[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 19, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S6455]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BOND (for himself, Mr. Reid, Mr. Smith of New Hampshire, 
        Mr. Kerry, Mr. Warner, Mr. Chafee, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Cleland, Mr. 
        Ensign, and Ms. Landrieu):
  S. 1064. A bill to amend the Comprehensive Environmental Response, 
Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 to provide certain relief from 
liability for small businesses; to the Committee on Environment and 
Public Works.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, it is a pleasure for me to introduce the 
Small Business Liability Protection Act of 2001. This bill will provide 
a lifeline for the thousands of small business owners threatened by 
lawsuits and litigation under the broken Superfund liability system. 
Joining me in introducing this legislation are Senators Reid, Smith, 
Kerry, Warner, Chafee, Cleland, Landrieu, Ensign, and Wyden.
  The bill is simple. All this bill does is protect those who 
contributed very small amounts of waste, or waste no different than 
common household garbage, to a Superfund site. The bill will also speed 
up the process for handling those little fish with a limited ability to 
pay towards a Superfund site's cleanup.
  The exact same version of this bill passed the House unanimously in 
May and I am proud to have similar bipartisan support for this Senate 
version. We have members from both the Environment Committee and the 
Small Business Committee supporting this bill at introduction and I 
encourage all my colleagues to join our effort.
  My bill will not let polluters off the hook. This common-sense 
proposal will make the Superfund program a little more reasonable and 
workable. With this legislation, we can begin to provide some relief to 
small business owners who are held hostage by potential Superfund 
liability.
  For years now, members from both sides of the aisle have said that 
the Superfund program is broken, it doesn't work, it must be reformed. 
Unfortunately we haven't gotten past the rhetoric to fix the problem. 
Instead of making changes that will produce results that are better for 
the taxpayers, better for the environment, and more efficient for 
everyone involved--government agencies, Federal bureaucrats, and 
Congress have protected this troubled and inefficient program from 
meaning reform.
  As Washington has played politics with the Superfund program, 
innocent Main Street small business owners across the nation, the 
engine of our economy, continue to be unfairly pulled into Superfund's 
legal quagmire. We now have the opportunity to put all of that behind 
us and move forward with bipartisan, common-sense reform.
  Let's put a human face on this: recently, just across the Missouri 
border--in Quincy, Illinois--160 small business owners were asked to 
pay the EPA more than $3 million for garbage legally hauled to a dump 
more than 20 years ago. The situation in Quincy is just one example of 
the very real, ongoing Superfund legal threat to small business owners 
across the nation.
  We all know that Superfund was created to clean up the Nation's most-
hazardous waste sites. Superfund was not created to have small business 
owners sued for simply throwing out their trash! These small business 
owners are faced with so many challenges already, that the thousands of 
dollars in penalties and lawsuits leave them with no choice but to 
mortgage their businesses, their employees and their future to pay for 
the bills of a broken government program.
  How many times will we tell ourselves that this unacceptable 
situation must be fixed before we act? Small business owners literally 
cannot afford to wait around while we delay action on the common-sense 
fixes required to protect them and our environment.
  Is this legislation everything I would like to see. No. But this bill 
does move us in the direction we need to go to ensure cleanup, 
fairness, and progress in reforming the Superfund program.
  In recognition of our small businesses around the country, I 
introduce this bill and look forward to ensuring speedy adoption of 
this long overdue legislation.

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