[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5]
[Senate]
[Pages 7103-7104]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          TRAGEDY IN COLORADO

  Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. President, I thank my friends, the Senator from 
Nevada, Mr. Reid, and the Senator from California for the condolences 
and well wishes they have offered.
  Yesterday, the parents in Jefferson County, CO, said goodbye to their 
children on their way to school as they have done on countless 
mornings, and as I have done, and as you have also done as a parent 
over the years. But for some, that goodbye must now be their final 
farewell. As a parent and grandparent and the husband of a person who 
taught school for over 10 years, I can't imagine the agony those 
families are feeling this morning. Today, my whole State is paralyzed 
with grief, as you might know.
  Hundreds of families in Colorado endured a life-or-death lottery--
knowing students at Columbine High School were dead, but not knowing if 
their youngsters were among those killed. It is tragic that on Earth 
Day the remains of those students will be returned to the Earth while 
their souls go to heaven.
  The community of Littleton is a very nice town. I visit there often. 
Mr. President, Columbine High School is a fine school, with a fine 
staff, a good curriculum and nice youngsters. It has no history of 
racial violence or gang trouble or anything of that nature. It was not 
a school you would ever expect something like this to happen in. 
Certainly, there is a story in that and a tragedy. For those families, 
there will be no more hurried breakfasts, no more arguments over 
curfews when they send the youngsters to school, no more report cards, 
no more money for trips to the malls, and no more plans for after they 
leave high school.
  What really frightens me is that, despite our best intentions to 
prevent this from happening, these horrors find a way to continue. In 
fact, Colorado has had a law on the books since 1994 that prevents any 
weapons from going into a public school. But they still do. With a gun, 
a bomb, a knife, a club, or whatever, young people are using violence 
as a way to resolve disagreements.
  I don't know how we got there. Perhaps nobody does. I can remember 
the days when young people decided it was OK to have disagreements in 
the streets and they might have fist fights after school, or drag 
races, things of that nature. Those means were not right or acceptable, 
but those days are long gone. Now, too often they tend to kill their 
way to solutions. The disputes in those days were between two 
individuals, and they ended up shaking hands. Somebody lost and 
somebody won. In those days, we all lived through it. Now, all too 
often some of the parties to a conflict lose their lives. I don't know 
when we traded pugilism for pipe bombs. Frankly, I don't think they 
have found all the bombs at Littleton High School. They are still 
searching.
  In fact, one went off at 2 o'clock this morning.
  I don't know when these youngsters got accustomed to killing each 
other. But I know we often blame television, we blame movies, we blame 
video games, and we blame a number of other things.
  But those children in Jefferson County and their families ache every 
day. I just wanted to tell the people of Colorado that my colleagues, 
Senator Wyden, Senator Feinstein, Senator Reid, Senator Lautenberg, and 
a number of others have all offered their sympathies, and want people 
in Colorado to know that our hearts in the United States Senate are 
with all of the families through this terrible and tragic time.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, in 1969, American astronauts heading for 
the first walk on the moon sent back breathtaking pictures of the 
Earth. Later that year, Senator Gaylord Nelson called on teachers and 
students to hold a national teach-in on environmental issues.
  The two events were closely related. The NASA photos gave everyone on 
Earth an inescapable image of our planet as one world, a tiny ``blue 
ball'' floating in the vastness of space. Along with Senator Nelson's 
call to action, it helped galvanize a growing consciousness of the 
Earth's fragile environment and how it was affected by human activity.
  Millions of people answered Gaylord Nelson's call. On April 22, 1970, 
over 20 million Americans--including students at 10,000 public schools 
and a thousand colleges--gathered to express their concern about 
environmental issues. ``Earth Day'' was born.
  Congress responded quickly by establishing the Environmental 
Protection Agency and enacting three sweeping laws that laid the 
cornerstone for the environmental protections we enjoy today: the Clean 
Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the National Environmental Policy 
Act.
  The first Earth Day and its aftermath were a great success. On Earth 
Day 1999, we can celebrate the fact that the air we breathe, the water 
we drink, and our oceans, rivers, and streams are cleaner now than when 
Earth Day was first celebrated. In the past three decades, we have 
banned lead in gasoline. We banned DDT. We reduced toxic air emissions. 
We established strong public health standards for drinking water. We 
eliminated direct dumping of sewage into our oceans, rivers, lakes, and 
streams.
  We have made great progress in providing a safer and healthier 
environment for ourselves and our children. But we still have a long 
way to go, especially where children are concerned. Most of our 
environmental standards are designed to protect adults rather than 
children. In most cases, we haven't even done the tests that would 
allow us to measure how harmful substances affect our children. And, 
perhaps most surprisingly, in the face of that uncertainty, we don't 
presume that harmful substances may present special dangers to our 
children and adopt a more protective standard.
  In effect, our environmental laws assume that what we don't know 
about harmful substances won't hurt our children.
  That is why I wrote my Children's Environmental Protection Act, or 
CEPA. CEPA would child-proof our environmental laws. It would require 
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set environmental 
standards to protect children. And, most importantly, if there is no 
specific data that would allow EPA to measure the dangers to children, 
it requires EPA to set a more protective standard to take that lack of 
information into account.
  As we strive to give our children a safer environment, we must also 
consider the natural legacy we hope to leave them. Along with clean air 
and water, we need to preserve wild places and wide-open spaces for 
future generations to enjoy. We need to preserve historic sites, 
conserve farmland, and maintain public parks.
  Earlier this year, Congressman George Miller and I introduced 
sweeping legislation in the Senate and the House of Representatives to 
protect America's historic and natural heritage. The Permanent 
Protection for America's Resources 2000 Act--or Resources 2000--sets 
aside $2.3 billion annually in offshore oil and gas drilling revenues 
to create a sustainable source of funding to acquire and maintain 
public lands, expand urban recreation opportunities, and protect the 
Nation's marine, wildlife, and historic resources.
  To mention just one example, Resources 2000 would mandate full 
funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. In 1965, Congress 
established this Fund, which was to receive $900 million a year from 
Federal oil revenues for acquisition of sensitive lands and wetlands. 
The good news is that Fund has collected over $21 billion since 1965. 
The bad news is that only $9 billion of this amount has been spent on 
its intended uses. More than $12 billion has been shifted into other 
Federal accounts. Resources 2000 would fund the Land and Water 
Conservation Fund at $900 million per year, the full level authorized 
by Congress.

[[Page 7104]]

  On Earth Day 1999, I ask my colleagues once again to answer Gaylord 
Nelson's noble call to action. Let us enact an agenda that will sustain 
both a healthy economy and a healthy environment. Let us rededicate 
ourselves to the principles of Earth Day and do all we can to heal, 
protect, and honor the Earth.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I came here today to talk about the work 
we are doing to protect our environment, but first I would just like to 
express my deep sorrow over yesterday's tragic shooting in Littleton, 
Colorado and to tell the students, teachers and their families that 
they are in our thoughts and our hearts.
  Mr. President, we are here to celebrate the last Earth Day before the 
21st century. As a nation, we have made great strides in the last three 
decades in protecting important ecosystems, cleaning up past mistakes 
and improving the environmental records of industry and agriculture. I 
am confident that as we move into the 21st century, our Nation will 
continue to be a leader in both environmental protection and economic 
strength.
  In the Pacific Northwest, one of our most pressing challenges is to 
restore our dwindling wild salmon stocks. This year, the Puget Sound 
chinook salmon was listed on the endangered species list, making it one 
of the first species in the Nation to require protection efforts in an 
intensely developed metropolitan area.
  This will give our region an opportunity to highlight again how we 
can both thrive economically and provide critical protection to other 
species. Already we have seen examples across our State. Farmers have 
modified irrigation systems to make them more salmon-friendly. Forest 
landowners have foregone timber harvest in sensitive areas and 
replanted along streams with vegetation particularly beneficial to 
fish. Citizens of our urban areas have taken the first steps toward a 
comprehensive plan to restore urban salmon and have joined forces to 
restore devastated wetlands and streams.
  One of the important lessons we should have learned about 
environmental protection is it is much easier--and far less costly--to 
preserve an ecosystem rather than try to repair it once it has been 
destroyed. That is one of the reasons I am pushing my colleagues so 
hard to pass my legislation to create a Wild and Scenic River on the 
Hanford Reach of the Columbia River. These are the last free-flowing 51 
miles of this mighty river and they contain some of the most productive 
and important fish spawning habitat in the lower 48 States. The reach 
produces 80 percent of the Columbia Basin's fall chinook salmon, as 
well as thriving runs of steelhead trout and sturgeon. While most of 
the Columbia River Basin were being developed during the middle of this 
century, the Hanford Reach and other buffer areas within the Hanford 
Nuclear Reservation were kept pristine by the same veil of secrecy and 
security that lead to the contamination of the central Hanford Site.
  Mr. President, we have been offered an opportunity to continue to 
grow the rural economy of central Washington while protecting this 
vital source of our economic strength that the Columbia River provides. 
Creating a Wild and Scenic River could help us avoid drastic protection 
measures, like breaching the dams along the Columbia Snake River 
systems to save salmon. This simple step will demonstrate our 
commitment both to protecting wild salmon and to the economic and 
social structure of the inland West.
  Today, we also celebrate the introduction of legislation to protect 
another national treasure: the wilderness of the Arctic National 
Wildlife Refuge. Senator Roth will again introduce, and I will 
cosponsor, his bill to protect one of the only remaining complete and 
undisturbed arctic ecosystems in the world. It is home to an abundance 
of wildlife, including grizzly and polar bears, musk-oxen, wolves, and 
a host of migratory bird species. It is also home to the magnificent 
porcupine caribou herd, whose 160,000 members rely on this coastal 
plain for their calving grounds.
  This bill will prohibit development of oil within the fragile 
wilderness of the refuge. Oil development would likely disrupt the 
porcupine caribou and force them to change their calving grounds and 
migratory routes. This, in turn, will adversely impact the lifestyle 
and culture of their neighbors, the Gwich'in people.
  Proponents of development claim that only 13,000 acres of the refuge 
will be impacted. While this may be true, that development will take 
place in the biological heart of ANWR and have a devastating impact on 
the wilderness values of the area. In this biological heart, developers 
will create a major industrial complex. They will build hundreds of 
miles of roads and pipelines, erect housing for thousands of workers, 
and construct two sea ports and one airport. These developments will 
lead to mining of enormous amounts of gravel, will require diversion of 
streams and will result in pollution of fragile tundra.
  Mr. President, as we celebrate the last earth day before the 21st 
century, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to come 
together to support both of these bills in order to hand down to our 
children and grandchildren a part of America's great natural legacy.
  I yield the floor.
  I note the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. McConnell and Mr. Lieberman pertaining to the 
introduction of S. 846 are located in today's Record under ``Statements 
on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair, in his capacity as a Senator from 
the State of New Hampshire, suggests the absence of a quorum.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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