to clean up is left over from mining operations of the 
Comstock Lode in the 1800's.
  Then we have another example, of Vermont here, Burlington, Vermont. 
Twelve years ago, after a site was picked there to clean up some 
hazardous waste left over from a coal gasification plant, nothing was 
done. They spent millions of dollars. Very little was done in the way 
of environmental cleanup.
  So we are paying more, we are getting less, and the more I talk about 
this, the more examples that are brought for me from across the 
country, and that is part of the debate. Republicans favor protecting 
the environment, preserving the environment. Republicans favor clean 
water, clean air, clean land. But when you spend money like this, when 
the money goes for a bureaucracy like this, and it does not go for a 
cleanup, then we have a real problem.
  I want to quote as I get towards the end here a comment from Carol 
Browner, EPA administrator, who said in the New York Times in 1993, in 
November: ``When I worked at the state level, I was constantly faced 
with rigid rules that made doing something 110 times more difficult and 
expensive than it needed to be. It makes no sense to have a program 
that raises costs while doing nothing to reduce environmental 
threats.''
  Now, that is Carol Browner, former Florida EPA administrator, 
commenting on her experience in dealing with the Federal Government.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I call on Carol Browner, I call on this 
administration, I call on my colleagues, to stop paying more and 
getting less. We can do a better job if we concentrate and effectively 
utilize our limited taxpayer dollars.

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