Department of Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006

DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR, ENVIRONMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006

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Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator from California yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. I will.

Mr. DURBIN. I direct the question through the Chair. Those tuning in to this debate and starting to listen may not grasp what is at issue. The way you described it to us yesterday in the Senate Democratic caucus luncheon was that the Environmental Protection Agency is testing the toxicity, or poisonous nature, of pesticides on human beings here in the United States. Since this came to the attention of the House of Representatives, they have said this is wrong; we don't want to endanger anyone's life by testing them with pesticides, particularly children, pregnant women, others--for that matter, any person. So they decided to suspend, as I understand it, the authority of the EPA to go forward with this testing.

An argument is being made on the floor today, by those opposing your amendment, that we should go ahead and continue the testing? Is that what is at issue?

Mrs. BOXER. That is the essence. You can put lipstick on it but essentially the opposition is saying no to the Boxer amendment, and let's just tell the EPA to look at ethical guidelines and consider them and hurry up and issue a regulation.

Does it make any reference to the National Academy of Sciences, which has very strict regulations? It doesn't make any reference to any of the guidelines that are internationally recognized. So, in essence, the Burns amendment is the status quo with a kicker that we continue these studies and that, in essence, we say to the EPA: Hurry up with your regulation.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator will further yield for a question through the Chair, the photograph she displayed is the same one she brought before us yesterday. It depicts two young people, a man and woman, who are involved in some testing where they are inhaling pesticides to determine what the physical impact would be if they have a certain amount of pesticide in their system. Are you saying the Federal Government is paying for this research, and is paying these people to come forward and submit to this testing?

Mrs. BOXER. This test is being paid for by the pesticide maker, who wants to say that they should be allowed to use more chloropicrin in their pesticide. They have paid the University of San Diego to do this.

The EPA accepted that study. In other words, they are saying fine, we are going to look at the results of that study.

It was Ronald Reagan who put a stop to looking at the tests that came out of World War II. Because after World War II, we saw what was going on with medical studies. Ronald Reagan was the one who said we are going to stop this. We are not going to even look at these studies because they are immoral.

What we are saying today is, it is immoral to take a young woman like this--and tell her, by the way, she is not going to be harmed--make her sign a waiver of liability so she cannot really recover if she is sick, pay her $15 an hour because she is a student and probably needs the money desperately, and not tell her what this other picture shows, the man in the mask, that she is breathing chloropicrin at a rate 12 times the rate that our Federal Government, our OSHA says is dangerous.

If you were to have a concentration of this chemical 12 times less than what these kids are getting into their nostrils, into their lungs, you need to wear this type of full-face plate respirator or powered air purifying respirator with organic cartridge to protect from the chemicals.

Mr. DURBIN. How long has this been going on?

Mrs. BOXER. That is the interesting question. Under Bill Clinton's administration, in the late 1990s, Carol Browner, the Administrator of EPA, stopped this kind of acceptance of these tests by the EPA.

Christie Todd Whitman agreed with her and stopped all of this and said EPA is not going to look at these. It is immoral. It is wrong.

It is only recently that this moratorium was allowed to lapse and the current Administrator--it is Leavitt, I think--started to accept these studies. So it is very recent.

Remember, we had two EPA Administrators who had said no to this. Now, suddenly we are back in the game of utilizing these studies and sending a signal out to the scientific world: Go ahead and do these dosing studies.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator will further yield for a question?

Mrs. BOXER. Yes.

Mr. DURBIN. We have people stationed at the borders between the United States and Mexico who are testing fruits and vegetables that come into our country. The Food and Drug Administration does this. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is involved in this testing to determine whether there is pesticide residue on apples and tomatoes,

vegetables and fruits that come in. And if there is just the slightest residue of certain pesticides, we confiscate the shipment, stop the shipment from coming into the United States for fear that just the slightest residue of the pesticide or the fruits and vegetables may be a danger to public health in America.

That is why it is so difficult for many of us who listen to this debate to understand that at the same time another agency of our Government, with the cooperation of a special interest group, the pesticide industry, is actually testing concentrations of these same pesticides on innocent people in America.

I think the Senator has gone on to say it is not just college students standing and being paid $15. The testing reaches a level where they are testing on fetuses and on neonates of uncertain viability?

Mrs. BOXER. Yes. Let me take back my time because the Senator from New York is on schedule. I want to make sure she has time to speak. But let me tell you this. The EPA's own words are that, in fact, they will consider testing on these neonates and the rest.

Yes. This is immoral. I would like to tell you, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, on their Web site, in 2005, say this:

We are very concerned about using humans for the direct testing of pesticides under any conditions, particularly when they will not receive any direct or immediate health benefit but in fact may be harmed.

So we are not here testing pharmaceutical products that may help a baby. We are here looking at harming a baby, harming a pregnant woman.

So the Boxer moratorium vote is very important.

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