Debbie Dingell: “my good Republican colleagues and friends are seeing something that they made possible today. Years ago, in 1995, they…”

“my good Republican colleagues and friends are seeing something that they made possible today. Years ago, in 1995, they passed the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. They should recognize this. They said how this was going to stop the imposition of unfunded mandates upon communities and States. That is exactly what the amendment does. If they had been fair and given this a decent rule, then we would have been able to debate these in a proper fashion and they would not be complaining about surprise. But having said this, there are some 80 lawsuits that are going to be able to go forward. The judge had this to say about these kinds of lawsuits, and, by the way, they are in New York and New Hampshire: ``Innocent water providers and, ultimately, innocent water users should not be denied relief from the contamination of their water supply if the defendants breached a duty to avoid an unreasonable risk from their products.'' This bill is an immunity bath for MBTE manufacturers and for the refineries. That is wrong. It should be possible for there to be responsibility where the polluters pay, and that is exactly what this amendment allows. It leaves ethyl alcohol and other renewables okay, but it removes MBTE from the liability waiver. April 5, 2005.…”