Date: 1997-01-21
Speaker: BOB SMITH (democrat)
Chamber: S

Thank you. Mr. President. I thank my distinguished colleague and chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee for his kind remarks. He. too. has been deeply involved in this issue. We have spent a lot of hours on this. I am just very excited about the fact that this is in the top 10 legislative initiatives that the majority leader and the Republican Party have. and I welcome the opportunity to make a few remarks here. It is a tribute to Senator LoTr and to Senator CHAFEE that they have made this a priority. It is the right thing to do. Mr. President. because I share with the American people the belief that our children ought to be able to drink clean water and breathe clean air and live in safe homes so they do not have to worry about environmental pollution. most specifically not having to live next to the stigma of a socalled Superfund site that never gets cleaned up. We have some very good environmental laws on the books in this countrythe Clean Air Act. the Safe Drinking Water Act. and othersbut there are a few that do not fit that category. that have failed. Superfund is one of those laws. It is up to this committee and to the Senate. I think. to take the leadership here and to try to make those corrections.To achieve meaningful reformand I mean reformwe have to cut transaction costs. That is goal No. 1. The second goal is to reduce the time necessary to complete cleanup at these sites. The third goal is to inject some common sense into our cleanup program to reach sensible levels that protect our children and our environment. The bill we introduce today will accomplish each and every one of those goals. It improves the serious problem of brownfields. which our colleague. Senator CHAFEE. has already mentioned. Senator ABRAHAM of Michigan is very much involved in this issue. We commend his leadership and look forward to working with him on the brownfields portion of this bill. But we provide $0 million in new funding each year for States and localities for grants and loan programs to spur the cleanup and the redevelopment of these sites. I welcome the initiative on the part of our colleagues on the other side of our aisle on brownfields. It enhances the role of States by allowing them to take responsibility for conducting Superfund cleanups and increases citizen participation. It reinjects common sense back into the cleanup process by taking the future use of the site into consideration when cleanup remedies are elected. It promotes the use of innovative technology to ensure that the citizenry can have the benefit of the most uptodate scientific approaches to cleanup and eliminates potential liability for tens of thousands of average citizens. small businesses. schools. churches. the Boy Scouts. Girl Scouts. and others who have been caught up in this Superfund liability net. It caps the liability of municipalities and other entities that owned or operated municipal sites and did so legally. Finally. it reduces litigation by creating a fairshare allocation process at multiparty sites where the trust fund will pick up the cost of the defunct or insolvent parties in wastes that cannot be attributed to a viable party. Thus. Mr. President. what this bill does. in a nutshell. is it stops paying lawyers and starts paying for cleanup. I think that is a tremendous improvement over current law. So the discussions over the past 2 years. which Sen ator CHAFEE has mentioned. which I have been involved in with the administration. Administrator Browner. and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. have been productive. We have learned a lot. We are ready to roll up our sleeves again and get it done. We were very close to an agreement last time. We look forward to working with our colleagues and with the President of the United States to get it done in a bipartisan way. As the Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Superfund. Waste Control and Risk Assessment. I am here today. along with Senator CHAFEE. the Chairman of the Environment Committee. to introduce some commonsense legislation to put the Superfund law back on track toward achieving its original goal of protecting our Nations children from environmental pollutants in the quickest practical manner possible. I would like to thank the Republican Leader. Senator LOTr and all of the members of the Republican Conference who have cosponsored our legislationThe Superfund Cleanup Acceleration Actfor recognizing the importance of improving the Superfund program. By making this one of the "top 10" Senate priorities for the 105th Congress. I believe we have demonstrated our strong commitment toward protecting our environment. improving environmental laws. and preserving the health of our Nations children. Before I describe our legislation. I would like to take a few minutes to talk about Superfund and how we find ourselves here today. The history of Superfund is long and somewhat checkered. The program was created in 1980 to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites. and at that time. it was anticipated that this program would clean up around 400 sites nationwide. Begun with the best of intentions. the program has not performed the way it should. So far Superfund has cost our Nation more than $40 billion dollars. yet. only 125 out of a total of around 1.300 sites have been removed from the Superfund list over the last 16 years. Superfund has become the classic example of a Federal program awash in redtape. litigation and gold plated spending. The problems in Superfund are many. First. the Superfund liability scheme allows the Environmental Protection Agency to hold any potentially responsible party liable for the entire cleanup cost at a siteirrespective of the type of contamination. when the material was disposed of. or whether the activity was legal. This is simply unfair and. not surprisingly. results in enormous litigation costs with 30 to 70 percent of every dollar spent on lawyers. Because of the fear of Superfund liability. many of our Nations inner cities contain abandoned or underutilized properties--dubbed Brownfleldswhich lay fallow because private developers and municipalities dont want to be dragged into Superfunds litigation quagmire. In order to spur economic redevelopment. we must place a priority on fixing this problem. Superfund sets out unrealistic cleanup goals which frequently ignore common sense in considering the future use of the site. All too often. sites that are destined to become industrial parks or parking lots are required to be cleaned to standards compatible with school playgrounds. We need to reinject common sense back into this program so that we protect real people from real risks. not hypothetical people from hypothetical risks. We must also recognize that the States. which are much better able to understand the concerns and needs of residents who live near these sites. should have the lead in determining how these sites are going to be cleaned up. and when. Because I am also the Chairman of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. which funds the Department of Energy cleanup program. I am keenly aware that the real costs of Superfund are not limited solely to the private sector. Not only are there more than 155 Federal facilities on the Superfund list. but these sites represent the most complex and costly cleanup challenges in the program. The inability to create commonsense cleanup plans results in billions of dollars of additional liability to Federal agencies--costs that ultimately come from the taxes we all pay. In a period of budget deficits and declining resources. we need to do a better Job of making cleanup decisions. While Superfund was created with the hope of quickly dealing with the serious problem of toxic waste sites endangering our citizens. it is evident that Superfund has proceeded at a snails pace and that most sites are still not cleaned up. I commend Carol Browner. the Administrator of the EPA. for recognizing this fact. and for instituting a series of administrative reforms in the last yearreforms that reflect changes that I. and other Republicans have advocated for many years. Although I applaud the administration for making these changes. I believe it is too soon to declare victory in the effort to make Superfund work better. While improvements have been made in some areas. it is far too early to determine their true or lasting effect. I certainly do not agree with some in the Administration that feel that the administrative reforms have corrected all the problems of Superfund. The fact remains that even with the administrative reforms. too much money is spent on litigation. sites arent being cleaned up fast enough. and children are being needlessly exposed to toxic contaminants. Rather than reform Superfund on a piecemeal basis. as some may suggest. it is clear that comprehensive legislation is necessary to correct Superfunds deeper problems. The bill we have introduced will address those problems in a toptobottom fashion so that we can clean up all of these waste sites as quickly as possible. To achieve meaningful Superfund reform. it is necessary to meet three goals. The first is to cut the transaction costs of the program. That means cutting out the lawyers and ensuring that every dollar meant for cleanup goes to cleanup. The second goal is to reduce the time necessary to complete cleanup at these sites. Currently. it takes more than 12 years to clean up a site. We can do better than that. The last goal is to inject common sense into our cleanup program to reach sensible levels that protect our children and protect the environment. The bill we are introducing today will accomplish each of these goals. Our legislation improves the serious problem of brownfields by providing $60 million in new funding each year to States and localities for grant and loan programs to spur the cleanup and redevelopment of these sites. It enhances the roll of States by allowing them to take primary responsibility for conducting SUperfund cleanups. It increases citizen participation by setting up Citizen Response Organizations to improve coordination between citizens. government and responsible parties. It reinjects common sense back into the cleanup process by taking the future use of the site into consideration when cleanup remedies are selected. It promotes the use of innovative technologies to insure that the citizenry can have the benefit of the mostuptodate scientific approaches to cleanup. It eliminates potential liability from tens of thousands of average citizens. small businesses. schools. churches. and others who are currently caught in the Superfund liability net. It caps the liability of municipalities and other entities that owned or operated municipal waste sites. And finally. it reduces litigation by creating a fairshare allocation process at multiparty sites where the Trust fund will pick up the cost of defunct or insolvent parties. or wastes that cannot be attributed to a viable party. Among the significant issues we have focused on is the issue of brownflelds. As many of my colleagues may know. there are a variety of bills that have been introduced by Senator ABRAHAM. Senator LIEBERMAN. Senator LAUTENBERG and others which attempt to take a crack at this issue. Many of the brownfield bills that have been introduced rely on tax credits or tax deductions to promote the cleanup of these sites. While the issue of tax credits does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Environment Committee. as this bill progresses toward passage. it is my intention to work with my colleagues to find common ground and provide additional support for these areas. Liability has always been one of the most contentious issues in the Superfund reform debate. My position has been clear from the beginning. I believe that retroactive liability is fundamentally unfair and if I had my way. I would repeal it. Some of my colleagues see things differently. It is important to understand that the bill we are introducing represents many hours of intense discussions and all the parties involved will recognize some of their positions. The bill does not go as far as I would like. Equally. it asks that the other side to take a step forward as well. We each must take this step to improve a system which is not helping our citizens the way it should. Over the last 2 years. my staff and that of Senator CHAFEE have been engaged in bipartisian discussions with Democrats and the Clinton administration. These discussions were long and sometimes pointed. but the participants in these negotiations understood that the Superfund program has flaws which need to be corrected. While there is general agreement that cleanups should occur faster. and that there are too many lawyers in the system. there are many ideas about how to correct these problems. The discussions over the past 2 years have been productive and on many issues we are close to agreement. We look forward to working with our colleagues and the with the President to craft a bipartisan solution to the problems of Superfund. The bill- we introduce today incorporates many good ideas from our bipartisan negotiations. It represents a significant step away from where we started last Congress. and I believe it deserves. and will receive. bipartisan support. Much has been said about the Republican and Democratic positions on the environment. I urge my colleagues to move beyond the rhetoric and the posturing of the last election and examine the real situation. The bill we are introducing today will speed cleanups. take lawyers out of the system. inject common sense back into the process. and protect children much faster from toxic exposure than under current law. This should not merely be a top10 priority on the Republican agenda. but it should be a top ten" item on our shared agenda. I urge all of my colleagues to join with us to reform this program this year. I thank you. Mr. President. I thank my colleague.