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[Page: S5340]  GPO's PDF
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   Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, it was a Republican President, Theodore Roosevelt, who, in the early 1900s, established our Nation's first national forests and refuges, and his fifth cousin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who, during the Great Depression of the 1930s, launched the Civilian Conservation Corps. Then, under Dwight Eisenhower in 1960, our country set aside the first part of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Under Richard Nixon, in 1970, we enacted the Clean Air Act to limit air pollution from cars, utilities, and industries.

   Then, 20 years later, a major expansion of that act was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, the father of now-President Bush.

   For 100 years, Republican and Democratic Presidents alike saw that saving America's natural wonders ought not be a partisan political issue. Yet today we see the present Bush administration, time and again, side, with corporate political interests trying to roll back the time-tested and bipartisan measures aimed at protecting our land, our air, and our water.

   Let me give some examples. The Federal Superfund Program for cleaning up toxic waste sites is running out of money. It was set up in 1980. It was sponsored, fostered and encouraged under several Presidents. It was set up under President Carter, and continued by President Reagan, then President H.W. Bush, and President Clinton. They all encouraged the use of the Superfund and the concept of the polluter pays.

   In 1980, an agreement was struck with the oil companies and the chemical companies. The oil and chemical companies would pay into a trust fund, and when a toxic waste site was found--and this happened after the Love Canal situation had riveted the Nation's attention--there would be money in the trust fund if they could not find the polluter to pay. If the polluter had fled town or had gone bankrupt, there was a fund from which you could then get the toxic waste site cleaned up.

   I just toured one of these toxic waste sites about 12 miles west of Orlando, a site that has been there for several decades, a site where at one point what I call a witch's brew of boiling DDT, which formed another chemical compound, had flowed into a holding pond. Why was it a holding pond? Because it was a depression in the ground. And where did that go? It was a sinkhole that went into the Floridian aquifer.

   At one point it spilled out of this holding pond into this creek that ran into Lake Apopka, a lake of thousands of acres that used to have 4,000 alligators, and which has 400 now--and you know how sturdy a beast an alligator is.

   Yet what the present Bush administration has said is we do not want to continue the polluter pay concept. We want the taxpayer to pay for cleaning up toxic waste sites instead of the polluter. As short as we are on money, with the surplus having evaporated, with the war requiring more and more money, an appropriation from the general fund of taxpayer money for the Superfund may not happen. So sites such as the one 12 miles west of Orlando, are not going to get cleaned up. If we do not re-authorize the polluter pays provisions--which have had bipartisan Presidential support--then we are going to have a serious problem. The site west of Orlando will continue to jeopardize the water supply for all of that part of Florida. That is how serious it is.

   Let's take another case. We had the matter of arsenic.

   First, the administration was not going to lower the parts per billion in drinking water. It would remain at 50 parts per billion, a standard set before we knew arsenic caused cancer. Based on years of study, the previous Administration had recommended it go down to 10 parts per billion. There was such an outcry that the public was finally heard. And, before the Congress had to act, the administration, relented and adopted the 10 parts per billion standard.

   In the Senate 2 months ago, we defeated the administration's attempt to permit oil and gas drilling in the pristine Alaska Wildlife Refuge. Unfortunately, we were unable to overcome the administration's opposition to improving automobile fuel economy standards .

   If we are going to get serious about weaning ourselves from our dependence on foreign oil supplies, we are simply going to have to go to where we consume the most energy. The most energy is consumed in the transportation sector. If we don't get serious about increasing the miles per gallon on our automobiles and trucks, we are simply not going to be able to address our dependence on foreign oil. We should follow a balanced approach on the energy question. It should be part production, part conservation, part alternative fuels, part increased use of technology and part renewable fuels. We can use our technology--we have it today--to increase significantly the miles per gallon fuel economy of our transportation sector.

   It is so hard, because of all the special interests involved, to pass good public policy. A good example is the defeat of our effort to increase corporate average fuel efficiency standards . But mind you--it is going to take a crisis, such as a terrorist sinking a supertanker in the 19-mile-wide, Strait of Hormuz which suddenly stops the flow of oil traffic out of the Persian Gulf to the industrialized world, to give us a major disruption of energy supplies.

   We will rue the day that we did not increase the corporate average fuel efficiency standards of our cars and trucks because the transportation sector accounts for 42 percent of the oil we consume in this country.

   Here, again, is another example of where this administration has not faced up to the reality of the environment and of energy. By the way, we have cars today--particularly Hondas and Toyotas--that can get over 50 miles per gallon. These are the hybrid vehicles that shift from gasoline to electric. Because of the computer, the driver and the passengers do not even notice the shift. There is no dimunition of the electrical output of the automobile.

   Again, it is another example of where we are just on the wrong course with regard to our energy and to our environmental policies.

   If our energy legislation stalls and the environment remains under siege, is it all lost? I don't think it is. Our citizens and their elected representatives can demand and get better.

   In the past, we saw an outcry regarding arsenic levels in our drinking water and arsenic used to treat wood. We won on both counts. The arsenic standard for drinking water was dramatically decreased and the wood preserving industry agreed to cease the manufacture of arsenic treated wood for residential uses by the end of 2003. Children's playground equipment will no longer be manufactured with wood treated with arsenic. More needs to be learned about the dangers of arsenic-treated wood but, I will continue to seek answers from the Administration.

   Last year we were able, fortunately, to scale back the sale

   of new oil and gas leases in the Gulf of Mexico right off of the coast of Florida--keeping the drilling more than 100 miles from the Florida shores, preventing the spoiling of our coastal environment and protecting the $60 billion a year tourism industry in Florida.

   Senator Graham and I tried to block that sale altogether and we will continue to battle exploration off Florida's coasts. Floridians, regardless of our individual party affiliations, overwhelmingly oppose offshore oil drilling that threatens our beaches, fisheries and tourist-dependent economy.

   On saving the environment, our Federal Government today may be split largely along political party lines. But, in Florida, and across the Nation the people are not.

   I thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts with the Senate. I yield the floor.

   Ms. STABENOW. Mr. 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.

   Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

[Page: S5341]  GPO's PDF

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