[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 118 (Wednesday, September 9, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S10139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          REFORMING THE RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT

 Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, late last week the Majority 
Leader indicated that the Senate would be unable to complete efforts 
this year to reform the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act as it 
pertains to remediation waste. For many months, Senators Lott, Chafee, 
Smith, Baucus, Breaux and I have worked on ``rifle-shot'' legislation 
in this area. I regret that we were unable to bring these negotiations 
to a successful conclusion. However, I believe that we made a lot of 
progress in narrowing differences and developing a bill that could have 
improved the RCRA hazardous waste cleanup program through a series of 
responsible reforms. Our work provides a solid foundation upon which to 
build in the next Congress.
  Mr. President, last fall, in October, the GAO issued a report 
recommending targeted reforms which, in conjunction with adequate 
resources for state and federal agencies, could have resulted in 
substantial savings in cleanup costs; encouraged treatment remedies; 
and sparked brownfields cleanup and redevelopment efforts. As Chairman 
of the Subcommittee in the Senate with jurisdiction over these issues 
for many years, and more recently as Ranking Democratic Member, one of 
my priorities has been to encourage such efforts, and to return these 
contaminated parcels to valuable uses. I believe such reforms can yield 
substantial national economic and environmental benefits while 
protecting human health and the environment. Such reforms would 
especially benefit my state of New Jersey, which is one of the five 
states with the largest volume of remediation waste.
  For these reasons, I was pleased that Senators Lott, Chafee and Smith 
invited Senator Baucus and me to join in developing a targeted 
consensus reform package. We spent many hours at this effort and we 
reached agreement in a number of areas. I regret that we did not come 
to final closure on this legislation. I want to thank my colleagues and 
the Administration for the considerable efforts they all made in 
thoughtfully resolving many of the complicated issues in this debate. I 
want to also thank Senator Breaux, who has been instrumental in 
championing reform in this area. Finally, I want to thank the many and 
varied stakeholders--representatives from industry, environmental 
organizations, as well as state and local agencies and community 
groups--that provided us with inestimable assistance in understanding 
this highly complex statute.
  Mr. President, I regret that we did not have the chance to resolve 
all of the issues this year. We made significant progress in resolving 
a host of thorny questions. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act 
has significantly reduced the generation of hazardous waste, and 
prevented new generations of Superfund toxic waste sites. I am 
optimistic that we can resume this process next year and achieve 
responsible reforms at that time. I pledge myself to these 
efforts.

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