On the recordJuly 12, 2016
My simple amendment would add $13 million to the Hazardous Substance Superfund to equal the level requested by the EPA. Superfund cleanup is the right thing for the environment, right for the economy, and certainly right for public health. I am from the Garden State. We are known across the country for having the best tomatoes, corn, blueberries, and cranberries we grow. But in south Jersey, we have a history as a cornerstone of heavy industry. New Jersey found out the hard way what you can and what you can't dump into the lakes, backyards, and other facilities. Then companies left, leaving our constituents holding the bag. Representative Jim Florio, who held my seat from 1975 to 1990, saw these very issues in south Jersey and across the country. That is why he authored the Superfund legislation back in 1980. Almost four decades later, the list of Superfund sites is still overflowing. There are well over 1,000 contaminated sites across the country, and I have 13 in my district alone. In 2015, the GAO studied the progress of the Superfund program. The report found that, in real dollars, appropriations to the EPA Superfund program declined almost $1 billion from 1999 to 2013. Congress has funded less than 40 percent of shovel-ready cleanup projects. The EPA is often forced to prioritize one seriously contaminated site over another, leaving those other sites to be contaminated, in some cases, up to 50 years.…
