Lincoln Chafee: “Superfund is broken, and today the Environment and Public Works Committee is putting forward a plan that will fix it.…”

“Superfund is broken, and today the Environment and Public Works Committee is putting forward a plan that will fix it. Senator Bob Smith and his staff on the Superfund subcommittee have produced a remarkable reform package, one deserving of widespread support. I want to make it clear to everyone that Superfund reform will be a priority for the Environment and Public Works Committee for the rest of this year, and we will move to mark up this bill and bring it to the floor as quickly as possible. Superfund's troubled history and problems are news to no one, but fixing Superfund's plainly evident problems--too much litigation, not enough cleanup, inefficient use of scarce resources, blighted cities--has eluded us now for more than 5 years, as one interest group after another sought their vision of a 'perfect' reform. No plan is perfect, but this bill that Senator Smith and his staff prepared, with the help of my staff, is a tremendous improvement over the status quo. It is all the more remarkable for what it achieves in an era of tightly constrained budgets. This is real reform for Superfund that we can afford. This bill will: Streamline the cleanup process by eliminating overlapping studies of contaminated sites. Require EPA to consider the future use of resources when it decides how clean a site must be. Why clean up a site that will be a parking lot to the same level as a day care center?”