[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 52 (Wednesday, April 21, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4175-S4178]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EARTH DAY
Mr. JEFFORDS. I rise to speak about an issue that has been with us
for a long time and for which we have had responsibility and have done
a pretty good job at making sure everything would turn out all right. I
want to talk about clean air, the environment, and areas where we have
made tremendous progress.
As we mark Earth Day tomorrow, rather than celebrating the
environmental legacy, I am afraid we are fighting harder than ever to
protect our progress. Since the day he came into office, President Bush
has worked to gut more than 34 years of hard work by weakening many of
our Nation's standing environmental laws, some of which were signed
into law by his father.
Air pollution is causing 70,000 premature deaths a year in the United
States. Yet this Bush administration has proposed one of the biggest
rollbacks of the Clean Air Act in history. Science tells us more than
600,000 women and children are at risk from mercury contamination. Yet
this Bush administration has proposed to violate a legal requirement to
reduce mercury emissions from powerplants.
As we approach another summer, 40 percent of the U.S. rivers and
lakes remain too polluted for fishing or swimming. In spite of this
fact this Bush administration has proposed fewer bodies of water to be
protected by the Clean Air Act. Toxic waste sites continue to be added
to the Superfund while the Bush administration continues to cut funding
for the program and refuses to reauthorize the ``polluter pays'' law.
The Earth continues to warm and this Bush administration refuses to
act to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. This Bush administration
has a growing credibility gap, maybe even a credibility chasm, on
environmental policy. The President has lost the trust of the American
people when it comes to the environment.
As the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee, I believe we have an obligation to maintain and enforce the
environmental laws already on the books and also to strengthen them.
Unfortunately, our President is moving us backward instead of leading
us forward. I hope we can once again celebrate Earth Day by showing
more respect for our environment.
I yield the floor.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am proud to be here with my friend and
colleague Senator Jeffords, who is the ranking member on the
Environment and Public Works Committee on which I serve. His leadership
has been extraordinary on a whole range of issues, as has been his
dedication to the environment, to protecting people and their
environment.
When we hear protection of the environment, some people think of
wildlife, which is true, and fisheries, which is true, and forests. It
is all true. It is all about preserving these things--first of all,
because they are God's gift to us and that is our moral obligation, but
it also protects the people of our country because we know when species
get endangered, we know when oceans get polluted, we know when we lose
the wetlands, we know when the air is smoggy, it hurts the people we
represent--particularly the children, who are the most vulnerable, the
people who are ill, and the elderly.
If we take our position seriously, what could be more fundamental
than protecting our people? Protecting the environment is protecting
our people. It is what we must do. It is the moral thing to do.
I say to my friend Senator Jeffords--and I see my colleague Senator
Reid of Nevada has come to the floor. I serve with both of them on that
committee. It is a joy to be on that committee--we have a lot of work
to do. We know Earth Day is a time for us to reflect on what our work
should be. Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes founded Earth Day in 1970 to
ensure environmental protection would be a major national issue. It has
been. Tomorrow is the 34th anniversary of Earth Day.
One thing I find when I go home is people are so--I don't like to use
this word, but it is true--they are disgusted with partisanship. They
have had it with partisanship. They want us to work together. On what
better issue could we work together than a clean and healthy
environment? Whether you are a Democrat or Republican or whatever, you
still have to breathe the air; you still have to drink the water; you
still want to take your family to the beach or to the park. It is our
job to protect the environment so you can do that.
We know this issue has been very much a bipartisan issue. When I
think back, what comes to mind is President Nixon founded the EPA. We
look at each President and we see progress has been made across party
lines. Yet with this Presidency--and I think Senator Jeffords has
touched on it and it has to be very painful for him to touch on it--we
see a reversal of years of bipartisan progress. I want to get into
that.
In today's paper there is a big story. The U.S. Commission on Ocean
Policy has given its preliminary report on the state of our oceans.
Happily, they gave us a blueprint for a new, comprehensive, national
ocean policy. This happens to be a Presidentially-appointed commission
composed of academics, naval officers, and members of the business
community. This group, appointed by our President, is telling us our
oceans are in crisis and we need to take action now if we are to
reverse declines. The Commission stated we need to start taking an
ecosystem-based management approach to protect our oceans and marine
species. That means we need to look at the whole environment of the
ocean and not take small steps, but make sure we have policies that
protect the entire ocean.
We need to improve the governance of our oceans by strengthening and
coordinating decisionmaking. The Commission highlighted the need for
greater Federal investment in ocean research and exploration for better
scientific information.
I am someone who has worked for a long time to stop oil drilling off
the coast of California because that is a precious environment we must
protect, and it is an economic asset as it is. I am someone who wrote
the tuna labeling bill which turned out, happily, to save tens of
thousands of dolphins every year. I so welcome this report. I call on
the President to embrace the findings of this report. I call on the
President to work with us and let us know how he wants to implement
this report.
I hope I am wrong in what I am about to say, but given the history of
this administration I am very worried we will not hear much from the
President about steps he is going to take with us to invest in our
environment, to make sure America is the model for the world when it
comes to protecting its natural resources.
Half a billion people participate in Earth Day campaigns every year,
half a billion people across this world. I urge the President to take a
look at this report, to step out on Earth Day and say I embrace this
and we are going to work together to protect the oceans. While he is at
it, I think Earth Day would be a perfect day for him to say he has seen
the light and he is going to reverse all of the environmental rollbacks
he is perpetrating on the American people.
I have a scroll I cannot bring into the Senate Chamber because there
are rules against bringing the scroll in. When I unroll that scroll--
and it goes out 30 feet--we see the more than 350 laws and regulations
that have been rolled back unilaterally by this administration. No one
has been immune from these attacks: not children with asthma, not
communities faced with toxic waste sites, not parents who worry about
what comes out of their faucets.
I couldn't possibly go through every rollback. I don't have enough
time in the day. But what I want to give a sense of is what these
rollbacks look like when they are written down, so I do have a whole
series of charts. It is very hard to read, I know. Each one has a date.
It starts January 20, 2001,
When the White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, issued the memo to
all Federal agencies ordering the 60-day suspension of all rules
finalized by the Clinton administration, including numerous important
regulations to protect the environment and public
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health, that is how they started. It was barely a day that they were in
office. It started then--unrelenting--the same day the administration
held up rules announced by the EPA to minimize raw sewage discharges
and to require those discharges be placed in the public record so that
the public was notified.
To give you a sense of it, last year alone there were 40,000
discharges of untreated sewage carrying bacteria, viruses, and fecal
matter into basements, streets, playgrounds, and waterways across the
country.
My God, who would ever want to stop a rule that said you need to
notify the public and minimize raw sewage into people's basements?
Earth Day is coming. What are we doing here?
That is just the first two on the list.
On February 12, just a couple weeks after he was inaugurated, the
Department of Energy delayed implementation of a new energy-efficient
standard for residential and commercial appliances and equipment.
Again, I come from a State that has an electricity crisis. The best
way to deal with it is to make sure we conserve as much as we can. Why
would anyone think it is in the public interest not to move ahead with
those standards?
This goes on. Here I go. I just landed on this one, August 8, 2001:
In a reversal of President Bush's Earth Day pledge to preserve
wetlands, the Corps of Engineers proposed relaxing a series of rules
designed to protect streams and other wetlands. The Forest Service
granted authority to review road building and timber sale prices,
removing protections for the most pristine and largest roadless
national forests.
We have national forests. We protected them. And the administration
wants to go and build roads in these most precious areas.
It goes on. December 2001, Interior Secretary Norton reverses her
agency's denial of a Canadian company's proposal to locate a major open
pit gold mine in an area of the Southern California desert that is of
great cultural and religious importance. Former Interior Secretary
Babbitt denied it because of the devastating impact it would have had
on the resources of this site.
Wasn't that a cyanide mine? They used cyanide on a beautiful precious
area that is a religious holy site.
My eyes are just landing on different items here.
December 14, right before Christmas, 2001, the Department of Energy
says the Government no longer must prove the Yucca Mountain's
underground rock formations would leak radioactive contamination into
the environment.
Can you imagine dumping radioactive waste and not making sure that it
wouldn't leak into the environment? What are they doing over there? It
is shocking, absolutely shocking.
This upcoming Earth Day is a chance for the President to embrace his
own ocean commission's recommendations and then to step to the plate
and reverse some of these.
Here are some more: January 2002 through May 2002. President Bush
releases the fiscal year 2003 Federal budget that eliminates the EPA's
budget for graduate student research in the environmental sciences.
Funding for the EPA's Star Grant Program, which provides highly
motivated doctoral students with 3 years of funding to do environmental
research, amounts to a little more than one-tenth of 1 percent of the
EPA's budget.
Here is a program where young people who are dedicated to the
environment can continue their education. Oh, no. This is something
that is going to be cut from the budget.
May 10, 2002, EPA documents reveal that the Federal Office of Surface
Mining is pushing to halt reforms that would ensure coal companies have
plans to restore mining development before they can obtain mountain top
removal permits.
Here is a coal mine that wants to go on the top of the mountain. And
we always said you have to have a plan for how you are going to restore
the mountaintop. They say it is OK; go ahead, destroy the mountains; we
really do not care.
How could people understand all of this that is going on?
I am just picking a few.
Let us look at another chart. All of this is on the scroll.
The Bush anti-environmental record, May 2002 through August 2002:
This is something Senator Jeffords talked about.
An Assistant Secretary at the Commerce Department testified that the
Bush administration needs between 2 and 5 years to develop a national
strategy to minimize global warming, and they will seek volunteer
reductions instead of mandatory emission reductions.
The announcement came despite recent civilian employee reports
confirming what most scientists have long believed--greenhouse gases
generated by human activity are a major cause of climate change.
The Commerce Department says, Well, even though the scientists say
this is global warming--and we have had hearings that show that slopes
where people go skiing may not be there in the near future--they are
just going to take their time about it and they are not going to
require companies to clean up their act. They are going to use
voluntary methods. This is just one more example. It goes on and on.
Here is August 2002 through December 2002. Can you imagine all of
these rollbacks by one administration? It is shocking. Any one of
these, I say, deserve days of discussions because of their
ramifications.
Here is one, September 7, 2002: An investigation reveals that under
the Bush administration the number of EPA personnel assigned to enforce
air quality laws has fallen by 12 percent, the lowest level on record.
In addition, the number of EPA civil enforcement employees also has
been cut in the past year by 5.7 percent.
What does that mean? It means the people who are enforcing the laws
we pass are being laid off or transferred out. The polluters understand
it. They are not dumb; they know. If they are not being watched, they
are not going to live up to their obligations.
It is a reversal of years of bipartisan progress. That is what hurts
so much.
As I listened to my friend, Senator Jeffords, who made a very
heartfelt decision to become an independent, one of the reasons he
decided was the environment and that he was perplexed and discouraged
and dismayed at what had happened to his party--his former party. I
understand why he is perplexed.
We just looked at some of these. Let us go ahead. This doesn't stop.
It goes on and on.
Here is 2002 through July 2003. The administration has reversed a
Federal policy that protects public lands while Federal land managers
are assessing possible designations of wilderness areas.
Let me explain that. In the past, if someplace is under consideration
for wilderness designation, you don't go in there with mining companies
and drills. You don't go in there and destroy it while the land is
under consideration for wilderness designation. Once you destroy the
wilderness, this pristine gift from God, it is gone. Never before have
we seen where you go in there and disturb these beautiful areas. But
that is what they do.
Here is one, June 6, clean water: The EPA has racked up an abysmal
record of enforcing Federal water pollution standards, according to its
own study. In the broadest effort to date to document the failure of
the EPA and State to enforce the 30-year-old Clean Water Act, the
Agency's Office of Enforcement and Compliance found that at one time
roughly 25 percent of all large industrial plants and water treatment
facilities were in violation of Federal law, and in all but a handful
of cases EPA failed to take action against the polluters.
The Clean Water Act is 30 years old, and now we are not enforcing it.
The first Clean Water Act was passed under Harry Truman. It has been
amended since then.
We have the Clean Water Act and they decided not to enforce it.
Here is one, March 19, 2004: The Federal Government has issued its
first-ever warning that certain people should limit their consumption
of canned albacore white tuna due to a risk of mercury poisoning. Under
new guidelines issued by the U.S. FDA and EPA, pregnant and nursing
women and young children should eat no more than 6 ounces of white tuna
per week. According to experts on the FDA advisory panel, the
recommendations do
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not reflect the groups' view that children and pregnant women should
completely eliminate albacore tuna from their diets and eat
significantly less chunk light tuna than the Government suggests.
Vas Aposhian, a toxicology professor at the University of Arizona,
resigned from the panel after the FDA did not heed its warnings.
Mercury is a serious problem, and Senator Jeffords has been a leader
on that. Even though we know how harmful it is, they have even tried to
downplay the impact of mercury on women and children.
This will complete more than 350 rollbacks. This is where we are as
we approach this Earth Day.
I am happy to yield for a question.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I thank the Senator for illuminating, pointing out all
of the problems created by this administration. As we go forward, the
challenge we now have is to make sure no more occur.
Many Members on both sides of the aisle are deeply concerned about
what is happening to our environment on this Earth Day. We know that
all Members have to continue to alert this Nation of what the policies
are doing to this Nation.
Mrs. BOXER. I thank my friend for his comments. He is right.
My goodness, at the minimum, we should do no harm. In other words,
let's do no harm. We should do a lot more. We should clean up. We
should do better. We should set ourselves a standard of achievement on
the environment so that areas get cleaner and the water gets purer. At
the minimum, we have to stop bad things from happening.
As we look at more than 350 rollbacks made by this administration,
going around the Congress, going through the executive branch by
Executive order, and rules and interpretations, I tell you who has been
protecting the people. The only way the people have been protected from
some of these things is the courts. We are winning some of these
battles in the courts.
Speaking of the courts, we are still fighting with the Bush-Cheney
administration over the Vice President's desire to keep secret who sat
in on his meetings as he put together the energy policies for this
country which, as my friend knows, very much weigh heavily on the state
of the environment, particularly the quality of the air.
I will be calling on the Vice President, and I might as well start
now, to cease and desist in these lawsuits and turn over the records of
who was in those meetings. Why should the Vice President not want to
reveal this? Instead, it has taken years and thousands of hours of
attorneys' time that the taxpayers are paying for, to keep all this
secret.
I say to my friend, this is an open government, by and for the
people. I don't see any reason why the Vice President needs to keep all
of this secret. That is another issue on which we will be working.
I wish to talk about the Superfund. How much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. A minute and fifteen seconds.
Mrs. BOXER. I will conclude, and I assume my friend would like to
speak again.
Mr. JEFFORDS. I would like to add that we have both witnessed all
this. I don't know how the Senator feels, but I feel perhaps I have not
done as much as I could have, as much as I would like to do.
We have to work together to make sure this terrible onslaught of
destroying our environmental laws stops. And I know the Senator joins
me in that pledge. And that we will do what we can to not get weaker
but hopefully get stronger.
Mrs. BOXER. I say to the Senator, those words mean a lot to me. With
all the other issues we face, and we face some very harsh issues, not
the least of which is that this month alone I have lost 45 people in
Iraq who either were from California or based in California--that
weighs heavy on my heart--we have to do it all. There are no excuses.
This is only one environment. It is hard to bring it back when you
destroy it.
I ask unanimous consent for an additional 5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Would that be 5 minutes for each side?
Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. BOXER. Yes, despite all of our other pressures, we have to
become tougher, stronger. We have to do everything we can.
I try to give out the Toxic Trophy Awards every time one of these
things happens to try to draw attention to what is going on.
I return to my Earth Day comments and the Superfund Program. One in
every four Americans, 70 million people, including 10 million children,
lives within 4 miles of a Superfund site as we sit here today.
During its tenure in office, this administration has cut cleanups of
those sites from 87 per year to 40 per year while refusing to fully
fund the program.
Superfund is experiencing a funding shortfall of up to $800 million.
This President Bush is the first President in history to oppose the
``polluter pays'' fee. His dad supported it, Ronald Reagan supported
it, and Bill Clinton supported it. This was a consensus until now.
What does it mean when you do not have the polluter fee? It means the
taxpayers, not the polluters, pay for the cleanup.
I will show how many Superfund sites we have in the United States:
1,239. As this chart shows, the sites are in almost every single
State. Maybe a State or two escapes, but not many.
In 1995, polluters contributed 82 percent to the Superfund trust
fund. As of October 1, 2003, the trust fund had no money collected from
polluters. This means we will never be able to clean up the most
hazardous wastesites. Do you know what has happened to this budget.
When the keys were handed over in the Oval Office from Bill Clinton to
George Bush, he had a surplus as far as the eye could see. It has been
reckless over there. We now have deficits as far as the eye can see. It
is a very anxious time in our country. Is this the time to now say to
polluters, ``Don't worry, you don't need to pay a fee. We have enough
money in the tax coffers to cover your problems?''
We all love to tell people, ``You don't have to pay taxes.'' That is
the greatest thing for any of us to do. But of all the times to tell
polluters, ``You don't have to clean up your room anymore,'' this is
not the time.
My mother taught me: If you make a mess, you clean it up. I find
myself quoting my mother more and more the older I get. She said other
things like: Don't go where you're not wanted. She said a lot of smart
things to me that I hold close to my heart. One thing is: Clean up your
mess. She was talking about me when I was a kid in my room. I am
talking about polluters, the messes they have made.
So where are we now? We are in a situation where we have reduced the
cleanups. Let's look at it graphically on this chart. Through 2005, we
are going to see 40, if we are lucky--and no money. And when Bill
Clinton took office, the cleanups increased. But George Bush has
radically decreased the pace of cleanup from former administrations,
that is for sure. He has not gotten back to this level as shown on the
chart.
But look at where we are now. Whether you look at the Superfund
sites, whether you look at air pollution, whether you look at safe
drinking water, whether you look at mercury, whether you look at global
warming, whether you look at deep cuts in enforcement, whether you look
at perchlorate, which they refuse to set a standard for, whether you
look at the changes of the Sierra Nevada framework, we are hurting the
environment and the people of this country.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I yield the floor and hope all of us can
work together on this Earth Day to change things around here.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, will the Chair notify this Senator as to how
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much time is left on both sides for morning business?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. On the Democratic side, the time has expired.
On the Republican side, the time is 5 minutes 45 seconds, and counting.
Mr. REID. I say to the Chair, I will just wait until we get to the
motion to proceed. I assume, because I certainly cannot yield back the
Republican time. It is my understanding the Presiding Officer wishes to
speak at some time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Presiding Officer was going to speak if
somebody was going to relieve him.
Mr. REID. I would be happy to relieve the Presiding Officer.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. I appreciate the offer, but I will continue to
preside until our time runs out.
Mr. REID. I will just let the time wind down then, and we will get to
the bill in 5 minutes.
I suggest the absence of a quorum, Mr. President. I understand the
time would run evenly, but if we have no time left, it would just run;
is that right?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I withhold that. Probably it would be best
to ask unanimous consent that the Republican time be reserved and I be
allowed to speak for whatever time I may consume.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. If the majority wants more time, consent could be easily
obtained.
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