Volume 146, No. 138 covering the 2nd Session of the 106th Congress (1999 - 2000) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“FEDERAL GOVERNMENT POLLUTION” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E2012-E2013 on Oct. 28, 2000.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT POLLUTION
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HON. PAUL RYAN
of wisconsin
in the house of representatives
Saturday, October 28, 2000
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit for the Record an article written by former Senator Robert W. Kasten, Jr. The Honorable Bob Kasten served in both the House of Representatives (1975-
81) and the Senate (1981-93).
Mr. Kasten writes to remind us of the fact that the Federal Government is the largest polluter in the United States. He brings to our attention anecdotes from the states, which illustrate the states' difficulties enforcing local environmental laws on the federal government. He writes about the federal government's lack of accountability in cleaning up its own toxic waste sites and its attempts to push cleanup responsibility and costs to local levels of government and to private landowners.
According to a Boston Globe article last year, ``federal agencies have contaminated more than 60,000 sites across the country and the cost of cleaning up the worst sites is officially expected to approach
$300 billion, nearly five times the price of similar destruction caused by private companies.'' In contrast, private Superfund site clean up is estimated at a fraction of the federal government at $57 billion. The article goes on to say that the EPA Inspector General has found that, federal agencies are increasingly violating the law, with 27 percent of all government facilities out of compliance in 1996, the latest year figures available, compared to 10 percent in 1992.
Department of Energy and Department of Defense environmental clean up budgets are routinely last priorities in the appropriations processes. For example, this year I worked to cut construction funding in the Energy and Water Appropriations bill for the DOE's National Ignition Facility (NIF)--a bottomless money pit that the GAO has determined to be mired in waste and technological difficulties--and suggested that this funding be transferred to the DOE's waste management account, where I believe the money could be put to better use.
The final appropriations bill increased the Defense Environmental Restoration and Waste Management fund by $490 million dollars. In comparison, the NIF project, which is 100 percent over budget and 6 years behind schedule, was appropriated $130 million for FY 2001. The NIF boondoggle was granted nearly one-third of the total increase of the environmental clean up budget. Clearly the federal government has other agendas than the environment.
We need to look more closely at Federal Government's own environmental problems. The State and Federal Government can work together to modernize environmental laws, streamline the bureaucratic process, and focus less on punishment and more on figuring out the best way to reach high environmental standards and compliance.
America's Largest Polluter--Guess Who
(By Sen. Robert W. Kasten, Jr.)
Here is a question that really ought to be put to both the presidential candidates, but especially Vice President Gore, in the final weeks of the campaign: Can you tell us who the largest polluter in the country is? And--important follow-up--if you are elected president, what would you plan to do about this defiler of our planet's future?
The answer, as market environmentalist Becky Norton Dunlop notes in her forthcoming book, Clearing the Air, will surprise many Americans. It isn't Exxon, duPont, or even, with respectful apologies to Ronald Reagan, trees--although trees are, as Reagan said, a major source of certain
``pollutants.''
Rather, as Dunlop notes, the largest polluter in the United States is: the United States government. Federal vehicles are not only numerous, but, in many cases, don't meet federal clean air standards. Temporary bureaucrats who commute to major federal centers, especially in Washington, D.C., often do so in vehicles that aren't locally registered, and thus don't meet area pollution requirements.
There are even a large number of federally-protected toxic waste sites. And of course, the federal government's sorry effort to blame land-owners who didn't pollute for the chemicals put on their property by others is a major reason why the vast majority of Superfund sites around the country haven't been cleaned up.
Dunlop knows about federal pollution first-hand. As Secretary of Natural Resources for the state of Virginia from 1994 to 1998, she had to go to court against the Gore-Clinton Environmental Protection Agency to stop some federal agencies from polluting, or protecting polluters being harbored because they were federal contractors. For this, she won the ire of some extremists for whom environmentalism means not making the air, water, and soil cleaner, but expanding the federal government's ability to strong-arm states, cities, companies, and private citizens.
Even some environmentalists are starting to realize the irony, as Scott Harper of the Virginian-Pilot put it recently, that if you're looking for the biggest polluter of all, ``it's government--the same authority that's supposed to protect the environment.'' The Boston Globe did a whole series on the issue of government pollution in 1999. This summer, USA Today did an expose on federal agency pollution dating back to the 1940s, a series that has led to Senate hearings this fall. But you don't have to go back to the history books to find federal polluting. It's going on right now, under the man supposed to be the environmental vice president, Al Gore.
Now, to be sure, one reason the federal government is the largest polluter is its sheer size. The federal government owns more vehicles, buys more products, employs more commuters, and does a lot of other things in much greater volume than any company. (That the federal government is so vast is, in
But size isn't the only reason government pollutes so much. Far from it. A major contributing reason is that federal authorities frequently attempt to shift the expense for cleaning up their pollution to other levels of government, or to private landowners--allowing federal agencies themselves to continue polluting while blaming others.
As Dunlop recounts, for instance, in the mid 1990s, the EPA, run by former Gore aide Carol Browner, tried to prevent the state of Virginia from making the federal government clean up one of the worst toxic waste sites in the country. Avtex fibers. The plant had been kept open thanks to Colin Powell and the Bush administration because it was producing valuable products for the federal government. That's understandable.
What was wrong was the effort by the Clinton Administration to avoid making the party responsible for the pollution, namely Uncle Sam, from paying for the cleanup. ``Can you imagine,'' as Dunlop notes, ``if the guilty party had been a major corporation?''
EPA ultimately paid a huge fine to Virginia in the Avtex case but only after a legal struggle. Today, Browner brazenly takes credit for having cleaned up the site.
The government as a polluter is a vital issue all by itself. But in an election where trust, character, and taking responsibility have become part of the debate, it may be especially important.
Wasn't it Al Gore who was led an exhaustive review of everything the federal bureaucracy does, the ill-starred
``re-inventing government'' crusade? How does Gore square this effort and mission, and his vaunted attention to detail, with the fact that he apparently paid little attention to the polluting activities and policies of governmental itself?
Here we see the intersection of something Al Gore claims to revere, namely clean air and water, with the place where he and Bill Clinton have had the most direct control, the federal executive branch. And instead of a record to be proud of, the story of EPA in the 1990s is one of political vendettas, bad science, and ``the buck stops over there.''
I'm no Jim Lehrer or Larry King, but if I were, I know that I would point this out. It isn't a nit-picking question, and it isn't a personal attack--instead it goes to policy and the future. And it would sure be interesting what Al Gore has to say.
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Mr. Kasten served Wisconsin in the House of Representatives
(1975-81) and U.S. Senate (1981-93) and is an advisor to the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.
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