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Barton bill faces vote in House

Language survives challenge by Democrats in committee mark-up

A US House vote on Superfund, possibly including language the drycleaning industry seeks, could come before congress shuts down for the year, leaving supporters of "the Barton bill" scrambling to nail down key supporters.

The bill that would be presented to the full House would be a combination of separate Superfund bills approved by the Commerce Committee (HR 2580) and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (HR 1300). The former bill includes the "Barton bill" language. The latter does not.

Whether the Barton language is retained in the bill that will be presented to the full House lies in the hands of a few men, according to Baise, Miller & Freer attorneys who have been shepherding the industry-backed through Congress.

Those men, all Republicans, include Thomas Bliley of Virginia, chairman of the House Commerce Committee; Sherwood Boehlert of New York, the principal author of HR 1300; Bud Shuster of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure committee; and Michael Oxley of Ohio, chairman of the Commerce Committee's Finance and Hazardous Waste subcommittee. Dennis Hastert of Illinois,the Speaker of the House, is overseeing the process of getting and agreement between the two committees on a bill to present on the floor of the House.

"It is imperative that drycleaner in the states represented by these five members, and especially in their respective districts contact the members quickly by phone and fax follow-up letter to express support of the drycleaning language from the Small Business Remediation Act in HR 2580," a memo from Baise, Miller & Freer said.

The Barton language was amended to HR 2580 in late September to the Superfund bill by the Hazardous Materials subcommittee by voice vote with opposition from several Democrats. Arizona Republican John Shadegg offered the Barton bill amendment at the request of the bill's author. The move was supported by California Republicans Brian Bilbray and Chris Cox.

Formal opposition from Democrats came two weeks later. When the full committee took up the Superfund bill, Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak offered an amendment to change the language, including a key provision that would have required all surface and groundwater which could "potentially" be a source of drinking water to be remediated to Safe Drinking Water standards. Those standards, which allow a maximum contaminant level of five parts per billion of perc in drinking water, are at the heart of the issue. Barton bill supporters say that soil and groundwater not used for drinking water should not need to be cleaned up to such a level.

During a debate on Stupak's language, both Congressman Barton and Shadegg provided opposing arguments to the amendment. Democrats who sided with Stupak, including Henry Waxman of California, Ed Towns of New York, Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Lois Capps of California, complained that the Barton language would set special standards for one industry and increase exposure of the public to chemicals.

Republicans on the committee prevailed and Stupak's amendment was defeated, 25-20, thus the Barton bill language was retained in the final markup of HR 2580. The vote was virtually along party lines. Two Texas Democrats, Gene Green and Ralph Hall, sided with Republicans while one Republican, Heather Wilson of New Mexico, voted with the Democrats.

David Norford, executive director of the MidAtlantic Cleaners Association, who attended the committee session as an interested observer, noted that Joe Barton, John Shadegg, Michael Oxley, Chris Cox and Robert Ehrlich (all Republican committee members) "did a masterful job in speaking in opposition to the Stupak amendment in favor of the Small Business Remediation Act Amendment.

"They kept their cool and responded to the reasoning and safeguards contained in the Small Business Remediation Act."

Norford said the tough fight in committee is "only a preview of what lies ahead."

Continuing to obtain cosponsors for the sand-alone Small Business Remediation Act is "essential," Norford said, although he foresees that becoming more difficult now that the language has been included in the larger Superfund Reform bill, HR 2580.

Meanwhile, Rep. Barton's HR 2726 also continues in stand-alone form where it had garnered 42 cosponsors from 22 states by October 22. All but 11 of the cosponsors are Republicans. For the time being, however, supporters were keying on moving the legislation through the House as part of the larger Superfund reform legislation.

Both the stand-alone bill and being part of the larger Superfund bill "gives us two chances of passing the bill instead of one," noted James Mayberry, coordinator of the Fabricare Legislative and Regulatory Education group. Mayberry has posted information ‹ sample letters, a bill summary and recent news and cosponsor updates ‹ to aid the legislative effort on a FLARE web site: http://hometown.aol.com/infoflare/myhomepage/politics.html.