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people. It is a terrible message to corporate America.
[Page: S5322] GPO's PDF
This chart shows the EPA budget. They eliminated the budget for graduate student research in the environmental sciences.
Look at enforcement. Good businesses welcome enforcement. If you are doing it right and the enforcers come in, you are in good shape. They cut it back, and the bad apples do not get caught.
Look at air quality, nuclear waste, endangered species, mining public lands, something my colleague is involved in, oil and gas drilling, urban sprawl.
This administration zeroed out the funding for urban parks. I would love my friend to comment on this point: 70 percent of our people live within reach of an urban park. Unbelievably, 2 weeks ago the administration sent out a press release bragging about all the grants they made from last year's money, not mentioning in this press release they have now zeroed out the funding for urban parks.
This lack of caring for the people of this country, as I see it, in terms of the environment and this kind of a record set a poor example for everyone, for business leaders. If business leaders see this administration does not really care, when it comes to the environment, about the health and safety of the people, what is the subtle message to a corporate executive? I guess: I don't have to care. I guess the bottom line is my profit.
Mr. DURBIN. I ask the Senator from California to reflect on this. It is not as if this administration cannot find money. When it comes to tax breaks for the wealthiest people in our country, they can find plenty of money. When it comes to an urban park--which is what many working families look forward to on a Sunday afternoon, whether it is in San Francisco, Los Angeles, or Chicago, a place to go with your family and enjoy yourself on Sunday afternoon--the administration says we cannot afford urban parks but we can afford a tax break so that the multimillionaires in this country can go to private clubs and can enjoy a lifestyle that involves a lot of privacy.
For the average working-class family, their lifestyle involves fun perhaps on a Sunday afternoon on the Lake Michigan shoreline or going to an urban park in and around the city of Chicago.
It really is a choice. It is not as if the Bush administration is saying there is just no money for anything. They found money when it came to tax breaks for the wealthiest people in America. When it comes to putting money into America to protect our environment, to protect for prescription drugs under Medicare, for a tax deduction for college education expenses, to give a tax break to small businesses to offer health insurance, this administration cannot see it. It casts a blind eye.
Mrs. BOXER. The point is the message it is sending, subtle or not so subtle, to corporate America, about what is important. There is a relationship between the two.
This chart shows the clean water rule. The administration reverses a 25-year-old Clean Water Act rule that flatly prohibits disposal of mining and other industrial wastes into the Nation's waters. The EPA issued new regulations making it legal for coal companies to dump fill material--dirt, rock, and waste--from mountaintops, moving mining into rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands.
My point is, if this administration that is charged with protecting the environment, as we are, is so callous about the quality of the water for the people of this country, the not so subtle message to corporate America is: People don't matter that much; just make your profit because we really don't care.
It is stunning. That is why I am glad my friend was here. This connection between this record, which I think is so unmindful of the needs of the American people, does translate over to short-term thinking in corporate America, to thinking that it really is not important to care about the environment, your people, or their health and their welfare reform.
Mr. DURBIN. Did we not go through this same debate on the energy bill a few weeks ago? The Senator and I were coming to the floor and saying, if you want to lessen America's dependence on foreign oil, if you want more energy security, take a look at the No. 1 consumer of oil in this country--the cars and trucks we drive. Have more fuel efficiency and fuel economy. Forty-six percent of the oil we import goes into our cars and trucks. A number of Members came to the floor and said let's improve fuel economy of cars and trucks in America to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. The corporate interests came in and said no, no change, no improvement.
What it means is, we passed an energy bill which fails to address the most basic element of developing energy security, energy independence, and a cleaner environment for America. It literally has been 17 years since we improved the fuel economy of cars and trucks. When we look at this, time and again, it is corporate irresponsibility that turns its back on the environment and energy security for this country.
As the Senator from California has pointed out, this is a pattern which is emerging through this administration. Instead of leading us toward more responsible conduct, as individuals, as families, and as businesses, they are turning their back on corporate responsibility.
I think it all comes together. I think the environmental issue plays into the energy issue and, frankly, the vote we had on the floor where, 67 to 32, the Senate rejected improving fuel efficiency in cars and trucks across America was a shameful vote. It is a vote which, frankly, we are going to have to answer for decades to come.
I ask the Senator from California, whose State has led when it comes to fuel standards and clean air and fuel efficiency , whether she believes this is all part of the same issue?
(Ms. STABENOW assumed the chair.)
Mrs. BOXER. I say to my friend, it is. It is short-term thinking. It is not good for this country. If you want to talk about patriotism, the most patriotic thing you can do, it seems to me, is drive a car that doesn't use all that foreign oil. It is very hard to get such a car, an American car particularly.
It is interesting my friend raised this because he is right. The Senate was weak on this, shamefully weak. But we did not get any help from Vice President Cheney when, on June 18, 2001, he announced to General Motors executives that the Bush administration has no plans to pursue higher fuel efficiency standards . That set the tone.
When this administration came in, many of us did say there were so many ties to energy, so many ties to oil companies, that we were very worried. But some of us thought maybe, because of that, the administration would bend over backwards to be fair, to lean on this issue. We were sorely disappointed.
If one could sit down and really think it through, we are talking about a very unwise strategy on the part of this administration to not look ahead, to not plan for the future, to not care about your grandchildren or my grandchildren having the opportunity to see the beauty of this country; to not worry that much if the quality of the air goes down or the quality of the water; to convince yourself the environmental laws are a burden on industry. That is disproven and untrue.
My friend talks about California. We have been the leader on environmental protection. We have found when you clean up the environment you create jobs. There has been study after study. One of our best exports happens to be environmental technologies. So by turning away from a clean and healthy environment as a goal to help our people, you are also blocking a very important piece of our economy, a place where we are way ahead.
I remember when the wall fell in eastern Europe, one of my friends who went there said: The trouble is, now you can actually see the air. They had not done anything about air pollution.
I know my friend is leaving. I am about to end what I am saying. But I thank him so much for tying together this horrific anti-environmental record, the anti-environmental record of this administration, to the whole issue of corporate greed, of corporate irresponsibility. We are seeing more and more of the big corporations really turning their back on the people they are supposed to serve, frankly--their customers; the people they are supposed to help, their employees; their shareholders, just using this very shortsighted type of reasoning that this administration uses, which is get it all
now and don't worry about the future.
[Page: S5323] GPO's PDF
If you take the issue of CO
2 emissions, we had a President who promised that, although he was against Kyoto, he would come up with a plan to cut those emissions back. That is the problem that causes global warming. I don't know of any respected scientists today who say global warming is not a dreadful problem. What it could do to our agricultural products, what it could do to our Nation, what it would mean for the world, is devastating.
It is not a question of panicking about it. It is a question of doing something about it. It is not that hard to do, if we set our mind to it.
This administration's Environmental Protection Agency sent a report to the United Nations where they admitted, yes, there is global warming and, yes, it is caused by human beings, and, yes, it is bad. Now this administration, this President, is backing away from his own administration, what they said. He said: Gee, I really don't agree with that ``bureaucracy.''
I don't get it. This is his Environmental Protection Agency. And the thrust of the report, even though it admitted there were problems, basically said there are these problems but we have to learn to live with them.
I do not understand why people go into Government, would join the Environmental Protection Agency, would run for President or the Senate or the House to say: ``You know, it's a problem.'' And throw up their hands.
That is not what we are about. Our job is to find solutions to problems, to lay those problems out. I know the Senator who is in the Chair is taking the lead in finding solutions to the problem of the high cost of prescription drugs, not only for our seniors but for all of our citizens. She is working long and hard on that, day in and day out, and with her leadership and that of others in the Senate, we are going to come up with a good plan.
I know our leader, TOM DASCHLE, is going to come up with a very good plan that we can all back, on all fronts, dealing with Medicare but also dealing with the pricing of prescription drugs.
You could throw up your hands and just say, ``Isn't this awful, prices are going up,'' and walk away. Why would we deserve to be here if we took that attitude? Why do we deserve to be here if we do not protect people's health--by getting them prescription drugs, but also preventing the health problems that you get when you have dirty air and water and high levels of arsenic and high levels of lead in children's blood.
It is one thing to react at the end of it when they have these illnesses. We need these pharmaceuticals. It is another thing to prevent these problems because many come from a very unhealthy environment.
I am sorry to say that this administration's record in 2001--and let's show 2002--an average of once a week, coming up with an anti-environmental rule, rolling back a pro-environmental, prohealth rule. This record is shameful. I think it is only because we have been so focused, as we have to be, on other issues, that we have not, as Americans, stood up to say this is a terrible circumstance.
I will show the Superfund. I will leave with that one more time, to show the number of sites they are cutting back on the Superfund. Remember, in California 40 percent of Californians live within 4 miles of a Superfund site. I am sure, Madam President, if you examine the Superfund sites in your State--you have many, as unfortunately many of us do, and we will give the exact number later--you will see what is happening. There is a walking away from the responsibility to clean up these sites, which means these sites will remain very dangerous.
We have a site in New Jersey that has become infamous because the wildlife there is turning bright colors from the dioxin that is in the soil, the arsenic that is in the soil, the dangerous chemicals that are in the soil. The EPA will not tell us, Madam President, from which of your sites they are walking away. We are trying desperately to get the information.
Senator Jeffords, who is a man of tremendous patience, I can tell you, started trying to get the information in March. We sent a letter and said that we now see you promised to clean up 75 sites. Now you say it is only 47. That is down from 87 sites under the last administration. Tell us, pray tell, which sites are you abandoning? Our people have a right to know. It impacts their lives; it impacts the lives of their children; it impacts the property values in the community. Just tell us which sites you are not going to clean up.
We found in the hearing we held that, in fact, a message went out to all the employees at EPA not to talk to anyone. Don't tell Senators which sites are off the list; don't tell newspapers; refer all the calls to our communications people.
The penchant for secrecy in this administration is growing to be alarming. We couldn't find out who sat in on Vice President Cheney's meeting when they drew up this energy bill. We had to go to court to find out. Now we know. It was the special interests that wrote that. We know what happens then.
That is not the kind of America we want. We want an America where everyone sits around the table--people from the environmental community, people from the business community, people from the labor community, people from the management community. That is the way we are going to have an America that works for everyone--not when we leave out people with whom we don't agree.
I represent a State which is very diverse in thinking. We go from very liberal to very conservative and everything in between. If I just sat with the people who voted for me, that would be a huge mistake for me; plus, it would be unfair and wrong.
We need to sit with people with whom we don't always agree. That is why this Norquist blacklist is so upsetting, as Senator Durbin said. If we put a little X on the forehead of people who do not agree with us, and we put them on a blacklist and we never talk to them, what kind of America is this going to be? It is going to be an extremist America--an America that doesn't reflect the values of the American people.
One of the values of the American people is a clean and healthy environment. I hope people will educate themselves to the fact that we cannot find out which Superfund sites are not going to be cleaned. I hope people will understand the danger they face if this continues.
I pledge today to continue to come to the Chamber to talk about this environmental issue, to fight for the Superfund Program, and to fight for clean air and clean water. We are going to take this case to the American people.
I thank the Chair very much. I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time controlled by the majority has expired. The remaining time until 10:45 is controlled by the minority leader.
Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. THOMAS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed.
Mr. THOMAS. I thank the Chair.
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