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am glad that despite the demise of that committee, Congress is 

 still considering ocean issues. 



Certainly the United States, and all the nations that 

 border the Arctic Ocean, must be concerned about the 

 dumping of radioactive and other contaminated materials 

 there. Therefore, I look forward to hearing from both our 

 international and domestic witnesses on the fate of material 

 already disposed of in the Arctic Ocean, and on plans to 

 prevent future contamination. 



In preparing for today's panel on deep ocean disposal of 

 dredged material, I looked back at my remarks about deep 

 ocean disposal before the Coast Guard Subcommittee in 1993. 

 At that time, I said that deep ocean disposal was "a 



