Sam Brownback: “It is the Federal Government. It is the Federal Government. For example, hundreds of billions of dollars and many…”

“It is the Federal Government. It is the Federal Government. For example, hundreds of billions of dollars and many decades will be required to clean up Federal hazardous waste sites. I will give the gentleman some General Accounting Office numbers on this. And the General Accounting Office is the watchdog of the Federal agencies of the Federal Government. GAO says Federal agencies expect to spend $54 billion this year, this year, to clean up their own facilities as far as environmental waste and environmental problems created. And the Office of Management and Budget estimates that as much as $389 billion in additional funds may be needed through 2070 just to clean up pollution and waste caused by Washington. There are many government programs in Washington and run by Washington, and enacted by this Congress even, or past Congresses, and operated by government bureaucracies that actually harm the environment. The Government should take steps to make sure its own house is in order. If we could clean up the Federal Government's own mess, the bureaucracy mess that we have created, that the bureaucracy has created, we will go a long ways towards improving the environment in America, towards making this country better for our children and our grandchildren. It makes no sense for Washington, a Washington bureaucracy to subsidize environmental destruction on the one hand while establishing laws and regulations and bureaucracies to mitigate that damage on the other hand.”