Under current law, EPA seeks concurrence from states before slating a site for cleanup on the National Priorities List.

I thank you for reconvening the hearing today, and I am pleased that we have the opportunity to hear from knowledgeable experts about the Superfund program.

The states don't always do that, though, because they want federal resources and expertise brought to bear to get sites cleaned up.

I hope that members of the Subcommittee are given a full opportunity to understand these bills before they are brought to markup.

I don't believe any of my colleagues want to see that happen.

It is natural that a state would want to be able to tell EPA what to focus on and what to spend money on.

I have serious concerns about certain aspects of these bills. I think they are a work in progress.

Even though Superfund is a federal program, the law provides for significant state involvement.

As a representative from southern California, we face many dangerous and costly wildfires each year, and we certainly can benefit from additional tools to fight these fires.

the handling of those tax-exempt applications in that process at the IRS was outrageous and intolerable.

the buck has to stop somewhere.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the fact we are having this hearing and want very much to be able to get to the bottom of this.

You share that view. That was the question.

I appreciate the efforts that you and the project participants put into the report.

I am concerned that the report didn't include the input from a creator's view.

We have been told that there is a constitutional right of corporate CEOs to use other people's money, in this case the shareholders, on political communications or propaganda without even disclosing what they are doing.

I stopped reading science fiction when I got to Congress because in my work I found more strange and wonderful things than could be in the pages of science fiction.

the American people support E-Verify. A 2011 Rasmussen poll found that 82% of likely voters think businesses should be required to use the federal government's E-Verify system to determine if a potential employee is in the country legally.