[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 53 (Wednesday, April 25, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3867-S3869]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              BROWNFIELDS

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, today is a very joyous occasion in the Reid 
family. At 6:30 this morning, approximately, eastern time--3:30 Reno, 
NV, time--my tenth grandchild was born. Everyone is doing well. The 
little baby is 18 inches long--kind of short, really--and weighs 6 
pounds 12 ounces. We are very happy for this little boy. He is the 
third son that my son has had.
  I rise today thinking of my new grandson, and I want to discuss Earth 
Day and what having a good, clean environment means to my 
grandchildren. I am very concerned, having seen, even in my lifetime, 
the Earth change--and many times not for the better.
  Earth Day is a time for reflecting on the progress of the last 
century and acting to protect our environment for generations and 
centuries to come. It is good that at least 1 day a year we focus on 
the Earth. We take it for granted. In the last 30 years, the country 
has taken major steps to achieve clean water, clean air, safe drinking 
water, hazardous waste cleanup, and reducing pollution across the 
board.
  Take just one thing, clean water. Why do we have a Clean Water Act? 
We have a Clean Water Act because, for instance, in Ohio the Cuyahoga 
River kept catching fire. Mr. Nixon was President of the United States 
at that time. In a bipartisan effort to do something about the polluted 
waterways in America, Congress joined with the President to pass a 
Clean Water Act to prevent rivers catching fire.
  We have made progress. We still have a lot of polluted water, but at 
the time that President Nixon recognized the need to do something, 
probably about 80 percent of our waterways were polluted. Now these 
many years later probably only about 30 percent of our waterways are 
polluted. If you fish the rivers and lakes around the United States, 
now you can actually eat the fish you catch. That is progress. But we 
have a lot more to do.
  We need to clean up that extra 20 percent or 30 percent of the 
waterways that are polluted. We need to make sure we have safe drinking 
water so someone can pick up a glass of water and drink it and know 
they are not going to get sick.
  It is not that way around much of our country. And when we travel 
overseas, we usually take lots of water with us because in many parts 
of the world we cannot drink the water because it is polluted. In the 
United States, we are finding much more polluted water. There is lots 
of polluted water.
  In my State of Nevada, we have naturally occurring arsenic in the 
water and we know that arsenic causes cancer. We need to do something 
about that.
  Even though we have a long way to go, we should be justifiably proud 
of

[[Page S3868]]

the progress we have made. We cannot afford to rest on past successes 
because millions of people are still breathing unhealthy air, drinking 
unsafe water, and are unable to swim or fish in many of our Nation's 
waterways.
  As I have said before, there is still much that needs to be done. As 
the new century dawns, we face even more complex environmental and 
public health problems. These problems include persistent toxics. We 
have a new phenomenon and that is, because of our development of 
nuclear power and nuclear weapons, now we have areas that are polluted 
with things nuclear. On the Colorado River, we have 13,000 tons of 
uranium tailings. We need to clean those up because, of course, the 
Colorado River is a very important waterway in the western part of the 
United States. We have not provided money to do that. We need to do 
that. But that is a new threat to our environment.
  We have new problems in addition to nuclear issues. We have global 
warming. We have the dangers of invasive species. For example, in the 
State of Nevada, we have very little water. It is arid. It is a desert. 
You could count the rivers in Nevada on the fingers of one hand. Some 
of those rivers are being very seriously threatened as a result of 
something called salt cedar or tamarisk, a plant brought in from Iran 
100 years ago to stabilize the banks of streams, and it has just taken 
over everything. They are, frankly, very ugly. They use huge amounts of 
water. You cannot get rid of them. You can't burn them; you can't 
poison them; you can't snag them and pull them out. The only thing we 
found that might work is an insect that eats them, and we are working 
on that. The Department of Agriculture is working on a program to see 
if we can get rid of them that way. But these invasive species are all 
over America and we need to work on their eradication.
  Fine air particles from fossil fuel use, land use changes, the need 
for thoughtful use of our land for housing, recreation, and 
transportation: these challenges require the energy and enthusiasm that 
marked the first Earth Day 30 years ago. But also we need a new level 
of sophistication and commitment.
  I like President Bush. I think he is a very good man. I think he 
means well. From what has happened during the first 100 days of this 
administration dealing with the environment, I think he is getting bad 
advice from somebody.
  I can't imagine a good man doing such things in the first few months 
of his administration. His Administrator of EPA gave a speech about the 
importance and dangers of global warming and about needing to do 
something about it and referred to the CO2 contamination. 
Four days later, the administration cuts her legs out from under her 
and says they are going to delay implementation.
  Greenhouse gas emission is a problem. This would have been the first 
tangible U.S. effort to address global warming, and we backed away from 
it.
  Next, the administration proposed drilling on all public lands, 
including national wildlife refuges, national forests, national 
monuments, and other public lands. This was followed closely by a delay 
of the rules designed to protect 60 million acres of national forest 
from logging and roadbuilding. This ``roadless rule'' had been 
published after more than 600 public hearings and consideration of 1.6 
million comments. It is not as if it was done in the dead of night.
  Soon after that, the administration pulled back a long-awaited 
regulation lowering the standard of arsenic, a known human carcinogen, 
in our drinking water supplies. As early as 1962, the US Public Health 
Service recommended that the standard be lowered to 10 ppb. EPA held an 
extensive comment period on this rule, including more than 180 days of 
comment and holding stakeholder meetings beginning as early as 1997. 
There was a study by the National Science Foundation. Now the 
administration wants to re-study this issue and further delay the 
process of getting arsenic out of our drinking water. That is 
absolutely wrong.
  Then, without any apparent regard for the economic, environmental or 
foreign relations consequences, the administration walked away from 
international climate change negotiations that were being conducted 
under a U.S.-ratified treaty. The administration also suspended the 
rule which requires companies getting federal dollars to be in 
compliance with federal laws, including environmental laws.
  I was in a meeting with Senator Byrd and Senator Hagel. We agreed, if 
we are going to do something about this Kyoto treaty, on making sure 
the Third World nations are also brought into the picture. Senator Byrd 
said he had the intention of going forward with the discussion. We need 
to do something about global warming. He said that he is going on 84 
years of age and he has been able to see in his lifetime the changes 
that have taken place in the environment.
  This was not good for us. We walked away from this treaty.
  And, without explanation, the administration withdrew draft plans for 
public access to information on potential catastrophic chemical 
accidents in neighborhoods around the country. These plans are more 
than a year late and their withdrawal suggests that the administration 
doesn't want the public to know about these dangers.
  In April, the Bush administration weakened the new energy efficiency 
standards for water heaters and central aid conditioners. Over the next 
30 years, this change equals the total electricity used by all American 
households in one year. When electricity supplies are drastically low 
and high priced, as in California, does it make sense to increase 
electricity consumption rather than conserving? The answer is no. 
Similarly, does it make sense to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge for oil that will arrive years too late to address high gasoline 
prices this summer when fuel efficiency improvements would be quicker 
and longer lasting?
  The budget proposal by the administration represents yet more bad 
news for the environment. The budget resolution which passed the Senate 
on a party line vote eliminates or underfunds environmental programs 
across a range of agencies, including cuts at EPA in clean water state 
revolving funds, estuary protection, beach protection, scientific 
research on clean air, and law enforcement personnel. These cuts would 
greatly undercut environmental protections, and the protection of 
public health.
  The budget document, which was submitted to us later, among other 
things, calls for a 30-percent cut in alternative energy research on 
solar, geothermal, and wind. That is the wrong way to go. These cuts 
will greatly hurt environmental protection and the protection of public 
health. It also cuts vital environmental programs at the Department of 
the Interior, Department of Agriculture, and renewable energy programs 
at the Department of Energy. We can do better.
  Mr. President, I repeat what I said on Monday and Tuesday. We did 
nothing here Monday. We did nothing yesterday. It appears we are going 
to do nothing today.
  We have a bipartisan bill, the brownfields legislation, S. 350, 
entitled ``The Brownfields Revitalization and Environmental Restoration 
Act of 2001.'' We need to consider this bill. This is a bill that has 
68 cosponsors. It is supported by the National Governors' Conference, 
realtors, environmentalists, businesses, and local governments. It is 
supported by a broad array of outside groups. I cannot imagine why we 
are not considering this bill. It was reported out of committee 15 to 
3.
  In addition to that, the problems that three Members had we resolved. 
I can't speak for all three, but I know Senator Voinovich had some 
problems. We worked those out.
  This legislation is so important. We have 500,000 contaminated or 
abandoned sites in the United States waiting to be cleaned up. Private 
parties and communities need to be involved. We believe that these 
sites will create about 600,000 jobs nationally and increase annual tax 
revenues by $2.4 billion. We need to move forward on this legislation. 
It will be good for urban America and rural America. I just can't 
imagine why we are not doing it.
  The testimony on the bill supports moving quickly. Witnesses have 
called for the bill to move quickly.
  For example, the witness for the Conference of Mayors testified, 
``the Nation's mayors believe that the time has come for bipartisan 
action on

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brownfields. We have waited a long time for final congressional action 
on brownfields legislation.''
  Another witness pout it even more strongly: ``Time is of the essence 
. . . We look forward to working with you toward timely, expeditious, 
hopefully almost immediate enactment.''
  I agree with these sentiments. Let us take up this bill and do what 
we were elected to do--pass good bills into law. This bill is good for 
the environment and good for jobs and there is neither need nor 
justification for any further delay.
  We need to find a ``green path'' forward. We need to make sure we 
take the steps to protect the earth for our grandchildren, steps which 
include finalizing the numerous rules and enforcement cases which have 
been stopped mid-stream, rules which were developed over years and 
which provide critical protections for our environment.
  We need to ensure that the public is informed about threats to their 
health and their environment. We need a safe and sustainable energy 
policy. We need steps to address the very real problem of climate 
change, we need a vision for conserving game and non-game species and 
their habitat, we need a commitment to reclaiming polluted industrial, 
agricultural and military sites and we need to make a fundamental 
investment in conservation that recognizes that we do not inherit the 
planet from our ancestors, but borrow it from our children.
  These measures would be truly planting a tree to honor the Earth.
  It is bipartisan. I really can't imagine why we are not considering 
this bill. We agreed to 2 hours on this side. I hope the majority will 
allow us to take the bill up immediately. It is good environmental 
legislation. It speaks for what Earth Day is all about.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Indiana is 
recognized.
  Mr. BAYH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Nevada for his 
inspirational work this morning. There is no one who cares more about 
the quality of the environment than Senator Harry Reid. I join with him 
in calling for taking up a brownfields bill. It would be good for my 
State and for all States in this Union. I very much appreciate his 
leadership on that critical subject.

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