[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 75 (Thursday, June 11, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6134-S6135]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       METHAMPHETAMINE CHALLENGE

  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss a serious challenge 
to law enforcement, to communities, to our youth, and to the future of 
our country.
  Methamphetamine, as most of us in this body know, is a growing danger 
in many of our communities. We have the dubious distinction in Missouri 
of having achieved the highest ranking in the number of clandestine 
methamphetamine labs busted in the last year. Seven hundred labs were 
busted where they were cooking up this deadly brew to endanger their 
neighbors, to threaten the lives and the future of our young people and 
our adults. Methamphetamine, or crank, is a hot new drug, and it is 
supposed to have a wonderful temporary feeling. The problem is it 
destroys the body and the minds of the users. It also, when it is 
prepared, leaves a deadly residue and threatens explosion and fires 
that have injured many innocent people.
  Methamphetamine dealers are the very worst kind of social predators, 
far worse than even an average drug dealer, and that is saying 
something. They have the same disregard for young lives they seek to 
spoil, but they also possess a callous indifference to the entire 
public. Meth cookers prepare their drugs in homes, in rented apartments 
and hotel rooms, but the meth cooking process is a very dangerous one 
because it produces dangerous byproducts including carcinogens and 
toxins and combustible gases. While it is being cooked, it is highly 
explosive.
  I have talked with law enforcement officers who go in who have to use 
low-powered flashlights because a really hot flashlight could set off a 
spontaneous combustion in a meth lab. I have seen the pictures of young 
children who have been on cooking sites with their parents or care 
givers when the mess caught fire and burned them horribly. The 
aftermath of the process is a mini toxic waste site. The waste sites 
litter my State of Missouri.
  Despite the danger, law enforcement officers in my home State 
continue their heroic effort every day to bring more of these labs 
down. They are currently outgunned because the methamphetamine 
production and sales have been spreading. The problem is severe, and 
many of the lab sites are so dangerous that local law enforcement 
agencies cannot handle the responsibility alone.
  We have been very gratified that many of the local police agencies 
and law enforcement agencies in my State have been provided invaluable 
assistance by the Drug Enforcement Agency, the DEA. As I said, last 
year, 700 labs were taken down. This year, it looks like they may even 
exceed that number.

  The lab sites must be cleaned up promptly, and that is where the 
problem comes in. The responsibility initially falls on local law 
enforcement officials, and the drug dealers are not very concerned 
about what mess they leave with the community. Cleaning up the waste on 
these sites can cost anywhere from $4,000 to $40,000. Our law 
enforcement agencies are not funded to do this. Our law enforcement 
agencies, when I talked with the DEA and the local police and the local 
sheriffs around Missouri, find out they have to waste valuable manpower 
just babysitting the sites, keeping people away from these sites so 
they do not stumble in and get caught in one of these dangerous meth 
sites.
  For that reason, I believe we should embark on a State-Federal 
partnership to ensure that these labs are fully cleaned up and the 
nuisance is removed immediately from local communities. In the HUD-VA 
appropriations bill, we have included a pilot project for $2 million to 
go to our Department of Natural Resources for the State of Missouri, to 
institute a cleanup partnership between the State and local law 
enforcement.
  With these valuable resources, the State environmental expert will 
team up with local law enforcement agencies on the sites promptly and 
rid the town of toxic waste. The State will have funds to outfit a 
cleanup detail, expand that detail, and equip itself to respond to all 
corners of the State. The State will also have the resources to share 
with local governments, who must move in and respond to emergency 
cleanups, a process that could otherwise bankrupt many small 
communities.
  On a broader basis, we recognize this problem is a nationwide 
problem. In the Superfund measure that has been reported out of the 
Environment and Public Works Committee, that I hope this body will be 
able to take up, we provided that brownfields money can be used for 
toxic waste cleanups of methamphetamine sites because, in fact, they 
are toxic waste sites and, in essence, may be more dangerous than many 
of the sites already classified as toxic waste sites.
  What happens when one of these sites becomes a site for cooking meth 
is deadly. The meth labs can blow up--blow the front off the building. 
If they are in a motel, people innocently taking a room in the adjacent 
room may find themselves victims of a blast. But whoever comes on a 
site, a methamphetamine site, after cooking has occurred there, is in a 
very dangerous position.
  We need to crack down to the fullest extent of the law on these 
predators, but until we win that war we must protect our community. 
This effort will go

[[Page S6135]]

a long way toward helping our law enforcement fulfill that 
responsibility.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 10 minutes in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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