[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7048-7049]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               EARTH DAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rogers of Alabama). Under a previous 
order of the House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, with the approach this week of Earth 
Day, that will soon be followed by a flood of American planners coming 
into our city for their annual conference, I think it is an appropriate 
time for us to step back and think about what the Federal Government 
can do to make a difference for our environment.
  With the help of those people who are involved with the planning 
community looking in the long term, there are a number of things we can 
do that are simple, commonsense, that will make our communities more 
livable, enhance the environment and, at the same time, create real 
value for American families.
  The most important single step that we could undertake would be just 
for the Federal Government to model the behavior that we expect from 
the rest of America, whether it is local government, business, or 
individuals.
  A simple proposition: let us have the Federal Government clean up 
after itself. In just one area, that of the Department of Defense, we 
do not know how many millions of acres are polluted with military 
toxins and unexploded ordnance. The estimates range from 10 million 
acres to 50 million acres or more; and at the rate we are going, it is 
going to take us hundreds of years to meet the Federal Government's 
obligation to clean up these messes; and at the rate we are going, 
frankly, we are creating more problems than we are cleaning up.
  At a time when we are contemplating this next year giving the 
Department of Defense over $1 million a minute, it would seem to be a 
simple environmental expedient to give the men and women in uniform the 
tools to be able to do what they are equipped to do and what they want 
to do, which is leave the environment better than they found it. As the 
largest manager of infrastructure in the world, as the largest creator 
of Superfund sites in the United States, it would seem only right.
  I have been profoundly impressed by the ability of men and women in 
the armed services to identify these problems; and when given the tools 
and the resources, they can solve any problem. Look what has happened 
in Iraq in terms of moving forward. I think our only problem there is 
we have not given the right tools and the right instruction, placing 
them in harm's way. We do not have to do that in the battle to clean up 
after the environment.
  There is another simple step that can be taken and that is just for 
the Federal Government to be more environmentally sensitive to the way 
that it locates and manages its facilities, whether it is the post 
office which ought to obey local land use laws and zoning codes or it 
is the General Services Administration with over 300 million square 
feet of office scattered across the country. If the Federal Government, 
as the largest landlord, landowner and employer in the country,

[[Page 7049]]

models best practices, the environments in our communities, large and 
small, would be better.
  We have before us, pending final resolution, a transportation bill 
that has passed both the House and the Senate, albeit at different 
levels; and sadly, there were a few items that got shoe-horned into the 
transportation bill at the last minute in the House, a few bridges to 
nowhere, so to speak; but the vast majority of that legislation 
provides an important environmental framework for protecting land, for 
repairing crumbling infrastructure, to be able to strengthen 
communities and put thousands and thousands of people to work by Labor 
Day in every State across the country.
  When it comes to energy, we are watching in our service stations 
every day it seems like that prices are going higher, $2, $2.25 a 
gallon. The American public understands that simple, commonsense, fuel 
efficiency improvements that have been mandated in the past, that this 
Congress and administration have refused to embrace for the future, 
would make a huge difference. Simply improving our fuel efficiency to 
the same level as American companies are doing to compete in the 
European market would enable us to save more gasoline than we would 
recover from the arctic wildlife refuge which most Americans know is 
the last place we ought to be drilling, rather than the first.
  I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that Congress, in the weeks ahead, would 
focus on simple, commonsense steps to improve the environment. That is 
the single most important thing we can do to keep our commitments to 
Americans on Earth Day, making our communities more livable, our 
families safer, healthier, and more economically secure.

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