Jim Saxton: “Mr. Speaker, while the gentleman was speaking, I thought back of all the efforts that we have been involved in together…”

“Mr. Speaker, while the gentleman was speaking, I thought back of all the efforts that we have been involved in together, Members of both parties, in trying to address one of the issues that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) just spoke of that namely the ocean is not the kind of expanse that can absorb our wastes for time unlimited. And during the time that we have been in the Congress, we have stopped ocean sludge dumping. We have been successful in passing the act to make sure that people do not dump medical waste in the ocean, which was so important to my district and the beaches that I know the gentleman visits in the summertime. We have been successful in making sure that chemical dumping is taken care of in ways outside the ocean. There is one burning issue off the coast of New Jersey that the gentleman and I love very much, that is the shore that we love very much, and that is that this administration is currently issuing permits to dump contaminated dredge spoils off Sandy Hook. And these are the kinds of nonthinking, bad ideas that we need to avoid. The dumping of dredge spoils with contaminants such as mercury and lead and PCBs and other things that are poisonous to the human body and to the creatures that live in the ocean is something that we need to pay a lot more of attention to. So while we have had some successes, we have a long way to go.”