[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 38 (Wednesday, April 10, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H1192-H1198]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     EARTH DAY AND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ferguson). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I have come to the floor today, now that we 
are approaching Earth Day on April 22 this year, since this is a good 
time to review the policies of the United States in regard to the 
environment. I think it is a time where it is appropriate, 
particularly, to review the performance of the President's 
administration when it comes to that vital task of protecting our clean 
water, our clean air, and our tremendous and beautiful natural lands 
across the country.
  I think that is appropriate because the presidency of the United 
States has been an office that has been used to great beneficial effect 
over the years for the environment, to the benefit of the environment, 
as a positive force for the environment. Take a look at what Teddy 
Roosevelt did earlier in the century that in fact helped so much to 
establish this precedent of protecting our natural lands.
  So today we think it is appropriate for the next while to review this 
administration's performance on the environment, and to ask in fact 
whether this administration has done the job it should do to protect 
our clean water and our clean air and our natural lands, which is its 
obligation.
  Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, when we have reviewed this 
administration's policy, we have seen nothing but abject failure. We 
have seen time and time again this administration taking actions not 
only just not to go forward on the environment but to actually go 
backward: to reduce our protection for clean air and clean water, to 
reduce our protection of natural land, to reduce the ability of the 
Federal Government to assure American kids will have clean air to 
breathe so they are not subject to asthma.
  We now have had a chance to review over a year of the 
administration's performance in that regard. What we have found is an 
unbroken litany of actions against the environment. That is very sad to 
say. We were very hopeful at the beginning of this administration that 
it would follow the creed and spirit of Teddy Roosevelt, rather than 
Ken Lay and the oil and gas industry. Unfortunately, this 
administration has followed an environmental policy that has been 
consistent with the attitude of Mr. Lay and the oil and gas industry, 
and inconsistent with those who started the first Earth Day some years 
ago.

                              {time}  1515

  And I just want to review with you, Mr. Speaker, some of the nine 
items that we have kept tabs on in the administration, and I just want 
to read nine items in that regard and then I will address each in more 
depth.
  Arsenic in the water. The administration acted against the 
environment.
  Mining reform. The administration acted against the environment.
  The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The administration acted against 
the environment.
  Protecting clean air so kids do not have increased asthma. The 
President acted against the environment.
  Climate change, global warming. The President acted against the 
environment.
  CAFE standards, our average mileage standards for our vehicles. The 
President acted against the environment.
  The Superfund clean-up fund. It is designed to remove toxins from our 
most dangerous landfills in America. The President acted against the 
environment.
  National monuments, monuments that protect some of our most precious 
natural lands around the country. The President even today is acting 
against the environment.
  Someone strikes out with three strikes. These are nine strikes 
against the environment. And it is very, very sad when this country has 
had such a deeply ingrained and obvious commitment to protect our 
children's clean air, our children's clean water, our national parks, 
our national monuments. This is something that is very deep within the 
American character. It started with Teddy Roosevelt and, unfortunately, 
that has been dropped today.
  I would like, if I can, to talk a little bit about each one of those 
strikes that are now striking against the American environment. And I 
do so in the hopes that this administration and that the leadership of 
this House will change its behavior and change its habits. I am hopeful 
that it will change. I believe it can change, but it cannot change 
unless the American people know what is going on here in Washington, 
D.C. and unless we talk about it here on the floor of the House.
  So let me start with arsenic. Arsenic, everyone in America knows the 
problems related to arsenic. The National Academy of Sciences has done 
over the years very, very extensive work about the dangers associated 
with arsenic. And as a result of that, a rule was adopted, proposed to 
go into effect, to assure there was a maximum level of arsenic in our 
water. That is pretty common sense. It is really not that much rocket 
science, I suppose, to pick some level.
  Unfortunately, when that rule was established in the very early days 
of the administration, the President's administration essentially threw 
the rule out, said I am not going to abide by these recommendations of 
a present rule to limit the amount of arsenic in our water. And what 
happened? Well, fortunately there was a firestorm in America when 
people heard about this. And we got busy here in Congress trying to 
roll back this repeal of the arsenic standards. The National Academy of 
Sciences came out with a report that showed the health dangers 
associated with these arsenic rules. We thought it was a mistake for 
the administration to be in league with the polluters on the arsenic 
question, we thought they should be in league with those of us who want 
to drink water, which is a very high percentage of the American public.
  And we eventually, because of public pressure, forced the 
administration to recant, and the good news is that the rule is going 
to be restored. So I will tell you the good news is that even though 
the administration wanted to increase the ability of putting arsenic in 
the water, they did ultimately change their position after listening to 
the country. And that is one of the reasons I am here today to talk 
about this litany of problems in the hopes that the administration will 
change its direction to the American public.
  The second issue is mining reform. We have found that a very, very 
large percentage of the toxins, including arsenic and cyanide, that are 
in our waters come from mining areas, particularly those that are 
abandoned, that are not restored. And, as a result, the Federal 
Government issued rules to assure us additional tools to make sure that 
the mining industry does not allow these mines to be left abandoned so 
that cyanide and arsenic and other toxins, selenium, and a whole bunch 
of heavy metals, do not leach into our drinking water. These rules were 
established. They were about to go into effect. America was within 
inches of allowing this mining reform to go into effect.
  And what happened? This administration went back and essentially 
gutted the rules. They took away the tools

[[Page H1193]]

that could be used to assure that mines do not leave these cesspools of 
heavy metals to leach into our water.
  They took away a tool that would require there be certain clean water 
protections by mines when they abandon their mine. They took away a 
tool for the Federal Government to assure that if there are 
particularly sensitive environmental lands involved, that a mining 
permit will not be allowed to happen. They took tools that were 
designed for the American people to keep their water clean for mines 
and they threw the tools away, and they abandoned that protection and 
they did it unilaterally. They did it without a vote of the House or a 
vote of the Senate or anybody else. They just did it, and it was wrong.

  It was wrong because the science is compelling that mines continue to 
be a clear and present danger to the health of this country. We had the 
ability to do something about it, and in its second strike the 
administration took away the tools to deal with mining reform.
  Third strike, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We have, and I can 
state from personal experience because I have been there, one of the 
most magnificent places in America is the Arctic National Wildlife 
Refuge. It was set up by a Republican President. Teddy Roosevelt was 
the only Republican who has done good things for the environment. 
Dwight David Eisenhower had the wisdom to set up the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge. The reason he did it was because he realized that we 
Americans have something unique in there, the largest intact ecosystem 
in the North American Continent that protects and provides for the 
porcupine caribou herd. It has untrammeled pristine areas in the 
Arctic.
  If you think you are not related to the Arctic, if you look outside 
your home and you see a bird, it just may be one that actually breeds 
in the Arctic.
  I live on a little island called Bainbridge Island, Washington. If I 
go down there today, I will see birds out there on the water on 
Bainbridge Island. They are there because we have the Arctic National 
Wildlife that provides the breeding place for them. And that is why a 
Republican President had the wisdom to establish an Arctic Wildlife 
Refuge.
  Now we have an administration that wants to stick an oil dagger right 
in the heart of the breeding area for these creatures, and it is wrong. 
And it is wrong for several reasons to kowtow to the oil and gas 
industry in this regard. It is wrong, number one, because it is not a 
solution to our problems to drill in the Arctic. America knows by now 
that if you got all the oil you ever could out of the Arctic, it only 
provides you about 6 months' worth of America's fuel. It is not enough 
to solve our problem, because the fact of the matter is unless and 
until we develop additional nonfossil fuel-based resources, we are 
still going to have to be kowtowing to the royal house in Saudi Arabia.
  And the fact that the President wants to go drill in the Arctic 
instead of trying to develop alternative renewable resources that our 
technology now has available to us, will continue our addiction to 
Mideast oil, because it is an international market and the market is 
decided and determined largely by what the Mideast does. So continuing 
this addiction to oil is not going to solve our energy problems and 
certainly not with the Arctic.
  Perhaps that is one of the reasons you do not actually hear any of 
the major oil companies very excited about it. Perhaps that is one of 
the reasons. But a second reason is when you look at the science.
  I have to say, Mr. Speaker, that is one of the most disturbing things 
I have seen. We have professional scientists that have been reviewing 
this issue for years. And they issued a report recently on the Arctic. 
What they concluded was that drilling in the Arctic had a substantial 
risk of damaging these porcupine caribou herds amongst other wildlife 
in the Arctic. And they wrote a report to that effect. And these 
are nonpartisan, these are civilian scientists. They are not 
Republicans. They are not Democrats. They are not yin, they are not 
yang. They are scientists. And they have written a report for us. It 
said there was a danger to the wildlife in the Arctic. They issued that 
report. And what did the Secretary of Interior do? He said, no, that is 
not the answer I wanted. Go back and rewrite it.

  That is not the way we should do science in this country. The 
American people deserve to know the real science and not the partisan 
science. Sure, that report got rewritten because the administration 
told them to rewrite it. Imagine if the politicians had told NASA how 
to run the Moon shot, where would we have ended up? Somewhere in the 
Atlantic Ocean.
  In fact, the administration has had a blackout on this science and 
they are making a bad decision as a result. That is why we are very 
hopeful that the Senate will reject this proposal that is not going to 
solve our energy crisis, is going to damage a precious resource that 
Dwight David Eisenhower started.
  Strike number three, as an anti-environmental action by the 
administration.
  Number four, we have a remarkable resource right now and it is in 
States all over the country, and that is our roadless areas in our 
national forests. We have about 50 percent of our national forests have 
already been carved up by roads that have been built by us, by 
taxpayers, so people could clear-cut timber on the national forests. So 
about 50 percent of it is gone from the standpoint of it being an 
intact system of forests untrammeled by clear-cutting. We only have 
about 50 percent left. About 18 percent of that has been protected in 
wilderness areas, leaving about less than one-third that is available 
for protection; but we have not protected it, except for this. Here is 
the good news. We had a rule that was adopted that protected that 
remaining one-third of our roadless areas so that our children could be 
assured that our national forests would be protected from clear-cutting 
so that when our grandkids go out to these national forests they do not 
see a row of stumps, they see trees; and that is a pretty significant 
asset.
  This roadless area rule was adopted a couple years ago to protect 
that remaining one-third of our uncut national forestland. But what 
happened? You guessed it. The new administration came in after the 
Attorney General of the United States, John Ashcroft, pledged, pledged 
to the U.S. Senate, he would protect this roadless area bill. You know 
what he did? He took a dive. He refused to effectively defend it in 
Federal court. He allowed it to lapse. He let down the American people. 
And that roadless area rule is now in jeopardy. We are very concerned 
that the administration is going to whittle that rule down to 
essentially gut it like it has on so many areas of environmental 
policy.
  So instead of having a rule that will protect the last one-third of 
unprotected non-clear-cut areas in our national forests, the 
President's administration has jeopardized this remaining heritage of 
our children. And I will state, I have talked to a lot of people in my 
State of Washington and they are very angry about this. They are very 
angry because they were involved in making this roadless area bill. 
This rule was adopted after the largest public input process in 
American history. More Americans, something like 1.1 million Americans 
took time to write the Federal Government to tell them what they 
thought of this roadless area policy. Over 600 meetings were held. And 
the American voice was very strong. The American voice was this: 
Protect our remaining roadless areas. And we had a rule that did that 
until this administration chucked it overboard. So that is strike 
number four.
  Number five, clean air. You know, I think you may know people who 
have children who have real bad asthma problems. And it is becoming, if 
not an epidemic, at least an increasing concern in this country.

                              {time}  1530

  We have new science which has shown that very small particulate 
matter, soot, very small particles of a potentially deadly nature that 
we did not understand 10 years ago, the National Academy of Sciences 
just came out with a report in the last month or so that showed tens of 
thousands of Americans die as a result of this small particulate 
matter, soot, in the air.
  As a result of that, the Federal Government adopted a rule some time 
ago that would require polluters to improve their anti-air pollution 
control

[[Page H1194]]

systems. This was an expensive rule. It was adopted after lots of 
input, lots of consideration. It was adopted some time ago. It was 
adopted because even the old science let us know that this was a real 
problem.
  The new science makes it even more important that we adopt this, what 
is called the new source review. It is a fancy term basically requiring 
large polluting industries to have additional available technology to 
reduce these fine particulates.
  What happened? Well, in a refrain, the administration tossed the rule 
overboard and the administration again gutted the rule, and it is 
extremely disturbing to me, having seen kids with terrible asthma 
problems, to think we have existing technology that can help solve 
these problems with our air pollution, we have an existing rule that 
would do it; and the President, his administration, in order to get in 
line with the big polluters, are reducing the protection for clean air 
for kids in this country.
  That is a pretty bold indictment of the action by the White House, 
but I make it because it is true. They are wrong, and Americans have 
got to know what is going on back here in Washington, D.C., that these 
fundamental commonsense measures we have adopted to protect our air and 
water are being gutted every single week.
  It seems like every Monday when I open the newspapers there is a new 
attack on our clean air and clean water bills, the statute and rules; 
and we have got to know about it to stop it, but we are going to do 
everything we can to roll back the administration's decision in this 
regard because Americans deserve it. That is strike number five.
  Strike number six, and this may be the granddaddy of them all when it 
comes to our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren, and 
that is the problem of global climate change. The science is now clear. 
It is unambiguous. It is certain. It is no longer debated in credible 
scientific circles, and that is this simple fact is happening in the 
world today.
  We are accumulating certain gases in our atmosphere called global 
climate change gases. Those are principally carbon dioxide and methane. 
Carbon dioxide comes anytime we burn anything, coal, oil, gas, anything 
else. What carbon dioxide does is it goes up in the atmosphere, and it 
lingers, sometimes for over a century, stays in the atmosphere for a 
long time; and carbon dioxide is not a bad gas as gases go in a lot of 
ways, but it has one feature that is a problem.
  That when carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere, light can come in as 
ultraviolet light, which it does from the sun, but when it gets bounced 
out as an infrared beam of energy, it cannot get out, and that is 
called the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide works the same way a pane 
of glass does in a greenhouse. Light comes in, it gets reflected back, 
but it is trapped by the windowpane and carbon dioxide does the same 
thing.
  Every credible scientist essentially who has been involved in this 
understands that phenomena, and now we have convened an international 
panel of scientists who have concluded that this phenomenon is changing 
the world's climate in unpredictable ways. Generally speaking, it is 
warming the Earth. It is going to continue to warm the Earth as long as 
that concentration of carbon dioxide and other climate-change gases 
increases.
  Why am I concerned about that? I am concerned about that because I 
kind of like the way the world is. I like having glaciers in national 
park, glaciers that are now disappearing. In 50 years to 100 years 
there may not be glaciers in Glacier National Park. We will call it 
sort of like the artist Prince, the National Park Formerly Known as 
Glacier.
  I like having an ice sheet in the Antarctica that just broke up in 
this massive breakup of the Antarctic ice sheet recently. It totally 
stunned the scientific community to see such a rapid, radical change in 
such a huge area that is as big as Delaware or Rhode Island or some 
State, I cannot remember which one. I like the fact that Denali 
National Park has a certain system, has a tree line where it used to 
be, and now it is going north because the temperature is increasing.
  I like polar bears, and polar bears when the ice sheet continues to 
decrease in the arctic will not be able to stay hunting close to shore 
and may be extinct in 150 years. A lot of things we cannot predict 
about the environment; but the one thing we know for sure is we are 
changing it, and I mean all of us.

  As a result, the President, when he ran for President, in a very 
hopeful statement, when I heard him say this I was very, very hopeful, 
he said he was going to do something about this problem. He said he was 
going to help us use these new technologies and energy, solar, wind, 
geothermal, cars that get better mileage, conservation technologies, so 
that we save energy in our houses. He said he was going to do something 
about this to try to reduce these climate-change gases.
  Well, what did he do? First thing he did is he told the world he was 
not going to talk to them about a climate-change treaty that the rest 
of the world had agreed to in Kyoto; and there may have been some 
imperfections in that treaty, but he basically told the world he did 
not want to talk to the rest of the world about this, America was just 
going to go on its own. I think that was a mistake. I think we need to 
talk to some of our neighbors across the world on how to deal with this 
problem.
  Okay, if he did not like that treaty, what else was he going to do? 
Well, unfortunately, he essentially has ended an American attempt to 
deal with climate change, and I think this may be the most significant 
failure on an environmental perspective in the last 2 years because 
what he did is when he offered his climate-change proposal, do my 
colleagues know what it was?
  He called it a volunteer proposal, and I do not mean any disrespect 
by this because I think the President's done a good job dealing with 
the Taliban in Afghanistan. I think he has done a good job rising to 
the occasion of dealing with this tremendous security threat to our 
country, and we should be happy that he has risen to that occasion; but 
we have another huge threat of a longer termination of global climate 
change, and his proposal was essentially to go to the polluting 
industries and say, pretty please, will you stop doing it.
  They are going to stop doing it just as fast as the Taliban would 
have left if we had gone to them and said, pretty please, let go of 
Afghanistan. It is not going to work. We need leadership from the White 
House. We need leadership from this President. We need leadership of a 
President who has rallied the Nation in our actions in Afghanistan. We 
need him to act when it comes to do with climate change. Failing that 
leadership, we are heading for bad times when it comes to the climate 
on a global perspective. Strike number six.
  Number seven, I will tell my colleagues something that may shock them 
and I was not aware of until about a month ago, but the cars we drive 
get worse gas mileage on total than they did in 1980. Think about that. 
We have technological geniuses in this country that have developed the 
entire software industry since 1980, a good part of the biotechnology 
industry since 1980. We have come up with all these tremendous new 
technologies, but the cars we drive that have been given to us get 
worse gas mileage than they did in 1980.
  To me, this is a stunning failure to use our technological genius of 
this country; and now we have cars that fit my frame and I am kind of a 
bulky guy, I am six-two and about 205. We have got cars now that are 
wonderful, five, six passengers in. They get almost 45, 50 miles a 
gallon; and yet what did the White House do when we suggested a modest 
improvement in our mileage standards of our fleets overall? We were not 
trying to get rid of SUVs or anything else. Americans like their SUVs. 
We simply proposed as an average that we increase the average of the 
cars on our streets a few miles a gallon, nothing radical, something 
within our technological ability, something we have the technology to 
do today.
  The administration again refused to do even modest increases in our 
mileage standards, and those are called CAFE standards. It is an 
acronym for increasing our mileage standards, and we can do this today 
and drive the same size vehicles that we drive. We do not have to give 
up the luxuries that

[[Page H1195]]

Americans enjoy. We simply have to insist that our manufacturers as a 
whole use the technologies that are now available to increase mileage, 
to decrease climate-change gases that are going out the tailpipe.
  In these vehicles we have got fuel cell technology coming on. The 
only thing that comes out of the tailpipe is water. We have got 
existing hybrids that get 45, 50 miles a gallon that we ought to be 
using today. We ought to be insisting that we do not give up the 
markets to Japan, which we are doing again like we did in the 1970s. In 
the 1970s we gave up our markets to the Japanese. We are doing it again 
today. We are letting them come in with hybrid vehicles, and we are not 
producing them.
  Now I hope and I am told that our local domestic producers are going 
to start to do that in the next couple of years. I am very happy about 
that, but we need the administration to help us increase our mileage 
standards, and they have refused to do it. It is strike seven on the 
environmental list of what we have been working on environmentally in 
the last 2 years.
  Number eight, the Superfund. The Superfund. The Superfund is a fund 
that was started on as a basic idea and that idea was that polluters 
would pay for the toxics they put in the ground in these Superfund 
sites. There is a Superfund site, just to tell my colleagues one I am 
familiar with in the State of Washington, it is on Bainbridge Island. 
It is across from where I live. It is a place where there was a 
creosoting plant that put creosote in lumber; but the creosote, 
thousands of gallons went down and were stuck on top of the water table 
and land, and the idea of the Superfund site was to clean that up.
  We should not have to pay for it. The American public should not have 
to pay for the discharge of creosote over years and years that 
contaminated these sites. Who should have to pay for it? The polluters, 
and it was a pretty commonsense idea.
  The Superfund bill was created so that the polluters would pay for 
the right, the privilege, the enjoyment of putting toxics into the 
ground; and that system worked for years, and it was funded through a 
charge on polluters. Essentially those who manufactured, presented the 
risk of this discharge would have to pay so that the American people 
did not have to with their taxes.
  That bill has come up for renewal, and in strike number eight, the 
administration dropped the ball and refused to help us reinstitute this 
Superfund provision so that the polluters would pay instead of the 
American people, and that is wrong. Americans should not have to pay 
for this pollution. The polluters should, and we have yet another 
example of the administration working with the polluting industries to 
avoid responsibility to try to keep our water clean and toxins out of 
our water. We would like the administration to change its feelings in 
that regard, to help us. We hope that happens.
  On the ninth strike, in our national monuments, and this will be my 
closing discussion, and that is that our national monuments, again, 
this idea was started by Teddy Roosevelt. It is the idea that 
Presidents can establish for the American people in perpetuity our 
beautiful landscapes; and Presidents have done this, almost every 
President, except a couple in the last two decades. This has been very 
important to protect areas from certain natural resource industries 
that can threaten these areas.
  Again, today, the Departments of the Federal Government are thinking 
about opening these up for mining for oil, drilling for who knows what, 
without congressional approval. This Chamber voted against that. This 
Chamber passed a measure that would slow that down, if not prevent it. 
We would like the administration to follow that vote. We think that is 
the right thing to do. We are calling upon them to do so.
  So we have gone through a sorry litany of environmental degradation 
of our laws. It is not a happy thing to talk about this. I would rather 
be here, not only complimenting the President for what he has done in 
Afghanistan, but complimenting him for environmental progress; but we 
cannot do that because in nine separate ways we have just talked about, 
in fact America's gone backwards.
  Our protection of clean air has gone backward; our protection of 
clean water has gone backward and it is important that people know 
this. It is important, Mr. Speaker, that we talk about this on the 
floor of this House because when we go backwards in so many ways, we 
are going to end up back where we were in the 1950s and 1960s. We made 
real progress in this country cleaning up our air and water. We have 
done good things.

                              {time}  1545

  Mr. Speaker, I remember when the river in Ohio caught fire. That was 
before America started to do things positively for the environment. 
Things can go backwards as well as forwards. Now with our new science 
about how children can be affected, morbidity and mortality rates can 
be affected by cleaner water, this is not the time to go backwards. We 
hope the administration will, in fact, start to review their 
administration policies.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to be here tonight with the 
gentleman from Washington to talk about this issue. It is something 
that is very, very deeply felt amongst my community. Many from my 
district and the 31st Congressional District in California know that we 
are faced with some tremendous challenges, some that the gentleman 
spoke about tonight, that resonate with the constituents that I 
represent.
  The district that I represent is, for lack of a better word, one 
under siege because we have a lot of environmental impacts that have 
affected this district for the last 50, or maybe 75 years.
  I happen to represent a district that has 17 abandoned mining pits, 
pits that will never be filled at this point in time, that affect the 
health of children and seniors that live in the surrounding community. 
Businesses do not want to locate in that surrounding area because 
property values have gone down. What do we do with those empty pits and 
the families and children that are faced with increasing rates of 
asthma, heart disease and cancer attributed to the deaths and the 
particulate matter the gentleman spoke of earlier? We need to do 
something besides talk about it. We need to provide legislative relief 
and funding so research can be done into this area.
  I am very concerned about the lack of leadership on the part of this 
administration to move forward in putting forth environmental justice 
legislation. I have to say, while as a member in the State Senate in 
California, after two trials of getting a law put forward, we finally 
were able to get environmental legislation passed and signed by our 
Governor. That was the first piece of legislation signed into law in 
the country. Shame on us, and shame on this administration and others 
that have not taken note of that dire need to do something for our 
communities.
  People in my district right now are crying out to see that laws that 
are currently in place are enforced. We find also that many of the 
water tables that are in my district are also contaminated and 
polluted. I represent a district that has four Superfund sites, two 
that were just recently closed. The BKK, now in my neighboring 
district, will be in my new district. People are concerned. The city 
wants to build a golf course and other entertainment and physical 
activities, sports related; but what measures are being put in place to 
safeguard the people that will use that facility? EPA needs to be at 
the table to have the resources to clean up these toxic sites and do 
something about it.
  I am also concerned about the fact that materials are not published 
in different languages for communities that I represent. My district is 
58 percent Latino. Many in that community are not English speakers. 
They are either Asian or Latino. What are we doing about making sure 
that our communities of color, just because they are low income does 
not mean that they do not care about environmental justice and how 
their children are raised.
  We need to put some enforcement and make sure that the language 
capabilities are put in place so people can understand the dangers of 
having their house next to a site that is toxic. Or if there is a 
landfill that a person lives nearby, that the contaminants that are in 
that landfill, while they seep through our water table, how that 
affects our drinking water.

[[Page H1196]]

  The gravel pits, what about the dust and particulate matter that has 
an adverse effect on the health of children and senior centers? We need 
to do much more in terms of enforcement and protections for our 
communities.
  In fact, Latinos, almost by 96 percent, feel we ought to be doing 
more to prioritize the environment. Study after study after study show 
that the Latino community is ready to see these protections put in 
place. Let us put our money where our mouth is.
  As Earth Day approaches, I would ask my colleagues to join in 
activities at our districts to help bring greater awareness amongst 
people of color and the disadvantaged who need to understand that 
policymakers like ourselves truly want to see some changes with respect 
to the environment so that we protect and value Mother Nature and our 
Earth.
  I am working very hard to try to get the National Park Service to 
come in and do a study on one of the largest urban conservancies in the 
country where 7 million people reside. Many of those people are low 
income, many are people of color. This is one of the last acreages that 
is available where we still see wildlife and habitat, where the 
watersheds are not paved over like the L.A. River in California. We do 
not want our rivers paved. We want open space and ability for our 
communities to recreate, to enjoy open habitat and wildlife.
  Mr. Speaker, we need to have resources and we need to have a hearing 
on this bill. That is why I am joining with the gentleman and 
congratulate the gentleman for bringing this issue to the floor, 
because it is something that is imperative for the community I 
represent.
  Mr. Speaker, ``muchos en mi districto quieren mejorar esta communidad 
y limpiar el agua y el aire.'' The translation is, ``Many in my 
district are supportive of improving our community and cleaning the 
water and air.''
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Solis) for such an eloquent statement. The gentlewoman has expressed 
better than I can the outrage that Americans are feeling that this 
administration is ignoring asthmatic children to favor the polluting 
industries.
  I heard over and over again in my district, people would come up and 
say, we understand there is a war on, but we cannot allow that to be 
camouflage for having a war against the environment. That is 
essentially what we are having right now. The administration is 
removing clean air rules that protect asthmatic children, trying to 
remove rules against arsenic in the water.
  Mr. Speaker, I now yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind) 
who has been a voice on a variety of environmental issues.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I commend the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Solis) for the job she has been doing representing her constituents and 
the leadership she has been providing in this Congress on these very 
important issues. And I also commend the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
Inslee). We serve on the Committee on Resources, and we have teamed up 
to work on a variety of issues. Now is the time that we should be 
discussing these issues.
  Yes, we stand united in the war against terrorism, but there are 
other issues that demand public debate and scrutiny. That is the 
essence of our democracy, to have a discussion of these important 
issues: How can we promote economic growth while still being sensitive 
to the ecology and the environment? I think it is important that we put 
together an environmental policy in this country that we can work 
together on in a bipartisan fashion. We have an opportunity.

  I also serve on the Committee on Agriculture, and we have been hard 
at work trying to pass a farm bill that could in fact be implemented 
over the next 10 years. This is an opportunity to change in a 
significant way farm policy in the country so perhaps we are not giving 
as much direct subsidies to a few but very large commodity producers, 
mainly out West, encouraging them to produce more because they are 
getting paid by production rather than what the marketplace would buy, 
and move some of those resources into the conservation title so that 
the farmers who are looking for additional assistance so they can 
practice good land stewardship initiatives on their private lands in 
producing the crops in this country will have the resources to tap 
into.
  These are voluntary, incentive-based programs. Right now three out of 
four farmers that apply for technical assistance in conservation 
program funding are turned away because of the inadequacy of resources. 
Yet if we can increase the area of this farm bill with more resources, 
we will be able to benefit more family farmers in all regions of the 
country rather than skewing the next farm bill to a few very large 
producers.
  This is important because we can also provide economic assistance to 
our producers through these conservation programs; and through these 
conservation programs, it will lead to better watershed management, 
which means better-quality drinking supplies in this country, which is 
important to farmers and communities.
  It will also lead to the protection of important wildlife and fish 
habitat, and ultimately the protection of valuable farmland and topsoil 
itself. Right now we are losing so much topsoil, affecting the 
productive nature of agriculture, and we are losing $300 million of 
applied nitrogen that runs off the farm fields because they do not have 
the conservation programs to prohibit that from occurring. It is 
affecting the water quality in the rivers and streams.
  I am confident in standing here today predicting in the 21st century, 
quality water supply is going to be a huge issue in our country and 
throughout the world. We can do this with sensible farm policy that 
recognizes the value and the value added to these incentive-based 
conservation programs.
  The gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) and I have been hard at 
work trying to shape the next energy bill. In the Senate they are 
debating a variety of provisions on it. We share the common goal that 
we wish to have seen coming out of the House an energy policy that was 
going to devote more in investment and resources into developing a more 
sustainable and self-reliant energy policy for the 21st century. That 
means being serious in investing in R&D and alternative and renewable 
energy sources, and the tremendous potential that fuel cell development 
holds in this country.
  Yet we feel that the House-passed version of the energy bill fell 
short and was inadequate in this area. The key to understanding our 
energy needs in the 21st century is to understand that we cannot 
produce with fossil fuels alone the energy that we are going to need to 
consume in this country in this next century. That means we have to 
look at alternative energy sources: the wind, the power, the 
geothermal, fuel cell development.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman and I went on a trip last year to Norway, 
Denmark, and Iceland to look at their alternative and renewable energy 
programs. Norway is heavily dependent on hydropower. Denmark has 
windmills and wind farms generating a lot of their electricity needs.
  Iceland was interesting. Of course, they have a lot of geothermal, 
but they have a 10-year plan in place right now and are working hard at 
being the first hydrogen-powered society in the world. They are 
converting their auto, bus and fishing fleet, which is huge in Iceland, 
to fuel cell-powered vehicles. They are getting this technology, in 
part, from a company located in Middleton, Wisconsin. So we have some 
local, home-grown company in this country developing the technology and 
assisting another country to make this conversion and pivot off from 
fossil fuel consumption and into hydrogen-powered energy, which is 
really breaking the barriers down and proving to the rest of the world, 
and especially our country, that if we have the leadership and the 
political will and the support within the community, we can do this.

                              {time}  1600

  I think the American people are really looking for this type of 
leadership right now, understanding that we are not going to produce 
enough oil in order to meet our energy needs. Right now we are 
consuming 25 percent of the oil that is being produced throughout the 
world for our own energy needs; yet we only have 3 percent of the oil 
reserves, which by its very nature tells

[[Page H1197]]

you that we are not going to be able to produce enough oil in this 
country to become self-reliant and to wean ourselves off from the 
importation of foreign oil supply.
  We have seen how volatile now the Middle East and the Persian Gulf 
region really is. I look forward to working with my colleague from 
Washington State and also my good friend, the gentleman from New Jersey 
(Mr. Holt), as we continue to look at good policy that will sustain our 
environment; that will protect our valuable natural resources and the 
ecosystems that we all live in and that our communities would like to 
see us do a better job of protecting and see if we can put together a 
long-term, commonsense energy policy that recognizes the potential that 
exists with alternatives and renewables and with fuel cell and with the 
technology that is being developed right now in private industry in 
this country.
  Hopefully, we will be able to work in partnership with the private 
sector in order to make this conversion in the 21st century. I thank 
the gentleman for giving me a little bit of time today to talk about 
this very important issue. We will look forward to working with both of 
you in the future.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the gentleman from 
Wisconsin's comments, because I think it gave the lie to this sort of 
myth that if it is good for the environment, it must be bad for the 
economy. I think that wrongheaded thinking has led, frankly, to a lot 
of the administration proposals that have gone backwards on the 
environment, because the fact is that somebody is going to make a ton 
of money on these new technologies, in hydrogen and wind power and 
solar, in new hybrid cars. Somebody is going to get filthy rich on 
this, and it should be us.
  Mr. KIND. What is really interesting is it is almost as if the 
private sector is way ahead of the curve in regards to the policymakers 
in Congress and with the administration because they are already 
starting to invest in a lot of this technology. They are already trying 
to build more energy-efficient buildings because they know that that is 
going to be a plus on the bottom line of their businesses. They also 
know that it is not a healthy situation to be so dependent on foreign 
energy sources for our needs. The private sector, I think, is leading 
the charge and looking for comparable leadership by the policymakers of 
this country. We just need to dovetail into what a lot of companies are 
already investing in and what they are already encouraging by their own 
practices.
  Mr. INSLEE. We are going to try to change that orientation where 
right now 85 percent of all the resources here in the House-passed bill 
goes to the old industry and only 15 percent to the new. We are going 
to try to change that.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), who 
has been doing a great job.
  Mr. HOLT. I thank my friend from Washington for yielding. I am 
pleased to be here with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind), who 
understands the word ``sustainable'' and tries to build that into the 
agriculture bill to protect topsoil and water. It is a key word, 
sustainable, here.
  If I may take issue with my good friend from Washington, perhaps the 
phrase should not be ``filthy rich,'' but we will become ``clean rich'' 
if American industry takes advantage of the opportunity for developing 
sustainable technologies. It is not a matter of growth or environmental 
protection; and we cannot emphasize that too strongly, because we have 
got to beat down this misconception that the administration appears to 
have, and that I must say the leadership here in the House seems to 
have, that environmental protection is somehow costly. As the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) points out, the cost of not 
doing anything is great, the cost in child asthma, the cost in public 
health.
  But let me turn to something here that emphasizes it in a way that I 
think even the most hard-nosed business type would understand. This is 
an article that just appeared a few days ago, written by the chief 
executive officer of BP, one of the world's largest corporations. They 
not only produce energy and drill for oil but they also, of course, use 
a lot of energy. They decided, 5 years ago, that they should cut their 
energy use and that they could cut their energy use. The reason was 
that the emission of carbon into the atmosphere was changing the 
climate for the worse and that to do nothing would be costly to society 
and perhaps, they thought, even costly to themselves.
  And so they thought that they would take preventive action. They have 
cut their carbon emissions to below their 1990 level. Back in 1997 when 
they set themselves on this course, they set a 10-year goal. Already 
halfway into that time period, they have already achieved their goal of 
cutting their carbon emissions below the 1990 level by 10 percent. But 
get this, here is the clincher. Today, says Lord Browne, we can assert 
two things with confidence: savings from reduced energy inputs and 
increased efficiency outweigh all the expenditures involved. In other 
words, they did it at no cost. And growth is not at risk from this 
precautionary action.
  If BP can do it, any company can do it. And if they can do it, a 
country can do it. Unfortunately, the administration here in the United 
States has taken the approach that, Well, no, we cannot cut our carbon 
emissions. What we are going to do is not let our carbon emissions grow 
quite so fast. We won't let them grow quite as fast as our gross 
domestic product is growing. I have news for the President. That has 
been true since 1975. Our carbon emissions have been growing less fast 
than our economy. In other words, the President is saying, let's take a 
do-nothing approach to the greatest environmental insult that we are, 
our country, our globe, placing on the environment. And we have right 
here very good evidence from a hard-nosed business person that we can 
cut these greenhouse gases at no cost to our economic growth.
  As you and the gentleman from Wisconsin point out, with other 
technologies, we can even contribute to our economic growth. There is 
money to be made in clean, sustainable environmental technologies. We 
should be there taking advantage of them. I applaud my colleague for 
not only taking the time now to make these good points that he has made 
but for all the work he is doing day in and day out on these 
environmental issues. I am pleased to be here in the company of such a 
devoted environmentalist.
  Mr. INSLEE. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey. I am sure at least 
some of the people who have heard you realize that you are, I think, 
the only physicist in the House. Is there another physicist in the 
House or are you the only physicist in the House?
  Mr. HOLT. As a physicist I am sure I have spent more time on energy 
questions and energy technology than any other Member of the House. It 
is something that I think is so important to do, because, as I was 
alluding to before, I would say the number one insult to our planet is 
the way we produce and use energy. We have to turn attention to a way 
to do that in a sustainable fashion.
  Mr. INSLEE. As our only physicist, we really appreciate you coming 
down here today to talk about this. I agree with you. The most 
important insult is the climate-change issue, the one that I think has 
got to be most demanding; and what I really liked what you said was, we 
are not the pessimists in this debate. We are the optimists. We are the 
guys with the can-do spirit. We believe America can deal with this 
problem effectively, but sticking our head in the sand and taking the 
posture of an ostrich is not effective. Unfortunately that is what the 
administration has done.
  What I liked from what you said is that essentially we are capable 
from a scientific and economic standpoint of dealing with climate 
change; but we lack one thing, and that is leadership. We lack somebody 
at the White House telling America that we can get this job done. I 
think that is what Teddy Roosevelt would have done. He would have said, 
What do you mean we can't build new technologies? You mean the

[[Page H1198]]

Japanese are smarter than we are? You mean the Danes are smarter than 
we are? You mean the people in Iceland are somehow more technologically 
advanced than Americans? That is nuts. Yet right now the White House 
has taken this position of surrender to these other countries that are 
leading us in these new technologies. I appreciate your words of 
optimism because I believe they are the right ones. I want to thank the 
gentleman from New Jersey for his comments.

  Mr. Speaker, to summarize here and comment, we have been talking 
about a disappointing aspect of our American public policy. The 
disappointment is that on a whole host of issues, the leader of the 
free world, the administration that has the capability of rallying this 
Nation to tremendous positive change from an environmental perspective, 
the administration that has within itself the ability to adopt rules to 
try to reduce kids from having asthma, is going the wrong way. The 
administration that has the ability to reduce the amount of arsenic and 
selenium and cyanide in our drinking water is going the wrong way. The 
administration that has the ability to assure that the last one-third 
of our national forests that have not been clear-cut so our grandkids 
will be able to see those forests some day is going the wrong way.
  The administration that has the ability to lead the world to deal 
with this problem of climate change so that we can keep this general 
system as we have it, the way we grew up, so that it rains when it 
should and it gets cold when it should, is going the wrong way. The 
administration that has the ability to make sure that mines do not leak 
toxic substances is going in the wrong way. The administration that has 
the ability to make sure that our Superfund site rules, so that you do 
not have to pay for the toxics in the soil that get the cleanup, the 
polluters have got to pay for it, is going the wrong way. The 
administration that has the ability to get our cars to be some modest 
level, better efficiency to save us money and save the environment is 
going the wrong way. It is a sad story to have to say this today, 
because we are a great, optimistic, and creative people and we have the 
ability, the heart and the desire to leave this planet as good as it 
was when we were born.
  I stand here today to say that this House should join the U.S. Senate 
and the administration to go forward on the environment rather than 
backwards, and this administration is going to turn on a dime and go 
180 degrees different from where it is going right now, which is 
backwards on the environment. I urge anybody that feels the way I do to 
take every step you can to see to it that we go that way.

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