I would note that this is Senator Chafee's first hearing as the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Control and Risk Assessment. I enjoyed an especially close relationship with your father when he was the Committee Chairman and I served in your role. Reform of the Superfund program was always one of his highest priorities, and we spent many hours together trying to reach that goal. I look forward to the same close working relationship with you, and to finishing that job someday soon.
The purpose of today's hearing is to allow representatives of federal, state and local governments to give us their perspectives on the Superfund program as it exists today. Other private interests not represented here today ---- including representatives from the environmental community, the business community, the redevelopment community, and innovative technology developers to name just a few also have timely and important perspectives to offer. I look forward to hearing their views at some future date.
Superfund has not become any easier as a legislative issue since the Committee abandoned efforts on comprehensive reform last summer. The Administration now believes that comprehensive reauthorization is no longer warranted. I know that there are many in the business community, and more importantly many members of this Committee, that do not share this view.
My role on the Committee has changed since last year, and I will try to consider what I hear today, and in future Superfund or Brownfields hearings, with an open mind. While I have been a frequent critic of many aspects of Superfund in the past, I do know from personal experience that some parts of the Superfund program are, in fact, working well. The Superfund removal program continues to operate at a very high state of efficiency, producing significant and immediate risk reduction with a minimum of bureaucracy and delay.
In New Hampshire, we are in the midst of a very important removal action at the Surrette America Battery Site in Northfield. I appreciate the cooperation of EPA Region I at the site. Just last week, they allocated an additional $750,000 to this removal action. This will allow physical removal of contaminants at the site once the site data is analyzed and the weather allows it. This site has the potential to be a real Superfund success story.
As the Chairman of the Committee, I expect to pursue a two-pronged strategy on Superfund this year. The first prong is legislation, and Senator Chafee's subcommittee will continue to explore legislative solutions on Superfund and related issues. The second prong is oversight. As many of you know, at the full Committee level I have initiated an oversight effort into EPA's budget that will ultimately lead to a biennial EPA Authorization bill. This will include a close examination of Superfund's future funding needs, so we can assure that the resources committed to this program match the expected level of activity. Remember, every dollar committed to Superfund is a dollar that cannot be committed to some other environmental priority, so we must make sure that decisions about relative priorities within EPA's budget are made wisely.
Last year, the Congress commissioned an outside group, Resources For the Future (RFF) to perform just that analysis. We tried, but failed, to come to agreement with EPA on just this issue in our bipartisan Superfund negotiations last year. We called it the "ramp down" issue, because EPA is cleaning up many more sites each year than it is adding to the National Priorities List, so we thought it natural to assume that Superfund will need less resources in the future, too.
I look forward to hearing today's testimony, and I look forward --- once again to identifying and fixing the Superfund problems that we will hear about in the coming weeks and months. Thank you.