Frank Pallone: “If I can just follow up briefly on what the gentleman said about the Superfund Program. I have, in New Jersey, in my…”

“If I can just follow up briefly on what the gentleman said about the Superfund Program. I have, in New Jersey, in my State, the largest number of Superfund sites in the country of any State, and in my particular congressional district a large number of Superfund sites, and already this shutdown has delayed indefinitely cleanup work at about, I guess five of the sites in my congressional district. In fact, last Wednesday I actually went to the EPA lab and center in Edison, in the heart of my district, and was in an empty room. The entire place was closed down. I think there were two staff personnel involved not only in Superfund, but all the EPA research activities that took place in Edison, NJ. Basically, what it means is that a number of these sites, not only in my district, but around the country, if we do not continue to do that work, a lot more work will have to be done. There were some contractors that were quoted in a lot of the newspapers today that were saying that because they are not able to do the contract work on Superfund sites, when they go back again there is going to be even more hazardous waste, and they are going to have to spend even more money in order to do the cleanup.”