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Mr. E1psNEss. Congressman, earlier in my testimony I tried to 
explain there are two principles that I believe the Congress uses 
and that are widely held, principles that have to be balanced in de- 
veloping any kind of public financed policy. One is the polluter 
base, the other is the beneficiary base. A very simple concept but 
hard to apply. It takes a lot of thought to do it. 
I argued, as an example, to the chairman a moment ago, that the 
polluter, in this instance the dumpers, would bear a cost and inter- 
nalize that cost of doing business. There is only one way I could cut 
the pie in terms of which activity should go into that category for 
purposes of allocating the costs. I would say the polluter pays for 
activities directly related to that particular decision, whereas the 
beneficiary pays principal. What that conjures up in my mind is 
that the general public wants the program. 
Mr. HuGues. We are talking about site selection for dumpers. We 
can identify that class of dumpers who are going to be the only 
ones who will use that site. Now, won’t it make sense if we are 
going to try to recoup the cost of site selection, to identify the class, 
to take what is the total amount of cost for site selection as op- 
posed to half that amount and recoup that? Wouldn’t it make more 
sense? 
Mr. EIpsnEss. Yes. 
Mr. Huaues. That is only a part of what I am interested in. I am 
interested in taking it one step further. How about any potential 
cleanup costs in the years ahead? Who should bear that responsi- 
bility? Suppose we discover 10 years from now that we have cre- 
ated a mess and we have to do something to rectify it? Who is 
going to clean that up? 
Mr. Erpsness. That is an issue we have not focused on. : 
Mr. Hucues. Now, let me ask you as a matter of policy, does the 
Federal Government have some degree of responsibility if we have 
selected a site and said this is where we want you to dump this 
stuff. Does the Federal Government have responsibility under that 
circumstance? 
Mr. Erpsness. We haven’t focused on that issue. 
Mr. Huaues. I think you better start focusing. 
Mr. EIpsngEss. It is a good issue that you pose. 
Mr. Hucues. It seems to me that that also has to be factored in. 
One of the arguments we hear often is that when we talk in terms 
of putting liability on the dumpers for any damage that might be 
discovered years down the pike, on the polluters, is that, well, why 
should we pay for it, because we have been licensed by the EPA to 
dump? Go after EPA, they are the ones who told us to dump there. 
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
I think it is an important issue and I would like to hear from you 
as to how you feel about it. 
Mr. D’Amours. The subcommittee will recess and resume this 
hearing at exactly 2:20. I would appreciate it if the current panel 
would remain. Thank you. 
[Whereupon, at 2:08 p.m., the committee recessed, to reconvene 
at 2:25 p.m. the afternoon of the same day.] 
Mr. D’Amours. The subcommittee hearings will resume and 
pending the possible return of a few of the other members, particu- 
