[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

[[Page S4176]]

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

[[Page S4177]]

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

[[Page S4178]]

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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