Ed Markey

When the Africans are unified on wanting U.N. sanctions, we can usually get them through.

There was a defunding of the taxes that the oil companies and the chemical companies had to pay into Superfund.

But that very same report estimates the benefits of regulations to be between $68 billion and $103 billion per year.

EPA has played a critical role in cleaning up our environment over the last number of decades.

Does anyone disagree that providing safe drinking water to everyone is an essential service that we must provide to every American?

You want to protect young people from drinking water, especially in their formative years.

President Nixon created an Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, saying that we must preserve 'the earth as a place both habitable by and hospitable to man.'

One person's ditch is another person's tributary, especially if it is a bad person.

Earlier, Senator Markey spoke of the Tar Creek Superfund Site.

It is critical that we do fund Superfunds so that you have the funding that you need.

We should not have kids not having safe drinking water.

EPA regulations have helped to protect wetlands and reduce lead in gasoline, making sure our drinking water is safe to drink and saves thousands of lives by reducing air pollution.

Everyone should also agree that adding so many layers to the rulemaking process that it becomes paralyzed will result in the erosion of the important public health protections Congress intended these laws to provide.

These laws have saved countless lives and billions of dollars in health costs and created an expectation that the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land we use are safe.

Experts say $1 trillion is needed to upgrade drinking and clean water infrastructure and prevent future Flints.

Since the strengthening of the Clean Air Act in 1970, there has been a 70 percent reduction in smog, a 70 percent reduction in soot, and a 70 percent reduction in other pollutants.

Imagine rivers catching fire, cities choking on smog, and toxic chemicals seeping into the classrooms of school children.

This dwarfs any terrorist threat to the United States. This is what is going to kill people, tens of thousands, ultimately hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Thank you so much. Again, for me this is the top topic. It does not get any bigger than this, and these are the gentlemen responsible for it in the United States.

Every single year, fentanyl is going to be able to do that. So if we do not stop it, it dwarfs every other issue.

It is going to kill ultimately tens of thousands of Americans every year--every year.

Clearly we have the evidence in 2015 in Massachusetts, and it is going to be worse this year in 2016.

Has it been elevated to the highest level?

So how successful is this effort so far?

This issue of fentanyl is to my way of thinking kind of the most important threat that we have to families in the United States at this time.