Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act of 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to S. 2781.

To be clear, I strongly support cleaning up abandoned mines, but this bill contains language that would undermine the cleanups it aims to support. It opens the floodgates for bad actors to take advantage of Superfund liability shields and loopholes created by this legislation for the very first time.

Providing broad Superfund exemptions undermines our ability to protect the communities we are elected to serve. For example, during a cleanup, a so-called Good Samaritan may do an inadequate job or make the toxic contamination at a site worse. Under this bill, they would not be held responsible for the harm that they caused. By exempting polluters from liability, Congress would be shifting the costs of these cleanups onto the taxpayers, and I don't think that is right.

I fear that Congress is opening a Pandora's box, where every corporation and polluter will be asking for their own sweetheart Superfund exemption. What is more, this bill gives the incoming Trump Environmental Protection Agency Administrator unilateral power to decide which entities are Good Samaritans and which are not.

The Trump EPA also has sole power to choose which sites get selected for the program and to determine if a site is truly cleaned up in a reasonable amount of time under vague terms that make it difficult to ensure that adequate protection for human health and the environment takes place.

Mr. Speaker, EPA, the agency in charge of implementing the provisions of this bill, has also expressed serious concerns. The bill opens the program to additional litigation, takes away the possibility of downstream communities' holding Good Samaritans accountable in case of a spill, and leaves taxpayers on the hook to pay for cleaning up pollution that is discovered after a permit expires.

Mr. Speaker, for decades, the Superfund program has worked to clean up toxic sites across the Nation, particularly those contaminated with radioactive material and heavy metals. It has a strong bipartisan history of cleaning up sites, regardless of location and regardless of who is responsible or which political party controls Congress or the White House.

I believe allowing the Trump EPA to politicize this successful law is a mistake. Giving the Trump EPA additional tools to undermine Superfund cleanups should not be the way to close out this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I have consistently been willing to work with bill supporters to address deficiencies and recognize the critical role that Good Samaritans play in mine cleanups while also making sure we don't create new toxic Superfund sites in the process. Unfortunately, attempts by me and others to improve this bill or alleviate those concerns have not been granted or didn't take place.

Mr. Speaker, I simply cannot support the way this bill is phrased. I urge a ``no'' vote.

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