Lincoln Chafee: “Senator Smith from New Hampshire and I have been working on this not only this year, but in past years also. I think…”

“Senator Smith from New Hampshire and I have been working on this not only this year, but in past years also. I think after 7 years, it is time to fix this program. Tens of billions of dollars have been spent with very modest results, as far as cleanups go. This bill, which Senator Smith and I have submitted, addresses the so-called brownfields problem, for example. What are brownfields? They are contaminated sites, usually within our cities, which can be cleaned up relatively quickly and inexpensively and can be returned to productive industrial commercial use, thereby generating jobs and revenue. In this legislation, we deal with who will have to pay. Obviously, this is where the intense legal arguments have occurred, where you need to hire a hall because there are so many lawyers involved. We eliminate the unfairness of joint and several liability at most sites, and we replace it with proportional allocations where each polluter pays its fair share. We eliminate from liability anyone who legally sent waste to a municipal landfill. We eliminate small businesses and persons whose share was less than 1 percent and persons who sent less than 200 pounds or 110 gallons. In deciding how clean the cleanup ought to be, we take into consideration, what is the future use of the site going to be? Is it going to be for a children's playground, or is it going to be for a parking lot that is paved?”