HR 1778 WEDNESDAY UPDATE

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

 UPDATE ON H.R. 1778, DEFENSE REFORM ACT
 Wednesday, June 18

 We may be winning!

Yesterday the chairman of House National Security Committee, Floyd
Spence (R-S.C.), announced he would request that the environmental
provisions (Title III) of the Defense Reform Act have a separate vote
on the House floor from the rest of the defense reform bill. Most
people take that as a sign that the provisions will be dropped and
there will not be a vote.

As most of you know, Title III of H.R. 1778 would rewrite the
Superfund statutes and amend several other environmental laws. Some
of the provisions would affect only Federal facilities, others would
affect all cleanups. The bill was reported out of the House National
Security Committee last week, after an amendment by Rep. John Spratt
(D-S.C.) to strip out Title III was defeated on a party-line vote.

Yesterday the committee held a four-hour hearing on the bill. (Yes,
this was a hearing *after* the vote on the bill.) Witness included
the Pentagon, GAO, Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton, a cleanup
contractor from Colorado, and a law school professor. The
environmentalists were not at the table because our two Superfund
experts were both on vacation. A brief statement from nine national
environmental organizations was summarized and entered into the record
by the ranking Democrat, Rep. Ron Dellums (Calif.).

The hearing was a success from our view point. The star witness was
Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton, a Republican. In her testimony
and her questions, she demonstrated a solid understanding of the
program. Politically, her opposition to Title III made the Republican
majority on the committee uncomfortable with what they were doing.
The Pentagon's cleanup official, Sherri Goodman also made it clear she
did not support the environmental provisions as written.

The House committees that have jurisdiction over Superfund, Commerce
Committee and Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, have
started to weigh in and oppose H.R. 1778 this week.

 Next steps: The House Rules Committee will meet today, Wednesday,
June 18 at 1 p.m. to consider the annual defense authorization bill.
Rep. Spence is expected to ask that H.R. 1778 be offered as two floor
amendments to the defense bill. One amendment would be the
environmental provisions, the other would be the remaining procurement
and personal sections of the bill. The Rules Committee is expected to
issue its rule on the defense bill last this evening. It won't be
publicly available until tomorrow morning. I expect that given the
strong opposition and the limited time for floor amendments, Title III
will be dropped in the Rules Committee and not come to a vote.

The defense authorization bill will be on the House floor Thursday and
Friday.

In short, I think we will win the battle, but we won't know until
tomorrow morning.

| David Culp | E-mail: dculp@nrdc.org |
| Plutonium Challenge | Tel. +1 (202) 289-2388 |
| Washington, D.C. | Fax +1 (202) 289-1060 |