[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 13]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 17819]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      CONFERENCE OF MAYORS CALLS FOR ADDITIONAL SUPERFUND DOLLARS

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BARNEY FRANK

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, September 8, 2004

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, as the Representative of a 
district which contains a number of abandoned industrial sites, I have 
a particular interest in the Superfund program. Sadly, the priorities 
of the Congressional majority and the current administration do not 
include Superfund, and as a consequence, this important environmental 
cleanup program has been denied the resources needed to meet the 
promise we have made to many American communities.
  In my own district there are three Superfund sites on which I have 
worked hard, and where we have made some progress, but where inadequate 
funding threatens to deny the people of the City of New Bedford and the 
Towns of Fairhaven and Norton the full environmental response to which 
they are entitled by federal law.
  This is a problem of national scope, as evidenced by the fact that 
the United States Conference of Mayors, one of the leading voices for 
sensible public policies in our country, recently passed a resolution 
at its 72nd Annual Meeting in Boston calling for ``increasing 
appropriation levels for Superfund.'' The resolution notes the slowdown 
in remediation that is taking place because of the preference for tax 
cuts for the wealthy over important public needs, and urges us to 
increase the Superfund appropriation by $300 million a year for the 
next five years.
  This is a very well informed and important statement from a group of 
thoughtful public officials who share with us the responsibility for 
public policy in this country, and I ask that the Conference of Mayors' 
very cogent resolution be printed here.

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