John Mica: “I wanted to address the House this evening and talk about the Vice President's speech today. The Vice President was on a…”

“I wanted to address the House this evening and talk about the Vice President's speech today. The Vice President was on a mission to distort what the Republicans are actually doing in Congress relating to environmental changes and funding the EPA. I think it is important that the Congress and the American people know what is happening. Today Vice President Gore said we are putting our kids in danger. He said that today more than 10 million American children under 10 currently under 12 currently living within 4 miles of a toxic waste site are at risk. The Vice President also said, yes, the era of big Government is over. My colleagues, unfortunately, I think, the Vice President is talking out of both sides of his mouth to us. I think we need to set the record straight, and let me share with you some of the facts relating to what is going on with this great current Superfund site. First of all, the Superfund Program has been in existence for 15 years, and only 75 sites out of several thousand identified sites have been cleaned up, an average of 5 sites per year. The average cost of a cleanup of a site is $30.7 million. The total cost to date in the Superfund Program to the Government and private sectors is about $25 billion. The Superfund costs the Government and private sector $4 billion annually for nonfederally owned sites. However, only 53 percent of the total Superfund dollars are spent on cleaning up the sites.”