Positions and Views of Frank Lautenberg
on Environment
| Currently Elected U.S. Senate, New Jersey |
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| Environment |
Positions and Views |
| Environment, a General Statement |
As the grandfather of 10 children, Senator Lautenberg believes that a healthy environment is one of the most important legacies we can bequeath to future generations. He worked to pass the Safe Drinking Water Act and fought for extra treatment of drinking water to prevent vulnerable children from being poisoned by contaminants. He has also worked to preserve open spaces and keep our beaches and oceans clean and swimmable.
Clean beaches are crucial to New Jersey, which depends on the billions of dollars that Shore tourism pumps into our economy. To protect this resource, Senator Lautenberg wrote laws to require testing of beach water so our children don't get sick, to ban ocean dumping of sewage, to get garbage off our beaches, to control medical waste, to prevent oil spills and to stop oil drilling off our Shore.
The Senator has also worked to renew and improve the cleanup of Superfund toxic waste sites. He wrote the federal law to give citizens the right to know about the toxic emissions that companies spew into the air, water and ground. He drafted "brownfields" legislation, now law, to clean up abandoned industrial sites and promote economic development. He established a program to prevent pollution before it becomes a problem. And he helped create and expand federal parks and refuges, like the Sterling Forest, the Forsythe and Cape May refuges, and the Coastal Heritage Trail in South Jersey. He currently serves as the ranking Democratic member of the subcommittee on global warming.
Source: Candidate Website (10/04/2008) |
| Global Warming, Climate Change |
WASHINGTON, DC -- In an effort to prevent future government reports dealing with the issue of climate change from being altered by White House political aides, several members of the United States Senate called for all future reports to be audited by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
Senators Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) and John F. Kerry (D-MA) in a letter sent today, urged the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration James R. Mahoney, Ph.D, to put in place procedures that would give the NAS oversight for future scientific reports, including the annual "Our Changing Planet" report.
Political appointees in the Bush administration have altered the robust scientific findings of several Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) reports. Those alterations have injected expressions of uncertainty about aspects of climate change where none was intended by the authors. The lawmakers took this action today because the CCSP will begin the task of preparing the "Our Changing Planet" reports for Fiscal Year 2007 and Fiscal Year 2008.
"We are writing specifically to request that you empower the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) with an oversight and auditing role in the preparation of the upcoming "Our Changing Planet" report..Global warming is one of the most serious challenges we face, and Congress mandated reports summarizing the results of federal climate research to provide a solid scientific basis for public policy. Political interference has now tainted these reports and diminished their usefulness to Congress and the American people," the lawmakers wrote.
A copy of the letter is attached to the release:
The Honorable James R. Mahoney, Ph.D. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere & Deputy Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration U.S. Department of Commerce Washington, DC 20230
Dear Dr. Mahon [Response was truncated to maximum response length of 2000 characters.]
Source: Candidate Website (10/04/2008) |
| Clean Drinking Water |
He worked to pass the Safe Drinking Water Act and fought for extra treatment of drinking water to prevent vulnerable children from being poisoned by contaminants.
Source: lautenberg.senate.gov (05/04/2008) |
| Polluter-Pays Superfund Fees |
The Senator has also worked to renew and improve the cleanup of Superfund toxic waste sites. He wrote the federal law to give citizens the right to know about the toxic emissions that companies spew into the air, water and ground. He drafted "brownfields" legislation, now law, to clean up abandoned industrial sites and promote economic development. He established a program to prevent pollution before it becomes a problem.
Source: lautenberg.senate.gov (05/04/2008) |
| Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) |
WASHINGTON, DC -- In a letter sent today to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a bipartisan group of Senators called for an investigation into the proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) to weaken regulations that require polluters to inform the public about toxic releases.
Signing the letter sent to GAO Administrator David M. Walker were United States Senators Jim Jeffords, Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (I-VT), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Olympia Snowe (R-ME).
The Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) program, part of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, makes information about toxic releases publicly available on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis each year. Since the TRI disclosure requirement went into effect in 1988, the volume of toxic material released annually in the United States has fallen by an estimated 59 percent. Many experts believe the requirements to annually disclose the levels of released toxins into the environment were the main factor in this dramatic reduction.
In September of last year, the EPA notified Congress of its intent reduce the frequency of toxics reporting from every year to every two years. At the same time, EPA initiated two additional changes that will allow thousands of facilities to withhold details about pollution volumes, waste management and treatment if they generate less than 5,000 pounds of toxic chemicals per year.
"The TRI program was established on the principle that the public has a right to know about chemicals that are being stored and released in their communities. The agency's proposal would curtail that right, leaving families uninformed. This is wrong. The health and safety of the American people must trump the interests of the chemical industry," said Lautenberg.
Jeffords said, "We know that more information leads to better decision-making. Perhaps if the Bush Administration had better information about how this propos [Response was truncated to maximum response length of 2000 characters.]
Source: Candidate Website (10/04/2008) |
| National Parks |
He helped create and expand federal parks and refuges, like the Sterling Forest, the Forsythe and Cape May refuges, and the Coastal Heritage Trail in South Jersey.
Source: lautenberg.senate.gov (05/04/2008) |
| Oceans |
U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works (EPW) approved two bills introduced by Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) to improve the health and safety of our nation's beaches, and protect the environment by encouraging the use of more double-hull tankers instead of single-hull tankers.
"With the start of summer approaching, Americans expect our nation's beaches to be clean and safe," said Sen. Lautenberg, a member of the EPW Committee. "We must protect New Jersey's environment and economy from the threat of contaminated water or a major oil spill. These bills build on our efforts to protect our environment and give beachgoers the confidence they deserve."
The first bill, the Beach Protection Act of 2008, requires the EPA to approve and use rapid testing methods that detect water contamination in two hours, so the public can be quickly notified of any health risks the water may pose. Current water quality monitoring tests take one or two days, during which time beachgoers can be exposed to harmful pathogens.
The bill also doubles from $30 million to $60 million the amount of grant money available annually to states through 2012, which will allow states to track the sources of pollution and work to prevent its impacts.
Lautenberg's second bill would phase out all federal limitations on liability for polluters using single-hull tankers after 2010. Currently, federal laws cap clean up and damage costs for oil spills from single-hull tankers at a maximum of $3,000 per gross ton. Additional clean-up costs and damages are paid through a federal trust fund financed by a five-cent tax on each barrel of oil imported to the U.S.
Source: lautenberg.senate.gov/newsroom (06/30/2008) |
| These are available issue topics for which there were no responses. |
| ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) Oil Drilling |
| Environmental Regulation |
| Clean Air Act & Clear Skies Initiative |
| Clean Air Technologies |
| Carbon Tax |
| Greenhouse Gas Emission Limits |
| Developing World Greenhouse Emissions |
| Developing World and Climate Change |
| Environment Technology for Developing World |
| Tropical Deforestation |
| Cap-and-Trade System to Reduce Carbon Emissions |
| Free Market Incentives |
| Power Plant Emissions |
| Higher Gasoline Tax |
| Kyoto Protocol |
| U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) |
| Clean Water Act and Water Quality |
| Toxic Waste |
| Interior Department |
| National Forests and Healthy Forests Initiative |
| National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act |
| Land, Rivers and Lakes |
| Factory Farms |
| Tropical Rainforests |
| Wetlands |
| Invasive Species |
| Endangered Species |
| Cruelty to Animals |
| Recycling and Trash |