[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 43 (Thursday, March 18, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H1451]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Fossella) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOSSELLA. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to bring to the attention 
of the American people what I think is a great injustice that is 
occurring in our country. It is injustice that seeks to pit community 
against community, color against color and the American people against 
one another. It is an injustice that we are witnessing in my district 
in Staten Island, but it is injustice that I have little doubt we will 
be battling throughout the Nation before long.
  The controversy centers around the seemingly innocuous-sounding 
policy advanced by the Environmental Protection Agency known as 
``environmental justice''. In theory, this legal doctrine is supposed 
to reflect the notion that all communities, regardless of race or 
ethnicity, should share equally in the burdens and risks of 
environmental protection policies. It sounds reasonable, except, of 
course, until the theory is applied.
  Over the years, the policy has been twisted like a pretzel, so that 
today, lawyers and activists now believe that different people deserve 
different treatment or, more precisely, that some people are more equal 
than others.
  Earlier this month, for example, top Federal officials from the 
Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, Housing 
and Urban Development, and even the White House Council on 
Environmental Quality came to New York for a day-long tour of waste 
transfer stations in the South Bronx. They came to see for themselves 
and to hear the residents who claim that these facilities pose an 
environmental injustice on their community.
  Let me add that I have no problem with them going to the South Bronx.
  The morning after the tour, the EPA and the White House Council on 
Environmental Quality organized an unprecedented 8-hour public hearing 
in which residents had the opportunity to voice their outrage over the 
existence of the transfer stations. At the conclusion of the event, and 
at a speed in which I have never seen the Federal Government act, the 
White House Council on Environmental Quality announced that it would 
undertake an environmental justice investigation in the South Bronx.
  This is, quite possibly, the most clear-cut hypocrisy on the part of 
the EPA that I have ever witnessed. At its core, the doctrine of 
environmental justice defies the most fundamental American principles 
of equality and justice. Why? Because while the White House Council on 
Environmental Quality mobilized its top officials for a tour of the 
South Bronx, granted a predominantly minority community, it never 
considered traveling just a few miles to Staten Island, which just 
happens to be a predominantly white community, to see one of the most 
horrific examples and nightmares of the 20th century known as the Fresh 
Kills Landfill.
  To me, Mr. Speaker, it was an insult to every resident of Staten 
Island and a slap in the face to the hard working people of my 
district, who have been burdened for 50 years by this 3,000 acre, 150-
foot-high illegal garbage dump, the largest in the country. This 
facility is not only the largest in our country, but one of, so legend 
has, one of only two man-made structures visible from outer space.
  Recognizing the absurdity of any investigation on waste disposal in 
New York without a full and comprehensive discussion of Fresh Kills, I 
filed my own complaint with the EPA for an environmental justice review 
on Staten Island. In the days since, the silence from the EPA and the 
White House Council on Environmental Quality has been deafening.
  It should also not be forgotten that for the South Bronx and every 
other borough in New York City, waste would be continually moving 
through transfer stations en route to a destination out of state, 
whereas at the Fresh Kills Landfill the trash literally sits and rots 
in our community forever.
  The EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality failed 
to see the hypocrisy of fighting tooth and nail against a waste 
transfer station or transfer stations in the South Bronx because it 
would be located in a minority community but, at the same time, 
requiring a community like Staten Island to accept nearly 10 billion 
pounds of garbage every year.
  Let there be no mistake. If the EPA or a State or local agency finds 
a particular facility poses a health risk to a community, the agency 
should mitigate or eliminate that risk, regardless, regardless, of the 
race or ethnicity of the residents of the neighborhood. But a 
governmental policy that takes skin color into account does not do 
justice, environmental or otherwise, to Americans, nor should it be 
funded with our tax dollars.
  The fact is that 234 billion, I say billion, pounds of raw garbage is 
no less offensive because it sits rotting in a community that is 
predominantly white. I believe this country stands for equality for 
all. If something adversely affects someone, it does not matter if they 
are black, Hispanic or white. If it is bad for one, it is bad for all.
  It may come as a surprise to advocates of environmental justice, but 
thousands of Staten Islanders of all races and ethnicities live within 
one mile of the Fresh Kills Landfill. Much like me, they do not see 
color when looking at garbage, they just see trash, and they know 
hypocrisy when they smell it.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas addressed the House. Her remarks will 
appear hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.)

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