On the recordJune 10, 2015
We all agree that the Department of Defense has the responsibility to defend our Nation, but the Department also has a responsibility to clean up after itself when it contaminates our environment or threatens public health, and we in Congress have a responsibility to give the military the money it needs for that cleanup. The amendment I offer adds $21.3 million to the Formerly Used Defense Sites program. I plan to withdraw the amendment out of respect for Chairman Frelinghuysen and his subcommittee, which actually added $25 million to the FUDS program above the President's budget request. Yet I want to make the point that we ought to keep the funding at the same level we appropriated in fiscal year 2015, which was $250 million, and that is what my amendment would do, because now is not the time for the military to backslide on its cleanup. There are 5,000 sites--in every State and territory--that we know are contaminated, and these sites are not in someone else's backyard. There are 87 of the Formerly Used Defense Sites in Chairman Frelinghuysen's State of New Jersey, and there are 42 FUDS sites in Ranking Member Visclosky's State of Indiana. In the district I represent, which is the Northern Mariana Islands, there are 24 contaminated areas, dating back to World War II, that are still waiting to be cleaned up.…
