Fred Upton

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield? Mr. de la GARZA. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from ranking member of the committee. Mr. de la GARZA. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding the time, and I appreciate his interest and his effort. All of us are of course in favor of reducing fraud, waste and abuse, and certainly this is an area of very strong interest to us. What I would like to ask of the gentleman is that there is concern that there needs to be further refinement of his amendment. Am I correct in that?

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I am very encouraged by the child support enforcement provisions that are part of this welfare reform bill. But we need to do more. I have spent considerable time with a number of 14- and 15-year-old mothers who face a very hard life juggling school work, work and the demands of parenthood as well. Many of us take that responsibility very seriously, as we live for our kids and we want them to have a better life, and we are taken aback by parents who shirk this responsibility and refuse to make even a modest payment to help support their child. The result is that both the child and the attending parent suffer and are penalized. This amendment will no longer reward parents who fail to fulfill their obligations to pay child support but continue to receive Government assistance through the Food Stamp Program. Today there is $34 billion in unpaid child support due to more than 23 million children. More specifically, more than 30 percent of women with kids in poverty receive no child support whatsoever. A survey of income and program participation found that of the 525,000 noncustodial parents receiving food stamps, 79 percent or 415,000 were not paying child support. It is time to stop the free lunch. We are asking custodial single parents, who happen to be primarily mothers, to cover a lot of bases and carry the load, but what about the other parent? Where is the equity? We cannot forget that parenting is the responsibility of two people, and we certainly cannot forget the children who are in desperate need of assistance. If this amendment passes, I fully intend to work to ensure that this amendment targets those who are dodging their parental responsibilities, not those who are making an honest effort to care for their child. Mr. Chairman, we cannot continue to support deadbeat parents, and I urge Members to vote ``yes'' on this amendment. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Martini].

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent for a very small modification in the amendment which, as I understand, the ranking member of the committee has agreed to.

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I introduced the Integrated Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Act of 1995. This is comprehensive legislation designed to address our national problem with high-level nuclear waste by providing workable solutions for managing used nuclear fuel from America's commercial nuclear powerplants. Nuclear powerplants currently provide more than 20 percent of America's electricity. They do so by harnessing the heat from uranium filled fuel rods to produce steam that turns electric turbines. When the energy in these fuel rods is depleted, the rods are removed from the reactor's core and placed in pools of water. Where they go next is the focus of this legislation. In Sweden, used fuel rods will eventually go directly to underground storage. In France, the rods are chopped up; the radioactive materials within them are separated and then reprocessed into new fuel rods. These completely different approaches meet both the energy and the environmental needs of their respective countries. In America, spent fuel rods go nowhere because there is nowhere for them to go. This eliptical sentence accurately describes the nexus of our peculiar problem with nuclear waste: We have been producing thousands of tons of post-reactor wastes over a period of decades without providing a place for their ultimate disposal. The wastes from over 100 nuclear powerplants have accumulated and continue accumulating at 70 sites in more than 30 States. Nuclear wastes didn't come as a surprise problem like DDT or ozone depleting compounds. We have known from the earliest days of the nuclear era that spent fuel and other nuclear wastes would need the most careful attention. In those early days, however, the one we now have. They envisioned many more nuclear power plants than exist today, enough to warrant an enormous reprocessing system similar to but larger than the system currently operating in France. For reasons that I won't go into today, this reprocessing sector did not develop in this country. Rather than following the French reprocessing model, we are now pursuing the once through Swedish approach. This means a home must be found for thousands and thousands of highly radioactive fuel rods. It was assumed from the outset that the Federal Government would be responsible for these wastes and that some Federal entity would construct and operate the facilities this obligation would require. This assumption became law 13 years ago, with passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. The 1982 act set up a nuclear waste trust fund which was and is funded from a special fee on nuclear generated electricity. The fund was established to pay for a Federal nuclear waste repository. The Department of Energy was to begin accepting nuclear waste by January 31, 1998. Despite the passage of the 1982 act and significant amendments to it in 1987 and the passage of 13 years, the Department of Energy has made little progress toward construction of a repository. The Department announced last year that it could not foresee completion of a repository any earlier than 2010, 16 years hence. Thus, Mr. Speaker, the repository that was 16 years away in 1982 is still 16 years away and half the $10 billion paid into the nuclear waste fund by electricity consumers has been spent. We have talked at length in this Congress about unfunded mandates, but this is a prime example of a funded mandate that the Federal Government has not honored. Small wonder that the Department's announcement generated great consternation among public utilities and utility regulators and two separate lawsuits against the Secretary of Energy. Consumers and electric utilities have upheld their end of the 1982 agreement. It's time for the Government to honor its side of the bargain. Much time has been lost. Much criticism has been directed at the Department of Energy for its failure to achieve the 1982 act's objectives. I will not add to this criticism. As is so often the case in ambitious Federal programs, we have asked good people to do something or to build something that has never been done or built before. As much as we may appreciate the difficulty of the task, however, I cannot accept the Department's assertion that it ``does not have a clear legal obligation under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to accept spent nuclear fuel absent an operational repository or other facility.'' This may represent a lawyer's narrow interpretation of statutory language, but it is not what the act's sponsors said in first presenting it to the Congress on this floor in the fall of 1982: The primary objective of this legislation is development of licensed facilities to be constructed deep underground for the permanent disposal of high level nuclear waste. * * * We have put into place the most thoughtfully planned out roadmap for what will be a 15-year site investigation and construction program that we could devise. On the strength of such unambiguous public commitments, scores of electric utilities entered into contracts with the Department. As in all contracts, one party agreed to do certain things if the other party or parties agreed to do certain other things. In this case, the utilities agreed to collect special fees from electricity consumers and to remit those fees to the Department. The Department's reciprocal responsibility, in the words of the standard contract signed by all, was ``To accept title to all spent nuclear fuel and/or high level wastes, of domestic origin, generated by the civilian power reactors. * * *'' The Department's lawyers may quibble, as lawyers do, about the precise nature of DOE's obligations and responsibilities. They are even free to argue that no inescapable legal obligation exists, but they cannot argue that no moral obligation or expectation exists about the Department's responsibilities. The bill I am introducing today makes unambiguously clear what we expect to be done and, most important, when we expect it to be done. My interest in this stems from our experience in western Michigan. The Palisades nuclearpower plant, owned and operated by Consumers Power, ran out of storage space in its pools. Because there is nowhere to send the spent fuel rods, Consumers has had to use so-called dry cask storage in 130-ton concrete and steel containers a stone's throw from Lake Michigan. The four other nuclear powerplants in Michigan and more than 100 in other States will ultimately have to follow suit if the Federal Government doesn't live up to its responsibilities. Both dry cask and pool storage are safe but there can be no question that centralized storage in one or several remote areas is better than leaving wastes at 70 sites sprinkled across the American continent. I am also concerned that the Federal Government's continued failure to honor this commitment undermines the Government's standing in the eyes of its own citizens.

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, during the last couple of days I have been spending quite a bit of time talking to folks on the front line, folks in Kalamazoo, MI, and all across southwestern Michigan, in terms of what they think would be the best choice as we fight the tough issue of the crime problem. As I have talked to every one of my folks, prosecutors, judges, police chiefs, and community activists, they have all said, ``FRED, we want flexibility. We want to be able to decide in our community what is best. We don't want all these strings coming from Washington,'' and the way this bill has been crafted is exactly the way they would support it on the front line. This is the right bill. We should allow the flexibility at the local level so that they can decide what is best for their communities. I would urge that we vote ``no'' on this particular amendment, and vote in favor of it when it comes on final passage later this evening.

Mr. UPTON. I yield to he gentleman from Florida.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I would like to make two points in terms of flexibility here. First, I am a very strong supporter of the drug courts. In my district we have two drug courts acting very properly and very well organized, and I was delighted that the subcommittee under the gentleman from Florida's initiative has allowed drug courts in fact to be an eligible activity for the funds that are used. Second, I must say I have a community, Benton Harbor, MI, which has been designated as a weed-and-seed community, yet they did not receive any funds from the Department of Justice when they applied with other communities across the country. It is my understanding in fact the procedure they have undergone over the last couple of years, that this would in fact be an eligible community function with a board that has been established with members from both the law enforcement community as well as those very active in terms of prevention and community activists, that even though they were denied by the Justice Department to receive funding, in fact that this would be an eligible activity under the $10 billion fund.

Mr. UPTON. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, so whereas we have been denied in the past, this would be an avenue of actually receiving funding to go on the frontline for prevention and deal with the problem of crime that we have in communities both large and small.

Mr. UPTON. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman from Maryland a quick question: I saw in one of the papers yesterday the police chief in Washington, DC, close to Maryland, has in fact supported the underlying bill and therefore would be opposed to this amendment. Does the gentleman know why?

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for yielding me this time. Mr. Chairman, there have been many efforts made in this Chamber to try and balance the budget. I can well remember the Freeze Budget, the 1992 Group Budget, the Pork Busters, our good friend Tim Penny who led many bipartisan efforts, and I can remember Gramm-Rudman. Every one of these was to no avail. Remember this button: ``108 in '88?'' That meant under Gramm-Rudman our deficit was going to be by law no greater than $108 billion in 1988. Well, guess what? It was $187 billion, not $108 billion. Promises, promises, promises, promises, and every one of them was broken. It is time to keep our promise. The deficit today is over $200 billion, and it is as far as the eye can see $200 billion. In fact, by the turn of the century it is not going to be $200 billion, it is not going to be $300 billion. The OMB, the Office of Management and Budget is projecting over $400 billion. I had a town meeting a couple of weeks ago and I had a very activist Democrat stand up and say: Fred, I have been against the balanced budget before because I did not think it would work. I thought we had laws that made it work, but I've given up. When you get back to Washington, please, please, please, for our children and for our jobs, pass a balanced budget amendment. It is time now to keep our promises. It is time to pass a balanced budget amendment, a constitutional one.

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, I am introducing today legislation to delay full implementation of the Clean Air Act by 2 years. As this program has unfolded, it is clear that it is generating more expense and disruption than was foreseen at enactment. Most knowledgeable Americans still support the Clean Air Act's goals and most are willing to accept reasonable personal sacrifice to achieve those goals. But, as EPA tightens the program's enforcement screws, I fear a public backlash that could undermine support for the program itself. Americans are simply in no mood for Dracoian regulatory programs, especially when program benefits are so difficult to determine. We have a situation in western Michigan that illustrates this point. A three county area generally around Grand Rapids and Muskegon is a nonattainment area. Studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Michigan's Department of Natural Resources confirm that 80 to 90 percent of the pollution measured in this nonattainment area is not produced locally, but drifts across Lake Michigan from the industrial complexes on her western shore. EPA is leaning hard on the State and on local agencies to take difficult steps to bring the area into compliance. These steps include a centralized or enhanced inspection and maintenance system for automobiles, a system that will be expensive and inconvenient. Three testing centers have been built in western Michigan at a cost of some $16 million but they have catalyzed great public outcry and their opening has been delayed. EPA has required development of regional transportation plans to evaluate transportation proposals to insure that traffic generated by those proposals won't push the region over its ozone budget. As described by one local official: We have to take into consideration all the variables, including employment centers and traffic patterns, and project those in place in future years. We then have to run that data through the EPA's model and prove that the resulting emissions are less than the base case, which is 1990. This is a significant and questionable change in the way local governments have operated. Under such a system, it's hard to see what the function of local government will be. If all decisions are driven by Clean Air Act considerations, what is the residual role of State and local agencies? Is EPA to be a national office of planning, zoning and development? The public has yet to be convinced that such heavyhanded regulation will achieve results worth the costs involved. In the case of enhanced inspection and maintenance, a 1992 study by the General Accounting Office found more than one in four cars that failed the initial emissions test subsequently passed a second emissions test even though no repairs were made to the vehicles. In areas more severely out of compliance, EPA has advocated an array of programs including mandatory carpooling that will have even heavier impact on the daily lives of working Americans. Small wonder that these planning, inspection, and trip reduction strictures cause many to wonder if job creation and economic development are even possible in areas under EPA's regulatory thumb. Few of the people I represent, viewing EPA data on the steady improvement in air quality, truly believe that the problem demands such solutions. Earlier today, I wrote to the new chairman of the Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health and the Environment urging two actions on him. First, I asked that he schedule informational hearings as soon as feasible to reexamine the Clean Air Act, the assumptions accepted at the time of enactment and the methods proposed for achieving the act's goals. Secondly, I asked him to support a postponement in further enforcement of the act. I have in mind a time out to reassess the situation and to allow State and local agencies additional time to determine what needs to be done and to do it. The bill I am introducing today simply grants a 2- year delay in further EPA requirements and in the imposition of sanctions against those unable to fulfill them. Mr. Speaker, a clear message in November's election results is that Americans are weary of big, complicated and burdensome Federal regulatory programs. The public is not convinced that they generate benefits commensurate with their costs. I urge my colleagues to join me in assuring that the Clean Air Act's results justify its costs.

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. Mr. Speaker, in the last Congress, I called attention to some of the unintended effects of the Federal Superfund Program. I pointed out that Superfund's draconian liability provisions were undermining job creation in older manufacturing areas by discouraging the redevelopment of previously used industrial sites. We came close to fixing this problem in H.R. 3800, the Superfund reauthorization bill cleared by the Committees on Commerce and Public Works last year. It did not become law, however, and the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, Mr. Tauzin, and I are introducing ``The Lender and Fiduciary Fairness in Liability Act'' today so that no momentum will be lost in the effort to repair this broken program. Throughout America there are previously used industrial sites lying fallow because lenders and investors are afraid that owning or renting such sites will make them liable for the costs of cleaning up messes they did not make. Under Superfund, owners and operators of property requiring cleanup are assumed to be responsible for contamination found on or in such properties. In some cases, institutions that loaned money for the acquisition of such properties can be held liable, too. This shadow of liability hanging over previously used industrial properties often makes it impossible to sell property or to secure financing for acquiring and redeveloping it. Potential investors won't invest and lending institutions won't lend so long as Superfund threatens either liability, the loss of collateral value or both. The safe alternative in such cases is to avoid the previously used ``brownsites'' in central cities and historic manufacturing areas in favor of virginal ``greensites'' far away. It is simply safer to develop a cornfield on the periphery than to redevelop a downtown site. A Michigan State legislator described the net effect of this process thusly: ``Urban devastation, and jobless workers, are left in the cities. With development forced outward, lots of open space and farmland gets gobbled up. There are tremendous public costs to provide new roads and services. And the old urban sites are not cleaned up-- they just sit there!'' Mr. Speaker, I doubt that such results were intended by the authors of Superfund. In fact, I doubt that a single Member of this House or the other body even suspected such results when the statute creating Superfund was enacted in 1980 and extensively amended 6 years later. Nonetheless, more than a decade of court decisions and administrative interpretations have brought us to this point. The program is doing more harm than good in much of the country and we have a responsibility to get it back on track. The bill my distinguished friend and I are introducing this evening addresses the redevelopment of contaminated sites in two ways. First, it shelters from Superfund liability innocent landowners who acquire property subsequently found to be contaminated. Second, it shelters lenders and lending institutions from Superfund liability unless they actively participate in the management of an organization subsequently found liable. It is important to recognize that neither of these concepts is new. Superfund law currently exempts innocent landowners from liability and shelters lenders via the ``secured creditor exemption.'' The problem is that the law does not provide the executive and judicial branches with sufficient guidance on its implementation. Whether a given party qualifies for the innocent landowner or secured creditor exemption is virtually impossible to determine at the beginning of the process. One must take his or her chances and hope that EPA or the courts will make the appropriate interpretations later in the process. With Superfund cleanups averaging $30 million per site, this simply presents too much risk for potential redevelopers and those who provide the capital they need. This bill strengthens the existing by clarifying the specific steps a party must take in acquiring and financing previously developed properties. It lets no polluters off the hook. Those who contaminate will be just as liable after passage of this legislation as they are today. Similar legislation garnered more than 300 cosponsors in the last Congress and became part of a bill reported unanimously by the Committee on Energy and Commerce. I hope my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will join Mr. Tauzin and me in this effort.

Mr. UPTON

Mr. UPTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, it is high time that Congress starts to do what it asks everyone else to do: Live under its own laws. When I walk into a restaurant in my home town in Michigan, the owners of that restaurant must abide by a litany of Federal laws. The kitchen is regulated by OSHA, the doors and tables and chairs must abide by the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the employees and managers are protected by the Fair Labor Standards Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to name just a few. Each year we pass more and more regulations on American businesses. It is time for us to start practicing what we preach, and walk the walk. The House passed this bill before during the 103d Congress. Elements of this measure were approved by a whopping margin of 348 to 3. However, it was the last vote of the very last day of the 103d Congress. We have an opportunity to act again on the issue on the very first day of the 104th Congress. Let us watches and send a message back home that we are willing to live under the laws that we make. On the day we perhaps cut Congress' budget by $50 to $100 million, let us do the same thing, impose the same rules on us as on everyone else, the same laws that we ought to live under.