Frank Pallone: “I want to thank my colleague from New York, the ranking member of the subcommittee. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge…”

“I want to thank my colleague from New York, the ranking member of the subcommittee. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 2279. This is an unnecessary and ill-advised piece of legislation that would significantly weaken our country's hazardous waste laws and further shift the burden of cleaning up these sites from the entities responsible for the contamination to the taxpayer instead. Mr. Chairman, polluters are already not paying their fair share to help clean up America's worst toxic sites, and this bill only makes things worse. Since 1995 when the Superfund taxes expired, taxpayers have shouldered an unreasonable responsibility to pay for these cleanups. I have a bill, the Superfund Polluter Pays Act, which would reauthorize the original Superfund fees and make polluters, not taxpayers, pay the costs of cleaning up Superfund sites. Congress needs to reinstate the ``polluter pays'' taxes so the industries most responsible for polluting our land and water are held responsible for cleaning up our toxic legacy, a legacy which severely affects my home State of New Jersey. But again we face the prospect of the Republican majority dismantling our Nation's critical environmental laws. The bill before us today is really a combination of three bills, all of which will hinder hazardous cleanup across the country.…”