Frank Pallone: “I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to S. 2781. To be clear, I strongly…”

“I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to S. 2781. To be clear, I strongly support cleaning up abandoned mines, but this bill contains language that would undermine the cleanups it aims to support. It opens the floodgates for bad actors to take advantage of Superfund liability shields and loopholes created by this legislation for the very first time. Providing broad Superfund exemptions undermines our ability to protect the communities we are elected to serve. For example, during a cleanup, a so-called Good Samaritan may do an inadequate job or make the toxic contamination at a site worse. Under this bill, they would not be held responsible for the harm that they caused. By exempting polluters from liability, Congress would be shifting the costs of these cleanups onto the taxpayers, and I don't think that is right. I fear that Congress is opening a Pandora's box, where every corporation and polluter will be asking for their own sweetheart Superfund exemption. What is more, this bill gives the incoming Trump Environmental Protection Agency Administrator unilateral power to decide which entities are Good Samaritans and which are not. The Trump EPA also has sole power to choose which sites get selected for the program and to determine if a site is truly cleaned up in a reasonable amount of time under vague terms that make it difficult to ensure that adequate protection for human health and the environment takes place. Mr.…”