On the recordJuly 13, 2011
In the report language from the committee report for this bill, the Appropriations Committee included some language talking about concern about the lack of remediation activity taking place around the country at various Department-sponsored facilities and small sites under the responsibility of the Department, and this is in terms of environmental cleanup for non-defense sites. I share that concern, and the committee report language talks about having the Department not later than November 15, 2011, give a detailed plan on remediating these small sites. Here is the issue. When you have some smaller sites that need to be cleaned up, you have your management infrastructure in place. We are spending money each year to maintain the management structure, but if you don't spend the money to actually do the cleanup, you just extend the life cycle of this project out year after year after year. I think if we focus on these projects and get them done by investing the funds to clean them up quickly, it is actually from a life-cycle basis better off for taxpayers. Now, this is a tough bill to find a pay-for because overall--and I applaud the fact that we looked at reducing spending in this bill--but my suggestion is a modest increase in the non-defense environmental cleanup account of $10 million, which will bring the funding level to what it was in the last fiscal year.…
