[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 21, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H1043-H1047]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               ADDRESSING IMPORTANT ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Shimkus). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I woke up this morning and I read on the 
front page of USA Today that President Bush is doing a terrible job on 
highly significant environmental issues. I suppose that is no surprise 
to my colleagues here in the well or here in the House Chambers.
  Yesterday the Bush Administration abandoned more stringent 
restrictions on the amount of arsenic allowed in tap water. Arsenic is 
a known carcinogen, I think many people know. The week before, 
President Bush broke a campaign promise to the American people that he 
would work to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; and carbon dioxide is, 
of course, a greenhouse gas that causes and is a major factor in global 
warming.
  I also read in the paper this morning that the Bush administration is 
planning to restrict new mining limits in the next few days. Of course, 
we have not heard about that yet, but it sounds like just another 
indication that this administration is essentially anti-environment.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask, what is the President going to do for the special 
interests tomorrow? I do not think there is any person, average person, 
or any group of concerned citizens, that asked the President to abandon 
these more stringent restrictions on the amount of arsenic in water. I 
doubt very much that there was a group of citizens who told him he 
should go back on his campaign promise and not regulate carbon dioxide 
emissions.
  This is coming from the special interests. This is coming from the 
corporate special interests, oil interests, mining interests, coal 
interests, who contributed to the President's campaign and who now are 
calling the shots with this administration at the White House on these 
very important environmental issues.
  The reason that I am so concerned about it, Mr. Speaker, is because 
we are talking about the health and the safety of the average American, 
the air we breathe, the water that we drink. These are not 
environmental issues that we have any doubt about what the impact is 
going to be. We know that if these carbon dioxide emissions are not 
regulated in some way, that a lot more people will get sick from the 
air. We know that if the arsenic levels are not reduced in drinking 
water, that a lot more people will get cancer from arsenic.

[[Page H1044]]

  So it is really almost mind-boggling to think that this 
administration, in such a short time, has come down so hard, if you 
would, on the side of those who would seek to deregulate or weaken, or 
certainly not improve, environmental regulations that need to be 
improved.
  Let me talk initially, if I could, about the carbon dioxide change 
that the President had. He did not change his position on carbon 
dioxide until four Republican Senators sent a letter to him on March 6. 
Until that time, not only during the campaign, but even in the first 
few months we heard from the EPA administrator, Christine Whitman, the 
former Governor of New Jersey, my former governor, that a consensus had 
been essentially built in the White House, in this administration, to 
regulate CO2. But after that letter was sent on March 6, the 
President broke his promise, because special-interest lobbyists 
pressured him to do so. We know that Vice President Cheney basically 
pulled the rug from under the EPA administrator and insisted in his 
capacity as the chairman, I guess, of this new Energy Task Force that 
carbon dioxide not be regulated.
  But, again, I think this is symptomatic of what we are going to see 
with this administration, broken promises on protections that we need 
for the environment and for the American people. I hope it does not 
continue, but every indication is that it will.
  Let me briefly mention, Mr. Speaker, about the carbon dioxide 
emissions, because I want everyone to understand that the reduction in 
carbon dioxide that myself and other environmentalists support is not a 
crazy idea that is just supported by a bunch of eco-freaks. In fact, 
numerous large multinational corporations have adopted company-wide 
targets to cut global warming pollutants that include carbon dioxide.
  One of President Bush's most loyal supporters, the Enron Corporation, 
has urged the President to create a credit-trading system for carbon 
dioxide in a manner very similar to a bill I introduced in Congress and 
that I will be reintroducing shortly, where we use a trading system, 
which is essentially a market approach to try to reduce carbon dioxide 
and other emissions.
  I have worked, frankly, with both utilities and environmental groups 
in creating what I consider a workable emission-reduction plan, and I 
know that there are solutions other than ``business as usual,'' in 
other words, the idea of simply throwing the environment aside in the 
name of economic development.
  Utilities and environmentalists can work together to come up with a 
program that reduces carbon dioxide. It is not a situation where you 
have to choose between the environment and industry, or you have to 
choose between impacting people's health in terms of the air they 
breathe versus the cost of producing energy.
  Now, in making the statement that was made yesterday on the second 
issue, to roll back protective standards on the amount of acceptable 
arsenic in drinking water, I think the Bush administration crossed the 
line even further in terms of not caring about the public than they did 
even with the carbon dioxide emissions, because here we are talking 
directly about an issue that studies have shown will directly impact 
the number of people that have cancer.
  Arsenic, I do not have to tell anyone, is an awful substance that can 
cause bladder, lung, skin and other kinds of cancer. The proposal to 
reduce the amount of arsenic from an acceptable level of 50 parts per 
billion, which is the status quo, to 10 parts per billion, is actually 
something that was endorsed by the European Union and is in place for 
the countries that are part of the European Union, and also adopted by 
the World Health Organization. So the United States now, instead of 
being in unison with Europe and most of the world, is now keeping with 
a standard that was adopted in the forties about the level of arsenic 
that you can consume in your water.
  According to the National Academy of Sciences, exposure to arsenic at 
the current standard, 50 parts per billion ``could easily result in a 
combined cancer risk on the order of 1 in 100.'' This level of risk is 
much higher than the maximum cancer risk typically allowed by the Safe 
Drinking Water Act standards. Most of the time when we are talking 
about what is acceptable, we are talking about a case where maybe 1 in 
10,000 people would be impacted. When you talk about 1 in 100, that is 
an incredible risk and could impact millions of people, maybe tens of 
millions of people.
  The interesting thing about the administration's announcement 
yesterday also with regard to the arsenic levels is that once again my 
former governor, now the EPA administrator, Christine Whitman, actually 
admitted that the 50 parts per billion was unacceptable and that the 
standard needed to be lowered significantly. She said it twice in the 
statement that she put out from the EPA. Yet at the same time, she said 
that the 10 parts per billion was not a standard that there was a lot 
of scientific agreement on.
  I would say once again that I know that Mrs. Whitman is trying to be 
helpful and trying to suggest that the standard needs to be lowered 
even though the Bush Administration does not want to do it, but I would 
point out again that we know that a lot of the countries in the world, 
part of the European Union and the World Health Organization, have 
adopted the 10 parts per billion, so you cannot say it is not a 
standard widely accepted. In fact, it is widely accepted.
  Finally, I wanted to mention, before I move on to some of my 
colleagues that are going to join me today, this latest report that the 
Bush administration is proposing to suspend new environmental 
regulations on hard-rock mining that were put in place over industry 
objections on President Clinton's last day in office.
  The Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management is to announce 
supposedly today that it is reopening the revised 38-09 regulations, 
giving the government new authority to prohibit new mine sites on 
Federal land. Again, we cannot allow the administration to move forward 
with this attack on our health and the health of the environment. We 
are talking about water and air quality, the key components of life. We 
do not want our constituents, Americans, living in fear; and I think 
that we are just seeing more and more of these ill-advised choices by 
the Bush administration.
  I know that some of my colleagues today are probably going to talk 
about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as well. I would yield to the 
gentleman from Oregon, if he likes, at this point.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
appreciate the gentleman's courtesy and this opportunity to join in 
this discussion.
  It is important to me. I commend the gentleman for focusing attention 
on the environment and how the pieces fit together, and the 
relationship between Congress, the new administration and the American 
people.
  It is very much in keeping with why I came to Congress, determined to 
make sure that the Federal Government was a better partner in promoting 
community livability, making our families safe, healthy and 
economically secure. An important part of that partnership, frankly, is 
that the Federal Government needs to play a constructive role. It needs 
to lead by example, set the tone, and follow through.
  I, frankly, was shocked in the area of environmental stewardship with 
last week's announcement dealing with global warming and the broken 
promise of the Bush administration dealing with how we were going to 
deal with CO2 emissions. I just returned from 4 days in my 
State of Oregon; and, like your State of New Jersey, citizens there are 
keenly concerned about the environment and quality of life. I was, 
frankly, despite that environmental orientation of Oregonians, 
surprised at the intensity of the public reaction to the 
administration's lack of commitment to the environment.
  Now, setting apart the fuzzy image portrayed by the last campaign, it 
is clear at this point it is more characterized by a series of 
reversals. You have already referenced the reversal of the arsenic 
standard by EPA administrator Whitman. Earlier in the week we heard 
from Department of Energy Secretary Abraham that our energy crisis 
could be avoided by relaxing environmental regulations and drilling for 
oil in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge. Of

[[Page H1045]]

course, last week, President Bush reversed an explicit campaign 
position to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

                              {time}  1330

  None of these actions demonstrates that commitment to the livability 
of our communities, ensuring the public safety, environmental 
protection, or long-term energy conservation. We certainly do not need 
to spend more time studying whether or not global warming is happening, 
or whether arsenic poses a health problem to our children and families. 
We know that it is. We need to devote our time and energy instead to 
deal with how we are going to fix it.
  It is true that we do not harbor a false sense of security in 
numbers. The fact is that almost 2,000 scientists have reiterated their 
findings that global warming is occurring, and its linkage to carbon-
based energy consumption is clear. This is a clear emerging scientific 
consensus.
  The administration's actions are also out of sync with where the 
American public is concerned. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. 
Pallone) and I take pride in the environmental consciousness of the 
citizens that we represent in New Jersey and Oregon, but it is clear 
that the American public feel deeply about the environment and 
environmental protection. It was just this week that a Gallop poll 
found that 52 percent of Americans believe that we should be protecting 
the environment over a much smaller number dealing with energy, and by 
almost 2 to 1 there was a majority of those polled who opposed drilling 
for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge.
  On the campaign trail, then-Governor Bush promised to seek a 
reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, including those emissions on a 
long list of pollutants regulated at power plants. Last fall, the Bush 
campaign materials released a comprehensive national energy policy that 
spoke of the ``need for a comprehensive energy policy,'' I am quoting, 
``that would be forward-looking, encourage the development of renewable 
energy sources and increased conservation.''
  Specifically, then-Governor Bush proposed that legislation be 
introduced that would require electric utilities to reduce emissions 
and significantly improve air quality and ``establish mandatory 
reduction targets for emissions of 4 main pollutants, sulfur dioxide, 
nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide.'' He was going to phase 
them in, and so on and so forth, provide market-based incentives; the 
gentleman from New Jersey has heard the drill.
  The point is that he was clear and unequivocal. In fact, then-
candidate Bush derided Vice President Gore for being too soft on this. 
This came up in one of the Presidential debates, and we know those are 
perhaps the most intensely scripted political theaters in the history 
of the Republic. This was not accidental, this was calculated.
  Now, the question arises, and I have had difficulty from the press 
because they want to know, was this an action of deliberately 
misleading the public on the part of candidate Bush, or did he just not 
understand. I do not want to be in a situation to try and delve into 
the hearts and minds of other politicians, but suffice it to say, I 
think it is kind of an unnerving Hobson's choice here. Do we believe 
that a governor of an energy-producing State whose primary professional 
background to that point had been as an energy executive, did not know 
what he was talking about, or the alternative, which was he knew, in 
fact, what he was talking about, and there was never any intention to 
provide this protection to the American public.
  I think, frankly, either approach is unacceptable. It is unnerving, 
it underscores the credibility of what we are doing in the political 
process, and I personally am very much dismayed, not just because of 
what it says about the political process, but what it means for us as a 
public to try and deal with problems of global warming, of acid rain, 
of trying to get on to the next generation of energy-efficient 
activities and do what this Congress needs to be doing.
  I am more than willing, Mr. Speaker, to continue. I have some further 
thoughts, but I notice that we have been joined by another colleague, 
and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) perhaps at this point, 
before going on and talking about the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in a few 
minutes, maybe the gentleman has other parts of this discussion that he 
would like to enter into at this point.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. What 
I wanted to do was just comment briefly on the arsenic and then yield 
to our colleague from Maine.
  The one thing that I noticed that my colleague from Oregon talked 
about, the special interests with regard to this arsenic level in 
drinking water; it is interesting, because yesterday, when the EPA 
administrator former Governor Whitman announced that they were, in 
fact, going to stick with the status quo and not lower the arsenic 
level standards, contrary to what had been proposed, it was the same 
day that there was an article in The Washington Post which was called, 
``All Decked Out, But Will Runoff Ruin the Well.'' It was by the 
American Wood Preservers Institute which was worried that this new 
arsenic standard would have a negative effect on their ability to 
produce this pressure-treated wood product.
  Basically, what they do is they produce the kind of wood product 
that, I guess, is coated with a material that preserves it, what we see 
on decks or boardwalks or docks around the country. It said in the 
article that the stakes are high. Obviously, this organization was 
trying to get the standard to stay the same. It says, ``The stakes are 
high for the wood preservers because 98 percent of the lumber sold for 
outdoor purposes, mostly northern pine, is treated with CCA at some 350 
plants. The plants use about 144.5 million pounds CCA annually and 
about 37 million pounds of that mixture is arsenic. They sell 5 billion 
board feet annually.
  I was thinking to myself, because of what the gentleman said, about 
our own constituents. I live in a shore district, so it is true that a 
lot of the places we go on the boardwalk or on the docks we see, I 
assume, this kind of coated wood. Can we imagine for 1 minute that 
anybody who had a dock or was using a boardwalk would not sacrifice 
that if they knew that the alternative was that their drinking water 
was going to be contaminated and they had a 1 out of 100 chance of 
getting cancer from the arsenic. Our priorities, or the 
administration's priorities, are unbelievable that this kind of an 
organization would come in and say, we have to continue to manufacture 
this processed wood and we are going to not be able to sell as much, or 
it is going to cost us more. That is what we are dealing with here, 
that kind of industry. The average person is going to say, charge me 
more for the deck, but at least keep the water so that I can drink it. 
It is just incredible to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maine.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I 
appreciate the gentleman holding this Special Order to discuss one of 
the more disturbing incidents of the early weeks of the Bush 
administration. The President has broken his promise to the American 
people on the environment and, in doing so, he has evidenced a real 
disregard for our health and for the long term consequences of the 
policies that we adopt here in the Congress today.
  I really think we need to look at this example. I have had 
legislation in each of the last two Congresses and will introduce 
legislation very soon to deal with these old coal-fired and oil-fired 
power plants that are the major source of man-made carbon dioxide 
emissions in this country. I think it is worth noting that these old 
power plants which were grandfathered under the Clean Air Act and the 
Clean Air Act amendments are not subject to the same standards that a 
new power plant would be in this country. Yet, they emit 33 to 40 
percent of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions in this country.
  The President tried to say that well, carbon dioxide is not a 
pollutant, and certainly it is not a pollutant like mercury or sulfur 
dioxide or nitrogen dioxide because those are pollutants in all cases 
and in all circumstances. But carbon dioxide, because there is so much 
of it being emitted now, is transforming the globe in a way that we can 
no longer ignore.

[[Page H1046]]

  During his campaign and even until last week, President Bush had 
committed to reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. For 
example, in a speech last September in Michigan, President Bush said, 
we will require all power plans to meet clean air standards in order to 
reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury, and carbon 
dioxide. That is the four-pollutant strategy that the EPA 
administrator, Christy Whitman, was discussing in the early weeks of 
her new job. Mr. Bush made this promise to protect people from the 
effects of climate change and when it was made, it was a serious and 
substantial part of the appeal that he was making to the American 
people to suggest that he was a moderate on the issues related to the 
environment. But that is not the case. He has broken his word to 
protect the American people and has instead given in to the oil and gas 
industries who, not surprisingly, are among the largest contributors to 
his campaign.
  Now, Christy Whitman, the new administrator of the EPA, was traveling 
through Europe and saying in radio and television interviews that the 
President would work to protect people by cleaning up power plants and 
further, that he was really concerned about this issue of global 
climate change.
  Now, over the last few years, we have had this debate, both in this 
Congress and around the country, as to whether this climate change 
phenomenon is real, is it serious, and is it immediate. Well, every 
time the group of scientists working through the United Nations take 
another look at this, the evidence is clearer and clearer than it was 
before. Now, there is a consensus. There is a consensus in the 
scientific community that climate change is real, that the problem is 
serious, that it is driven by man-made emissions from automobiles and 
power plants and other sources, and that we need to do something about 
it.
  The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the 
IPCC, is a group of scientists from around the world. They have agreed 
that climate change is a real issue and we need to act in response. 
This is not a small group. More than 2,500 of the world's leading 
climate scientists, economists and risk analysis experts from 80 
different countries have contributed to the panel's third assessment 
report on climate change. These scientists are projecting that we will 
see temperatures rise from 2.7 to 11 degrees over the next 100 years. 
Particularly at the upper end of that scale, that could have a 
phenomenal impact on this country and on the globe. There would be a 
broad range of different impacts. Sea levels will rise, and on the 
coast of Maine, we care about that; we do not want to see our beaches 
disappear. But particularly in tropical areas of the world and in 
places like Bangladesh which are low-lying countries, the effects on 
the globe and the resulting movement of populations could be 
substantial.
  Glaciers and polar ice packs are melting. Already the area covered by 
sea ice in the Arctic declined by about 6 percent from 1978 to 1995. 
Ice thickness has decreased 40 percent since the 1960s. Droughts and 
wildfires will occur more often, and as habitat changes or is 
destroyed, species will be pushed to extinction.
  Despite the scientific consensus, what the President said in his 
announcement was that there is uncertainty. Well, there is not. One can 
always find someone who disagrees with an emerging consensus, but this 
is a very strong emerging consensus in the scientific community.
  The oil and gas industries, as important as they are in this country, 
as much as they may have contributed to various people, are a source of 
the problem that we need to get a grip on.
  I also wanted to mention, just in terms of the warming issue, the 
year 1998 was the warmest year ever measured globally in history. The 
top 10 warmest years ever measured worldwide over the last 120 years 
all occurred after 1981, and the sixth warmest of these years occurred 
after 1990.
  As I mentioned before, I have this legislation, the Clean Power Plant 
Act, which I will introduce again, and the interesting thing about this 
legislation is we are not talking about Kyoto here. What I am 
suggesting in this bill is that carbon dioxide emissions in this 
country be set at the level authorized by the Rio Treaty in 1991, when 
the former President Bush was President, a treaty that he signed, a 
treaty that was ratified by the U.S. Senate. And the way my legislation 
works, it allows emissions trading in carbon dioxide among different 
plants, but overall, it sets a national limit consistent with the Rio 
Treaty, and then we work to set caps for individual plants and to make 
sure that we get down to the overall national goal.

                              {time}  1345

  As I said, it is possible to do emissions trading because carbon 
dioxide does not have an adverse local impact. It has an adverse global 
impact.
  The last thing I want to say on this point, right now the President's 
failure to act is extremely disturbing, because any action that we take 
today is not likely to have a significant effect on the upper 
atmosphere for 100 years, for 100 years, and that means that we have to 
act before we have anyway of knowing exactly what the impact of our 
actions will be.
  We just know that we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this 
country. Carbon dioxide is the principal greenhouse gas; 33-40 percent 
of it comes from these old coal-fired and oil-fired power plants. And 
we can do it. It is possible to develop the technology.
  Environmental cleanup will never get easier than when you have 33-40 
percent of all of the emissions in the country coming from about 500 
plants. It cannot be easier than this.
  The President also said that he thought the costs of dealing with the 
climate change issues would be too much. He never said beside the costs 
of cleaning up 500 power plants, the costs of the weather patterns, the 
changes in weather patterns that we are going to face as the globe 
becomes warmer. He never factored in the costs that it is going to have 
on our agriculture areas as they find they are unable to grow in one 
part of the country and have to move to another part of the country. 
The costs of not acting are far greater than the costs of acting, and 
putting off for 4 years any effort to deal with the primary greenhouse 
gas is a fundamental mistake for the health of the planet.
  It a fundamental mistake in terms of our relations with the rest of 
the world, because other countries around the world are proceeding. We 
are the problem in this case. We are the problem.
  Here we sit in the United States, 5 percent of the globe's population 
and we have met 25 percent of all the greenhouse gases in the country, 
and we are trying to suggest that China and India and other people need 
to act before we do.
  It is time to put our own house in order. It is time for people in 
the Congress to get the President to reverse his position and to tell 
the oil and gas industries that this country, this planet cannot be 
held captive to their special interests for the next 4 years.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Maine 
(Mr. Allen), my colleague, and I know that everything the gentleman is 
saying is so true.
  Just to give two examples, quickly, one is, I was with President 
Clinton last year at this time in March in India. And we had a 
ceremony, it was just outside the Taj Mahal, where we announced 
cooperation between India and the United States on a number of 
environmental issues that specifically related to clean air.
  There is no question that India, being the sort of leader within the 
developing countries, is looking to see what the United States is going 
to do on CO2 and other emissions before they are going to 
act. Because they say, look, most of the problem is coming from the 
developed country. If you are not going to take the initiative, then 
why should we when we are economically underdeveloped?
  India was more than willing to play that role, but they are not going 
to do it if the United States does not take the leadership on it, that 
is for sure.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maine.
  Mr. ALLEN. The gentleman makes a very good point. It reminds me of 
another thought here. Part of the concern is that India and China, as 
they develop their own energy resources, are

[[Page H1047]]

going to be relying on coal, among other sources, because both of those 
countries have coal.
  We are developing in this country clean coal technology, clean coal 
technology that if this is transferred to China and India, if we help 
them with the development of their electrical infrastructure will have 
far less impact on the environment than otherwise.
  It is not just carbon dioxide. It is also mercury. I mean, mercury is 
one of those pollutants that does not go away; and we are having 
substantial problems in the Northeast, as the gentleman knows, with 
mercury pollution.
  Frankly, we have to figure out how to take some of this mercury out 
of the air, and the best way to do it is changing how we deal with 
these old coal-fired and oil-fired power plants.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman again for yielding.
  Mr. PALLONE. The other thing the gentleman mentioned about coastal 
States. My district is a coastal district. In fact, there are certain 
parts of it that are no more than a few blocks wide from the ocean.
  I will tell the gentleman that my constituents are very concerned 
about the impact that global climate changes are going to have on the 
rising sea level.
  We have to put in place these beach replenishment projects every year 
that costs us millions of dollars, and that is not going to work any 
more if the sea level continues to rise. This is not pie in the sky. 
This is real.

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