[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 13174-13175]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       CONGRESS MISSING IN ACTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 20, 2004, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, often we take to the floor to speak to 
the American public. Well, today I would like to speak to my colleagues 
in the House of Representatives and the men and women who are preparing 
their work for our floor action this week.

[[Page 13175]]

  I would call to their attention that according to the Defense 
Department's own data, the program to clean up unexploded ordnance on 
formerly used defense sites will take as much as 252 years. That means 
in the year 2255 that Congress passing spending bills will still be 
appropriating money to deal with the problem that we could solve today.
  Why, if we have technology that has already realized $100 million 
saving at the former Lowry Bombing Range outside of Denver, Colorado, 
why are we not moving forward to address this problem?
  Despite the fact that this Defense Science Board has proposed 5 
recommendations that would allow us to address this problem, 80 percent 
of it over the next 5 years, why do we do nothing but continue to study 
it? Worse yet, we have actually decreased the funding that is crippling 
the Department of Defense. It is burdening other Federal land 
management agencies and it is endangering the health and safety of the 
American public.
  We have to ask why.
  Is it because we need another tragedy to occur like what happened in 
San Diego when 2 boys were killed when they discovered bombs in their 
neighborhood that, unknown to the residents, sat on top of a former 
bombing range? Is it because somehow we do not need 8 million acres of 
land that we could put in productive use in 5 years instead of 252 
years? Is it because we believe somehow this contamination exists only 
in isolated places when, in fact, it is in every State in the Union and 
almost every Congressional district? Are we somehow unaware that when 
wildfires strike our public lands from New York to Colorado to Alaska 
that many of these lands are former ranges?
  Three times since I have been in Congress we had to pull men and 
women out of the front lines fighting the fires because the extreme 
heat is exploding bombs around them.
  Is it because we are unaware of the plight of a North Carolina couple 
with 5 children who are risking bankruptcy because they moved out of 
their home when their young son found an old bomb in their front yard 
and they feared for the safety of their family? It is now a year-and-a-
half later and they are still paying the mortgage on a home they cannot 
live in. They cannot sell it because the clean up has yet to begin 
because we underfund these programs.
  Are we unaware that in the same area of North Carolina, the former 
Camp Butner, the Army Corps of Engineers has determined that they need 
to investigate another 20,000 acres for unexploded ordnance 
contamination? Yet, developers are buying up land and building homes 
before clean-up has even begun.
  Can we in good conscience risk the health and safety of future 
residents? Is it because we do not know that other residential and 
business developments already exist or are being proposed in Texas, 
South Carolina, California, Colorado, here in Washington, D.C., and 
Massachusetts? Others will surely follow.
  Is it because we are unaware that many of these unexploded bombs and 
discarded munitions are on tribal lands, thereby posing yet another 
hazard to the highly at-risk Native American population? Are we somehow 
unaware that the Federal land managers in the Bureau of Land 
Management, the Fish and Wildlife system, the National Forest Service, 
the National Park Service, where many of these former ranges are 
located, do not have the capacity needed to ensure the public safety?
  Or is it despite the fact that the Department of Defense believes 
that ordnance and munitions on these formerly used sites poses enough 
of a national security risk to remove critical information about the 
sites from the public because they are afraid terrorists may find out, 
but we do not believe these same sites left untouched pose a risk to 
our citizens? Or is it simply that we hope that we can avert a tragedy 
in our lifetime and just pass this risk off to further future 
generations?
  Whatever the reason, it is simply unacceptable. It is indeed 
unconscionable that we continue to turn a blind eye to a responsibility 
that we should be undertaking now.
  After years of working on this issue and seeing Congress still 
missing in action, I will work this week to make sure that my 
colleagues have a chance to be heard, to take action that might help 
protect people at risk in the future.

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