14 



TESTIMONY OF HON. FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, U.S. SENATOR 

 FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 



Senator Lautenberg. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 



I commend you for holding this hearing to review the case for 

 elevating the Environmental Protection Agency to Cabinet status. I 

 hope that the Committee's conclusion will be to support the bill. 



I have long believed that elevating the EPA to Cabinet status 

 would give environmental issues the priority they deserve and so 

 desperately need in our country. That is why in 1989 Senator 

 Durenberger and I introduced legislation to accomplish this goal. I 

 hope that we will not have to wait much longer to achieve it. 



While giving EPA Cabinet-level status is no substitute for good 

 environmental policy, it will help give the environmental issues the 

 focus they deserve at the Cabinet level, not only in this Adminis- 

 tration, of course, but in every Administration that follows. It will 

 enhance the agency's ability to protect the environment and to 

 exert leadership to solve the tough environmental problems we 

 face. 



When EPA is a Cabinet-level agency, environmental initiatives 

 will have the President's ears. When the hard decisions are made 

 on the great variety of domestic and international issues that affect 

 the environment, the Secretary of Environment will be there to 

 lend her advice and perspective to the debate. 



Further, elevating EPA to a Cabinet-level agency will demon- 

 strate to both a domestic and a global audience that America's 

 commitment is to protect the environment. It would send an un- 

 mistakable signal of the priority that we, as a Nation, place on pre- 

 serving the environment and enhancing the public health and wel- 

 fare. 



Mr. Chairman, you heard Max Baucus, Chairman of the Environ- 

 ment and Public Works Committee, make reference to our visit to 

 the Earth Summit with Senator Chafee and with now- Vice Presi- 

 dent Gore in attendance. It was apparent to many there that the 

 United States' position was not the leadership position that it 

 should have been. While elevating EPA to a Cabinet position may 

 not have changed that position, it would have increased the influ- 

 ence of the Administrator to have the U.S. be more serious about 

 leadership on environmental issues than we have been in the past. 



The environmental challenges with which we must grapple over 

 the next decade are vast. Yet, for too long, we have heard that we 

 cannot address our environmental problems because of the adverse 

 effect it would have on the economy. But my view is that environ- 

 mental regulation is consistent with economic growth. A healthy 

 environment is not only consistent with but essential for a prosper- 

 ous, sustained-growth economy. 



President Clinton and Vice President Gore understand this truth 

 well and spoke eloquently about it during the campaign. In New 

 Jersey, my State, highly industrialized, home of pharmaceutical 

 and chemical and plastics companies, we already know that a clean 

 environment and a growing economy go hand-in-hand. Our State 

 faces some of the toughest environmental problems in the Nation 

 and has adopted some of the most far-reaching and innovative en- 

 vironmental laws. And yet, until the recent recession. New Jersey 



