James Oberstar: “Madam Speaker, we are gathered here to commemorate two extraordinary events. Forty years ago, the Cuyahoga River en…”

“Madam Speaker, we are gathered here to commemorate two extraordinary events. Forty years ago, the Cuyahoga River en route to Lake Erie caught fire and galvanized the attention of a Nation and the action of Congress to strengthen the Federal Water Pollution Control Act resulting in the Clean Water Act of 1972. You would have thought that the Nation had learned its lesson with the Cuyahoga River incident and the other tragedies that befell the Great Lakes over the years; the invasion of lamprey eel and subsequent nonindigenous invasive species, and other tragedies, such as industrial dumping, that nearly resulted in the death of Lake Erie. But here we are gathered, 40 years later, to face a report from the Chicago Tribune that the regulators in the State of Indiana have given permission for BP, one of the world's largest energy companies, to release half more ammonia than they are and one-third more sludge into Lake Michigan each day.”