Date: 1986-10-08
Speaker: RALPH M. HALL (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. I rise in reluctant support of the conference report. though I do not rise in reluctant support of my praise of the chairman. the gentleman from Michigan . his staff. as well as the gentleman from New York . and the minority staff. the gentleman from New Jersey . the gentleman from New Jersey . and. of course. the gentleman from Ohio . for his very bold and imaginative leadership in steering this bill. I think I would be forced to give some thanks to Pope Barrow. who provided a lot of institutional memory and set the standard for the stamina. My reluctance stems not from the programmatic portion of this legislation. on which I was privileged to be a conferee and which I support. but from the tax title. The producing States. primarily Texas and Louisiana. are bearing a disproportionate burden of the financing of this program at a time when our State economies can least afford it. Consider the following: Texas would pay about 27.5 percent of the crude tax. based on its share of refining runs. Texas would pay about 56 percent of the feedstock taxes. and Texas would pay about 16 percent of the broadbased taxes. Three producing States. Texas. Louisiana. and Oklahoma. will pay more than threefourths of the taxes raised under the Superfund Program. Whereas. only about 3 percent of the National Priority List Sites are located in these three States. Notwithstanding the fundamental inequity in the funding package. I am reluctantly supporting this conference report and urge the President to sign the bill bacause it is in the national interest that we continue the Superfund. Cleanup Program. But I caution the Members of this House not to continue to look to the oil and gas producing States as limitless "deep pockets" to fund all the environmental cleanup efforts that need to be undertaken now. We have reached our limit. and from this point forward. we expect some substantial additional tax effort out of our friends in the Midwest and Northeast to finance acid rain and other environmental cleanup efforts in the future. The producing States have already taken a tax hit in the socalled tax reform bill. we are taking an additional $6 billion hit in the legislation before us today. and we are being asked to take a further multibillion dollar tax hit on our economies in the acid rain bill now pending in the Energy and Commerce Committee. All of this at a time when our State economies are in shambles. Mr. Speaker. the programmatic provisions contained in the conference report are the result of one of the difficult legislative efforts that I have been a part of in my years of public service. While I am less than thrilled with some of the parts of this title. such as the Community Right to Know provisions. there are parts that I believe represent a major step forward in straightening out some of the more punitive aspects of the Superfund program that were enacted in I believe now there is a much greater likelihood that the EPA and private parties will be able to reach fair and equitable agreements that will lead to cleanups. rather than continued litigation. And the cleanup standards contained in the bill give to the Administrator a certain amount of discretion in tailoring the degree of cleanup needed to requirements of the site and the immediate environment. This I believe is a major. commonsense step forward that will enable us to make better use of the Superfund revenues. I am also pleased that the bill does not change the scope of the petroleum exclusion found in the definitions section of the act. That provision excludes from the definition of "hazardous substance" all types of petroleum. including crude oil. crude oil bottoms. refined fractions of crude oil. and tank bottoms of such which are not specifically listed or designated as a hazardous substance under other parts of the definitions section. Thank you. Mr. Speaker. and I yield back the balance of my time.