DOE on HR 1778

[Aimee Houghton <aimeeh@igc.org>]

The following letter from is Al Alms, DOE Assistant Secretary for 
Enviornmental Management, to Floyd Spence (R-SC) outlines DOE's 
position on HR 1778. Please bear in mind that this letter was sent 
before the actual committee vote had been taken.

Aimee Houghton
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The Honorable Floyd Spence
Chairman
Committee on National Security
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Spence:

Title III of H.R. 1778, the Defense Reform Act, provides for a number 
of environmental reforms, including general reforms of Superfund. It 
is my understanding that the House National Security Committee has held 
no hearings on these reforms but has scheduled a markup of this bill 
for June 11 together with a markup of the Defense Authorization Bill 
for Fiscal Years 1988 and 1999.

On May 7, 1997, the Administration forwarded to the Congress the 
Clinton Administration's legislative reform principles for Superfund. 
These principles set forth the Administration's vision of how to best 
address such issues as remedy selection; community health and community 
involvement; liability and enforcement; state and Tribal roles in 
cleanup; and other important Superfund issues that need to be 
addressed. The Department supports Superfund reforms that are narrowly 
targeted to address critical issues in need of a legislative solution in 
keeping with the Administration's principles. It is critical that any 
such reforms increase the pace of the cleanup of the Department's 
facilities and not disrupt or delay our ongoing cleanups.

The House and Senate Committees of jurisdication have begun a process 
with stakeholders and the Administration with a goal of achieving 
broad-based consensus on Superfund reauthorization. The inclusion of 
the environmental provisions in H.R. 1778 is premature and inconsistent 
with this process of developing broad-based consensus. Further, 
certain of the environmental provisions of H.R. 1778 such as those for 
State and Tribal issues and amendments specifically for federal 
facilities are directly in conflict with the Administration's 
principles for reform of Superfund. I am also concerned that the 
rationale for, and the full implications of, other of the environmental 
provisions of H.R. 1778, such as those related to our compliance 
agreements and criminal liability, are not fully understood.

In light of the conflicts with the Administration's Superfund reform 
principles and inconsistency with a consensus-based approach to a 
Superfund reform, the Department strongly recommends that the 
environmental provisions of H.R. 1778 be stricken from the bill. 
Alternatively, the Department urges that Committee defer markup of the 
bill until hearings have been held on these environmental provisions.

 Sincerely,

 Alvin L. Alms
 Assistant Secretary for
 Environmental Management

cc:
The Honorable Ronald V. Dellums
Ranking Minority Member