[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 63 (Thursday, May 16, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4427-S4430]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE ENVIRONMENT

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I take to the floor this morning to talk 
about an issue that is very near and dear to the hearts of the American 
people. It is very near and dear to the hearts of Californians and very 
near and dear to my heart. That is a clean and healthy environment for 
our people. I know the Presiding Officer shares my view on this very 
important issue.
  When I was a little girl, my mother would say you can have 
everything, but if you don't have your health, you

[[Page S4428]]

really don't have anything. She was right about that. The older I get, 
the more I realize that is true. You can have a wonderful home, 
wonderful family, but if someone is ill, someone has chronic problems, 
it takes over. That is what a clean and healthy environment means. It 
means clean air; it means clean water, safe drinking water; it means 
beautiful places to take your family.
  In the old days, people used to say only the elitists were 
environmentalists. In other words, it was a movement about people who 
had everything. The truth is, it is quite the contrary because the 
people who have a lot of resources and a lot of money can buy their own 
environment. They can buy a big piece of property. It can have a lake 
on it, beautiful trees, and mountains. They can enjoy it forever, as 
long as they live. But ordinary families cannot do that. They need to 
rely on the environment that we all share.
  Most of our people live in urban areas or near urban areas. In 
California, about 90 percent of our people live close to urban areas. 
In the rest in the country as a whole, it is almost 80 percent. The 
fact is, most of us live near businesses, and some pollute. We live in 
a shared environment. Sometimes it is an environment that is not as 
healthy as it should be. We know now what causes the pollution. It is 
no great surprise.
  What brings me here? To say that I am distressed at the record of 
this administration on the environment. Almost every day we have 
something else to which we can say: Oh my God, what are they doing? We 
believe it is time to call attention to it. We think when we call 
attention to it, they may well change their ways. We have proof of that 
in one particular issue that I will discuss. But, also, the American 
people need to know the values of this administration compared to their 
own values. When so many of our children have asthma, this is not a 
time to turn away from the Clean Air Act and put up some phony proposal 
that you say is better but is worse. We have a leader on that issue, 
Senator Jeffords, very clearly saying that is the direction in which 
this administration is going.

  When we have children who are suffering from too much lead in their 
blood and we know that leads to disability, sometimes coma, blindness, 
sometimes even death--certainly learning disabilities and mental 
retardation--it is not a time to float a proposal that says we should 
stop testing poor kids for lead in their blood.
  What has happened as a result of this attack on the environment--and, 
by the way, I will go through more issues--is that our majority leader, 
Tom Daschle, has appointed what I call the E team, the environmental 
team. That team comprises several Senators: Bill Nelson, Cantwell, 
Clinton, Reid, Wyden, Lieberman, Torricelli, and myself. We are 
examining on a daily basis what this administration is doing to us on 
the environment. We have created a Toxic Trophy Award to go to those 
particular agencies that are doing the most damage.
  Two weeks ago, we gave that award to the Department of Health and 
Human Services for their proposal to consider not testing poor kids for 
lead in their blood. We pounded away pretty hard and we presented our 
Toxic Award in a ceremony. They were not there, but in absentia we 
presented the award. Guess what happened. Yesterday we read in the 
paper that they decided they are going to back away.
  We are really glad. We see this happening all over. My friend is very 
involved in education issues. Senator Kennedy and I know that the 
Presiding Officer, Senator Reed, and others were there to point out the 
administration is going to make it more difficult for our young people 
to pay back college loans. You pounded on this administration, and 
guess what happened. They backed away.
  We think this administration functions in a very interesting way. 
They do a lot of things in the dead of night. They hope nobody notices. 
The newspapers may write a couple of articles, but then they figure the 
publicity will die down. And the American people, frankly, are worse 
for it.
  The E team and the other teams Senator Daschle has set up, be it for 
prescription drugs or Social Security, the many issues we are looking 
at, are not going to allow these policy changes to go unnoticed.
  Today I want to put on record and share with you, Mr. President, 
since I see you are the one with whom I can share it, what has happened 
since this administration took over in terms of the environment.
  We think the place to start is an organization called the Natural 
Resources Defense Council, the NRDC. This is a great organization. They 
are nonprofit and nonpartisan. They employ about 200-plus lawyers and 
scientists to follow what various administrations are doing with regard 
to the environment. As I say, they are very nonpartisan. They did not 
like a couple of things the Clinton administration did, and they went 
pretty heavily for it on a few issues. They are unrelenting in their 
pursuit of a clean environment for our families.
  Most of the time they agreed with the Clinton administration because 
the Clinton administration, I would say, was probably the most pro-
environmental administration we have seen in many years. But even then, 
when they believed the administration was wrong, they went after them.

  They have kept a record of this administration's decisions on the 
environment. That is what I want to talk about. What they have found is 
that there are more than 90 separate actions this administration has 
taken that are bad for public health and the environment. Let me repeat 
that. They have not been in office that long--it seems like yesterday--
and already 90 separate actions that this administration has taken are 
bad for public health and the environment.
  I do not have time to put this entire list in, but let me show you 
the report. It is called ``Rewriting The Rules, The Bush 
Administration's Assault On The Environment.'' It has a picture of some 
beautiful land with a used tire in the middle. Everyone should get a 
copy of this. You can go on their Web site, nrdc.org, and find out what 
is happening.
  I am glad one of the members of my E team is here, Senator Nelson of 
Florida. I am opening, and when I get to the Superfund, I would like to 
get into a colloquy with him, if he can.
  Does the Senator have time to stay for about 15 minutes?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Certainly.
  Mrs. BOXER. Let's start from the beginning. The administration took 
over in 2001. One of the first things they did was to hold up proposed 
rules announced by EPA in December of 2000 that were designed to 
minimize raw sewage discharges and to require public notification of 
sewage overflows.
  There is nothing more ugly than sewage overflows--without going into 
any detail. Why on Earth would they reverse the decision to minimize 
sewage overflows? You will have to ask them. Last year alone, there 
were some 40,000 discharges of untreated sewage carrying bacteria, 
viruses and, frankly, fecal matter into basements, streams, 
playgrounds, and waterways across the country. That rule is still 
delayed today.
  On March 13, 2001, President Bush broke the promise he made during 
the campaign and he announced he would not regulate carbon dioxide, the 
chief contributor to global warming. He is not going to go after the 
powerplants. This is where Senator Jeffords is taking this 
administration on, and I am right by his side, as is the E team.
  On May 22, the administration suspended the new standard for arsenic 
in drinking water. My friend Senator Nelson and I just went wild on 
that point. When we took to the floor and shined the light on this 
subject, they changed their mind and they decided to let the Clinton 
rule go into place: 10 parts per billion. We know the old standard that 
they seemed to want to have, because they delayed the new standard, 
causes cancer in 1 in 100 people. So we had to fight very hard on 
arsenic. By the way, the fight isn't over because now we are learning 
from scientists that 10 is too high, 10 parts per billion; we need to 
go down to 3. So we have a fight there.
  On May 3, the administration reversed a 25-year-old Clean Water Act 
rule that restricted the disposal of mining and other industrial solid 
wastes in our waterways. The EPA then issued a new rule, making it 
illegal for coal companies to dump ``fill material,'' which includes 
waste material from mountaintop mining, into our

[[Page S4429]]

rivers, our streams, our lakes and our wetlands.''
  I don't know whether the President really listens to the words:

     O beautiful for spacious skies,
     For amber waves of grain,
     For purple mountain majesties
     Above the fruited plain!
     America! America!
     God shed his grace on thee.

  He doesn't seem to understand beauty that we have been given by God, 
to be honest. I don't see it. Either that or he has not taken an 
interest. But, either way, the decisions of this administration--I have 
just shared a few. There are 90 of them. Go up on the NRDC site and get 
the rest of them--would make you shudder. That is why Senator Daschle 
set up this E team--to take a light and shine it on what is happening.
  I am going to get to the issue I know Senator Nelson is very upset 
about, and that is the Superfund. Before I yield to him in a colloquy, 
let me show, in a chart form, what is actually happening. I want to 
show how many strip mine sites there are across this great land of 
ours. This is the EPA's own Web site, and this is the NPL sites, which 
are the priority sites, the worst sites. You don't see much yellow 
here. Yellow indicates the places that have no Superfund sites. Purple 
represents the ones that have the sites. So we are talking about an 
issue that impacts our entire Nation.
  The health effects of these sites are very real. What are they? When 
we say Superfund, it means these are the most toxic sites. When you 
live near a Superfund site, studies show there are increased birth 
defects, low birth weights, changes in pulmonary function--that is 
breathing--neurological damaging--that is the brain--and leukemia.
  If you live near one of these sites, you have a better chance of 
getting really sick, and particularly your children because--what have 
we said here so many times--children are the most vulnerable when it 
comes to being exposed to toxins and pollution. Why is that? Their 
bodies are changing and growing in the midst of these toxins. And they 
are small, so when they breathe in the air in proportion to their body 
weight, it is much more of an important factor.
  Now, I often say, children are not little adults. I am a little 
adult. I am stronger. If I lived near one of these sites, I could get 
sick because I am not as strong as a big 155-pound male, which is 
always the standard on which we measure progress. But little kids, they 
are the ones who get hurt.
  So there are 1,200 national priority list Superfund sites, NPL sites. 
And nearly 70 million Americans, including 4 million children, live 
within 4 miles of a Superfund site. Let me reiterate: 70 million 
Americans live within 4 miles of a Superfund site. And we know if you 
live near a site, you are at greater risk of getting very ill. We know 
4 million children live near Superfund sites.
  Mr. REID. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mrs. BOXER. I am happy to do so.
  Mr. REID. One of the things I have been trying to do is tell people 
in Nevada we should not be afraid of Superfund sites. Let me give the 
Senator from California an example.

  In northern Nevada, Sparks, which is a suburb of Reno, there was a 
huge gravel pit, much larger than the Capitol Building. It was huge.
  One day, a number of years ago, somebody started seeing black rings 
around this pit. And months and months went by and the State simply was 
ill-equipped to handle the many problems involving a Superfund. I 
thought something might be involved.
  So to make a long story short, the Senator from California and I have 
served on the Environment and Public Works Committee for a long time, 
and I sent a staff person to look at it.
  We held a hearing, and within 2 weeks that was declared an emergency 
Superfund site because millions of gallons of oil had been spilled by 
the oil companies into the ground. It could have been extremely 
dangerous.
  Again, I will make this story shorter than it probably should be, but 
that place now, after having been declared a Superfund site, is one of 
the most beautiful places in all of northern Nevada. It is called 
Sparks Marina. There are boats out in this beautiful area which used to 
be an ugly gravel pit. Now it is a marina with recreation.
  They are now going to build some apartments and homes next to it.
  So I say to my friend from California, I appreciate very much, as 
someone from Nevada, that Senators are here this morning talking about 
the inadequacies and fallacies of this administration relating to the 
environment. But I also want to pinpoint what Senators are talking 
about with regard to Superfund sites because we should be spending more 
money on Superfund sites so we can have, across this country, more 
Sparks Marinas rather than less Sparks Marinas.
  So I appreciate very much the Senator from California bringing this 
to the Senate's attention.
  Mrs. BOXER. I say to the Senator, that is the point. If we can clean 
up these sites, the Senator is so right--the same way with 
brownfields--they are then safe, productive land, good for the 
community. The reason we are on the floor of the Senate today--and the 
Senator is part of my E team, and he will understand this--this 
wonderful story occurred because the site was cleaned. If the site sat 
there, people would have been fearful, and should have been fearful. 
And that is why I want to get to this next point.
  Mr. REID. Before the Senator does, let me make one additional point. 
That beautiful Sparks Marina was cleaned up without a single penny of 
taxpayers' money. It was paid for by the polluters who were forced into 
cleaning that up when it was declared a Superfund site because had they 
not come forward and then been found guilty, they would have been 
charged three times the actual damages.
  Mrs. BOXER. My friend has now hit on the very two issues that we are 
going to talk about in the next few minutes. The first one is the 
importance of cleaning up the sites and what it means when you do that. 
The second point is the importance of ``polluter pays'' as a concept 
that is now being threatened.
  So what is happening under this administration, I say to my friends, 
is this: This administration is going to cut in half the number of 
sites to be cleaned up. I should not say they are going to; they have 
so stated.
  So we are going from the Clinton administration, where the last 
cleanups reflected in the year 2000 were 87 sites cleaned up, to now, 
under this administration, they are talking about cleaning up 47. They 
did 47 last year. So that means it has already been cut in half. And 
they want to continue to go down, down, down. So we see here a walking 
away from the Superfund Program.

  I say to my friend from Florida, what is so stunning about this is 
the only way we found this out was by digging and digging through EPA 
documents. We have asked in the Environment Committee--I am the chair 
of the Superfund Subcommittee--for a list of which sites are not going 
to be cleaned up. They first promised to do 75, and they did 47. Then 
they said they would do 65, and now they have said they are going to do 
40. So they are down, from a high of 88 to 40. We cannot get the list 
of what sites they will not clean up.
  I have a chart in the Chamber showing NPL sites. We do not know where 
the sites are. Mr. President, they could be in your State. They could 
be in Florida. They could be in my State. I have over 100 sites--100 
sites--in my State, and 40 percent of my people--and that is a big 
number; we have 35 million people--live within 5 miles of a Superfund 
site.
  So we are all in this together. There is only one State that has no 
sites, and that is North Dakota. Lucky North Dakota. Well, there are 
not that many people there. But the people who are there do not live 
near a Superfund site. Every other State has a site in it, and no one 
knows where the sites are because the administration will not tell us. 
By October, they have to expend the money, and the administration says 
they don't have the list ready.
  I believe at some point we are going to have to subpoena this 
information because how would you feel, Mr. President, if you were a 
property owner, and you anticipated a site near you was going to be 
cleaned, and suddenly you were told it would not be? You would want to 
have some advance notice so you could protest, so you could call your 
Senator and say to him or her: Fight for me. This isn't right.

[[Page S4430]]

  We have a site in New Jersey where, honestly, the rabbits there have 
turned a horrible color of green because of the Agent Orange on the 
site, arsenic on the site.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California has 5 
minutes remaining.
  Mrs. BOXER. I will yield to my friend some time to ask me some 
questions. But I will say this: We are in a mess. Half of the sites 
that we thought were going to be cleaned up will not be cleaned up.
  The last point is the point on ``polluter pays.'' I have a chart I 
will show you, and then I will yield.
  ``Polluter pays'' has been a theory and a practice. Now what the 
administration is doing--we always had a situation where taxpayer funds 
only paid for about 18 percent of the cleanup, and 82 percent was paid 
by the responsible parties and other funds.
  Now, under this administration, in 2003, because there is no 
Superfund fee in place anymore, 54 percent of the program is going to 
be paid by taxpayers.
  So I ask a rhetorical question to this administration: Where have you 
been, when we have made a point that polluter pays is basic?
  I yield to my friend for questions or comments, but I also ask 
unanimous consent for 5 additional minutes on our side.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Is there objection?
  The Chair hears none, and it is so ordered.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I thank the Senator from California for 
yielding.
  I would like to talk about 1 of those 1,222 sites around the country, 
51 of which are in my State, 111 in the State of New Jersey, 100 sites 
in the State of California. One of those sites is about 12 miles west 
of Orlando near Lake Apopka at a site called the Old Tower Chemical 
plant which was shut down in 1980 after a plug of witches' brew that 
had been created in a holding pond as a result of cooking DDT--I am not 
making this up; it sounds like a fantasy tale but it is true--after 
cooking this DDT in order to get a chemical byproduct, all of this 
residue flowed into a holding pond.
  What they didn't know was that the holding pond was a sink hole that 
allowed that cooked witches' brew to go right into the water supply, 
the Floridian aquifer and, even with that sink hole, a plug escaped 
over the top of the holding pond and into a creek which flowed into 
Lake Apopka.
  Lake Apopka is a huge lake west of Orlando. It has had quite a few 
environmental problems, not the least of which is a lot of agricultural 
runoff, and so forth. But this Tower Chemical plant was finally shut 
down by EPA when it found that some of this holding pond brew went into 
Lake Apopka.
  Today Lake Apopka's population of 4,000 alligators is down to 400. 
And of those 400, they have found deformities in the alligators. You 
know how tough an alligator is. This site, the Tower Chemical plant, 
still sits out there, not treated, not cleaned up, and there are traces 
of these chemicals in the area in the water supply. There are eight 
residences right in the immediate vicinity. I am trying to get EPA to 
give filters for the water wells that tap the water supply right next 
door to the Tower Chemical plant, just for starters, not to speak of 
the underlying point.
  If we don't have a trust fund that is filled with money for that 
principle that the ``polluter pays,'' there is not going to be any 
money. The money in the trust fund is going to run out next year. So 
how are we going to clean up the Tower Chemical site that could be 
threatening a huge water supply for the State of Florida? There is 
simply no way.
  As to the Bush administration--I said this in Florida the other day--
what has happened to them? Have they taken leave of their senses; to 
say that they are not going to fund, through the principle of the 
``polluter pays,'' the trust fund so we can clean up these 51 sites in 
the State of Florida, the 1,222 sites around the country? If you don't 
do that, either you don't clean up the sites--and there is just too 
much environmental risk--ergo, witness the example I have just given 
you west of Orlando and the Floridian aquifer being threatened--or if 
you are going to clean them up, guess who is going to pay. The general 
taxpayer is going to pay instead of the polluter paying.
  When we passed this bill in 1980--I was a Member of the House of 
Representatives, and I voted for it--it was with the understanding that 
there would be a tradeoff, that the oil companies would trade off their 
liability in future lawsuits by agreeing to the principle of the 
polluter paying, and they and the chemical companies over the years 
would pay into the trust fund. If we don't keep that same principle, 
then the oil companies get off scot-free. They don't have any lawsuit 
liabilities now because of their agreement in exchange for paying in to 
help us clean up these sites. Are we to let them completely off the 
hook so that they will not pay?
  I wanted to bring that one case to the attention of the Senator from 
California as she is talking about the national implications of this. I 
thank the Senator for yielding.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank my colleague. We are not talking about theory. We 
are not talking about an academic proposition. We are talking about 
sites with horrible pollutants and toxins in them, close to people, 
that have to be cleaned up.
  This is the first time I have taken to the floor on this subject. I 
intend to come back. Other members of the team include Hillary Clinton 
and Ron Wyden and Joe Lieberman, and we think Bob Torricelli may join 
us. This is a big issue to the people of this country. We are all 
pulling together on the challenge that was handed to us on 9-11. We 
will pull together on that.
  To me, the most important thing is to understand that there is a 
balance. On domestic issues, when we see this administration going the 
wrong way, repealing laws that reflect values of the American people, 
the value of a healthy environment, the value of a beautiful 
environment, we are going to be here.
  Today we will with Senator Schumer give out another Toxic Trophy 
Award. Senator Cantwell is also on the E team. I think I have covered 
then all of the members.
  I know how strongly we believe in these issues. If we continue to 
shine the light on some of these outrageous proposals, we won't stop 
every one of them, but we will stop some of them. At a minimum, the 
American people will know what this administration is doing, sometimes 
in the dead of night when they are not watching. We intend to be here 
and call attention to these matters in the hope of winning this battle, 
when we consider that there has been a war waged on the environment. We 
will be here as soldiers in that war. We intend to win it.
  I thank the Chair and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Under the previous order, the time until 10 a.m. is under the control 
of the Republican leader or his designee.
  The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

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