[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3392-S3393]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  EARTH DAY 1997: THERE IS NO STATUS QUO IN PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT

  Mr. LEAHY. On another issue, Mr. President, since the first Earth Day 
in 1970, Americans have gathered to celebrate the steps we have taken 
to clean up our environment and to call attention to what still needs 
to be done. The early Earth Day events helped create the modern 
environmental movement. They led directly to enactment of the first 
major environmental legislation, the Clean Air Act. I remember with 
pride serving here with Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, knowing 
what he had done to help spark that movement.
  But I ask Senators and the administration to look back at the debate 
that took place when we drafted this remarkable piece of legislation. 
At the time of that first Earth Day, the laws to limit air pollution 
were disjointed, they were limited in scope. But since passage of the 
Clean Air Act, we have made considerable strides in reducing some 
pollutants. The level of lead pollution we and our children breathe 
today is one-tenth what it was a decade ago--one-tenth. We have 
healthier children as a result. In fact, just using that figure itself 
is a tribute to the success of the original Clean Air Act.
  One thing we do know is Americans do not want to stop the progress we 
made and say, look what we did back then, 10 years ago; it is what we 
do today to keep moving forward in cleaning up our environment. I have 
heard some of the debate here in the Congress now, on the Clean Air 
Act, that it is not to strengthen it, not to make it better based on 
what we learned, but rather to weaken it. It is almost like saying we 
took care of those children, but tomorrow's children we are unwilling 
to help.
  We also learned the ecosystem is not static and that environmental 
progress should not be either. There is no status quo and never should 
be a status quo when it comes to a healthy environment. New pollution 
sources appear, and none of us can predict today what the new pollution 
sources might be a decade from now. We know populations grow and they 
shift and pollutants accumulate. So, if you are not always moving 
toward a safer and cleaner environment, then you are slipping 
backwards.
  The EPA conducted a 5-year review of existing standards and compared 
these with new scientific research about the tiny particulates and 
ozone that we breathe. When EPA issued new goals to lower the level of 
these particulates coming into our lungs and the ozone levels, the 
backlash was remarkable. Opponents instantly attacked the goals rather 
than sitting down to work with the Congress and administration to 
achieve these goals in a reasonable and cost-effective timeframe. 
Instead of saying, ``What do we do to make air and water safer for our 
children?'' it was, rather, ``We cannot possibly do this.'' These are 
the same people who would do anything to save a child, but not to save 
the Nation's children.
  We ought to listen to the voices of more than 130 million Americans 
in 170 major cities who continue to breathe unhealthy air, including 
the city we are in today. When the Clean Air Act was drafted, we were 
unwilling to accept the argument that the present cost of environment 
regulation should define the future of our environment. Our late 
colleague, Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine said, ``The first 
responsibility of Congress is not the making of technological or 
economic judgments. Our responsibility is to establish what the public 
interest requires to protect the health of persons.''
  So, on this Earth Day I ask Senators to go back to the original 
premise of the Clean Air Act and ask ourselves what do we do to carry 
forward the torch of environmental progress, not only for ourselves but 
for the next generations of Americans? I hope we might look at the 
biggest loophole in the Clean Air Act, allowing the dirtiest 
powerplants to continue to operate with vastly inadequate pollution 
controls. We ought to go back and close this loophole now, in this 
session of Congress.

  One of the reasons it is so urgent is because of the deregulation of 
the electric utility industry. We have the benefits of competition in 
the utility industry. Some say it is going to be as much as $50 
billion. Surely, with this we ought to be able to offset the 
environmental costs of utility deregulation and have some ability to 
have cleaner air.
  We ought to look at some of the coal-fired production plants that 
were grandfathered under the Clean Air Act. One study says an annual 
increase of emissions of 349,000 tons of nitrogen oxide, a component of 
ozone pollution, comes from them.

[[Page S3393]]

  Let us look at what happens here. We have plants that have been 
grandfathered in. That means they are allowed to spew whatever they 
want. These plants are out here. You see the pictures of them. But 
where do the pollutants go from these 25 grandfathered plants? They 
move, of course, east. Many of the plants are in the Midwest or toward 
the West, but the pollutants move east.
  If we are going to talk about what we do with the Clean Air Act, let 
us think of our children. My children are going to live most of their 
lives in the next century. But if we allow this to go on with no 
changes, those who live in this part of our country are going to be 
severely damaged and those children who are going to live most of their 
lives in the next century are going to feel the results of it.
  I have talked about the high environmental standards we have in 
Vermont. Each State and community should take responsibility for 
controlling pollution within their borders. We have done this in 
Vermont, implementing some of the toughest environmental laws in the 
Nation. But, even though we have imposed high environmental standards 
on ourselves, we Vermonters are faced with an uphill battle when the 
pollution we are striving to control silently creeps into our State 
each night with the wind. We Vermonters are deeply concerned about what 
is being transported by air currents.
  We Vermonters are deeply concerned about what comes with the wind at 
night when we are sleeping from other parts of this country. Acid rain 
taught us that our tough environmental standards were not enough to 
protect us. We saw some of our healthiest forests die off from 
pollution borne from outside our region. This is an experience from 
which everybody can learn. Increased power generation at these 25 
dirtiest plants is going to affect air quality across the country. We 
learned from the acid rain debate that emissions from these plants 
could be transported more than 500 miles.
  Let us look here. Here are the 25 top polluters. This is where the 
pollution is going. If you look at this, you can see from the 25 top 
polluters, our part of the country is being hit especially hard. My own 
State of Vermont, with the toughest environmental laws you are going to 
find anywhere, cannot protect ourselves by our own laws because these 
pollutants come across by every wind that comes over Vermont from the 
west, carrying those pollutants.
  There is no fence, there is no law that we Vermonters can set up to 
protect us, but we in the Congress can protect all the people in this 
region.
  I will also say, Mr. President, if we do not look at these 
grandfathered plans, it is not only the Northeast that is going to be 
affected, all parts of the country are going to see their air quality 
diminished.
  In the case of acid rain, some areas are more vulnerable to damage 
than others because of their geology. The rocky soils of Canada and 
much of the Northeast means that we have less ability to buffer the 
acids, so our lakes will die sooner. But in the case of ozone, we are 
dealing with children, not lakes or forests. As I said, my children 
will live most of their lives in the next century, and I think about 
that all the time. I also think children are the same, whether they are 
Canadians, Vermonters, or Ohioans. Children in Ohio, Missouri, West 
Virginia, and other States are just as vulnerable as those in Canada 
and Vermont.
  I called on the administration a year ago to develop a mitigation 
program to address increased air pollution associated with utility 
restructuring. To date, nothing has been proposed. I do not think we 
can wait any longer. This train is leaving the station and, 
unfortunately, it is a polluting train.
  More than 10 States are already developing restructuring legislation. 
Two States are implementing open competition. With more than $50 
billion in expected benefits from competition, we should be able to 
afford the costs of ensuring clean air for our children. A number of 
proposals have been addressed in the House, but none addresses this 
problem. The administration has not proposed a solution to it. I hope 
that proposal will come. I will see what provisions it makes.
  Earth Day reminds us that we share the air, the water and our planet. 
There can be no greater legacy that we leave behind for our children 
and our grandchildren than a society that is secure in its commitment 
to a healthy and environmentally sound future.
  On this Earth Day, I want all of us in Congress to stop thinking only 
in regional terms of the Clean Air Act and the potential benefits and 
costs from utility restructuring. We all share in the responsibility to 
leave behind for the next generations a healthy environment. The only 
way we are going to be successful is to look at the quality of our air, 
water, and ecosystems in wider terms. We have to address the loopholes 
that allow these dirty plants to churn out tons of pollutants for the 
last 20 years. We cannot afford them a free ride into the next century.
  Let me point out once more, we are not in this alone. The plants are 
here, but the pollutants go across our country. I say this today 
because the President is going to North Dakota, actually a place where 
two of these plants are. He will go representing our whole country and 
grant aid to the people who have been badly hurt. Any one of us, from 
whatever State we come from, when we look at the pictures on television 
and read the news accounts of what those people in North Dakota have 
gone through, our hearts have to ache for them.
  When a town is hit with both flood and fire, it is almost like a 
Biblical reference to devastation. We will, as a great nation, as we 
always do in matters of major disasters, come together and we will 
help. Vermonters will help the people in North Dakota, as will Kansans 
and Californians and everybody else. But it is one thing when you see a 
disaster that happens all at once. Unfortunately, there is a disaster 
in air pollution that happens drip by drip, day by day, and if we allow 
these pollutants to continue to drift across our Nation, those of us 
who are in the East and Northeast also face a disaster, a disaster not 
of our making but a disaster of our Nation's making, a disaster that 
may not have a great effect on me, as I stand here in my fifties, but 
it will on the children of Vermont and it will on their children's 
children.
  This country can be justifiably proud of the steps it has taken in 
environmental quality. When I look at the newly democratic nations of 
Eastern Europe and I see how they struggle with health costs and 
development costs based on their own ignoring of the environment for 
the last several generations, I think how fortunate we are that we have 
been way ahead of that in this country, but also know that we have a 
long, long way to go.
  Let us look at this, not for those in my generation, necessarily, but 
those in my children's generation. Let us look for those who are going 
to live most of their lives in the next century. That is something this 
Congress can do. Democrats and Republicans alike should join together 
and that is a legacy we can leave.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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