[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 122]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            SUPERFUND SITES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, when I saw that the legislative agenda 
for this week was going to deal with the beleaguered Superfund program, 
I was encouraged; but when I saw what my Republican colleagues actually 
proposed, I was saddened and disappointed.
  Across America, we are plagued by a variety of severely polluted 
hotspots known as ``Superfund sites.'' Many are the legacy of past 
reckless or clueless business behaviors; Government, itself, shares 
responsibility as well. Local governments failed to properly zone and 
regulate businesses with toxic byproducts. Sometimes government created 
problems with the way it operated sewer systems, solid waste 
management, and military operations.
  The Superfund law, created in 1980, with a Superfund tax on the 
petrochemical industry, which caused the problem, would provide cleanup 
funding. It was reasonable at that time, but it has been frozen in 
place for almost 20 years. In 1995, the excise tax expired. Neither the 
program nor the problems have gone away, and having fewer and fewer 
resources has not helped. Sadly, the proposals the House will be 
considering this week would actually reduce the overall amount of 
funding that is available, undercut standards, and slow cleanup.
  The Federal Government has created some of these problems, mostly 
caused by military operations, which is the largest single source of 
Superfund sites in the country, but there are also situations like the 
TVA and its coal ash disaster.
  Instead of enhancing the Federal commitment and capacity, this 
legislative exercise is an illustration of part of the problem. It is 
an attempt to look like we are doing something, but it has no chance of 
being enacted into law; and if it did, it would actually make the 
problem worse.
  It is time for us to renew and refine the Federal commitment, not to 
complicate and undercut it. We should take a performance-based approach 
to zero in on what will actually accelerate cleanup in a demonstrable 
fashion and be able to move away from what has too often been a pro 
forma response.
  The Federal Government should, indeed, clean up after itself and not 
leave the problem behind. The military should place Superfund cleanup 
as a higher priority in its budgeting. We have seen recent studies 
about pollution around military bases, like Camp Lejeune, that has had 
a severe impact on military families and their neighbors, linking 
contamination to a series of birth defects like spina bifida and to 
childhood cancers, including leukemia.
  We should renew the Superfund tax, which I will be introducing in 
legislation this month. The Federal budget allocations should commit to 
cleanup, not passing the buck. We have settled into a program of sue, 
stall, and study as the inevitable result of a failure to work together 
to clean up, to protect the public, and to save money in the long run. 
I hope we will reject the Republican proposal this week and, instead, 
make a renewed commitment to find ways to make it work better.

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