At press time, both houses of Congress had recessed and neither had moved forward on Superfund, but the negotiations with staff are ongoing. Unfortunately we have had to make concessions in both the House and the Senate.
In the House, we are working with the commerce committee staff who are drafting the House proposal to include our fallback legislation in the manager's amendment when it is reported out of full committee. The fallback legislation would provide a four-year moratorium on state and federal lawsuits allowing time for states to develop a State Fabric Care Response Program. To date, seven states have already enacted such legislation. The legislation would then provide a permanent liability exemption under federal law in those states that develop a Fabric Care Response Program. The House staff is still attempting to gain bipartisan support for the larger Superfund proposal before it reports a manager's amendment.
In the Senate, we have just learned that the final decision from the Congressional Budget Office is that our proposal, if enacted, would be considered "a new tax" and would therefore be part of the federal budget, for this reason, Senate Environmental and Public works staff is reluctant to recommend including the full Coalition proposal in the Superfund bill they are drafting. If the full proposal were included it could subject the entire Superfund bill to a preliminary challenge. Senator Smith and majority staff have agreed, subject to the approval of the minority, to include the moratorium language in the bill.
It is important that we have something when the House and Senate bills are finally reported our of committee, and the moratorium proposal is a good first step in obtaining some relief for the industry. We could still offer the coalition full proposal as a floor amendment, but that is a tougher battle and a decision which will have to be made when Superfund comes up for a debate.
Date created: 4/30/96 Last modified: 4/30/96 Copyright © 1996, Blind Squirrel http://www.pond.com/~hhorning Hal Horning hhorning@pond.com