[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E533-E534]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      EXEMPT SCHOOL BOARDS FROM LIABILITY FOR THE GENERATION AND 
                   TRANSPORTATION OF MUNICIPAL WASTE

                                 ______
                                 

                      HON. RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 20, 1997

  Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce two bills 
to make important changes to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, 
Compensation and Liability Act.
  The first of these bills will address a problem that confronts school 
districts across the Nation. This legislation would amend the 
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act to 
exempt school boards from liability for the generation and 
transportation of municipal waste.
  Under current law, a number of school boards in New Jersey are 
involved in legal action as polluters under existing Superfund law. 
These school districts did nothing more than legally transport their 
sold waste--remains of school lunches, broken pencils, or students 
crumpled homework pages--to municipal landfills. Under the system of 
joint and several liability, school boards are now being mandated to 
pay a substantial amount of cleanup costs or defend themselves in 
costly lawsuits. The costs of these financial penalties have far 
exceeded any contributions that they have made to toxic waste problems. 
Furthermore, this present situation indirectly shifts money and local 
tax dollars away from educating our children and into the coffers of 
industrial polluters or the Superfund trust fund.
  Unfortunately, a legislative solution to the larger issue of 
Superfund reform has prevented action on an explicit exemption for

[[Page E534]]

school boards. While I remain committed to the larger issue of 
reauthorizing Superfund laws, school boards simply cannot wait any 
longer for a legislative remedy. Their litigation costs continue to 
mount.
  The second bill, which I sponsored in the 104th Congress and am 
reintroducing today, would shift contract oversight of fund financed 
remedial actions from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Army 
Corps of Engineers. Currently, the EPA has the option of using the Army 
Corps for contract oversight and does so in approximately 40 percent of 
its cleanups. My bill would mandate that all contract oversight be 
completed by the Army Corps.
  I propose this shift because I believe that the Army Corps is better 
qualified for oversight of technical cleanups and management of 
contract oversight than is EPA. Furthermore, let me clarify that this 
legislation would in no way take any authority away from the EPA to 
design the cleanup and remedy for Superfund sites using the highest 
environmental standards.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of both these important and commonsense 
bills.

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