Lincoln Chafee: “for the past several years, we have been trying to pass legislation to fix the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program.…”

“for the past several years, we have been trying to pass legislation to fix the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program. Superfund is a program with a tortured history and certainly an uneven record of success that can only be described as truly uneven. We have accomplished some good things since the law was passed in 1980, but those accomplishments under Superfund have come at a tremendous cost. Almost everyone agrees--and I will say, Mr. President, I do not think anyone disagrees--that Congress should enact a Superfund reform bill as soon as possible. Even President Clinton said recently that ``we have to repair the Superfund toxic waste cleanup program.'' I agree with the President about the need to fix Superfund. Unfortunately, in the speech that the President delivered last Monday, March 11, in New Jersey, he went on to attack the Superfund reauthorization process now underway in Congress. Using the old worn out rhetoric about ``making polluters pay,'' the President mischaracterized the proposals on which we are now working. I believe it is just plain wrong to imply that the Superfund liability reform proposals we are considering would shift costs from the polluters to the taxpayers.”