Energy Policy Act of 2003-Conference Report-Continued
ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2003-CONFERENCE REPORT-CONTINUED
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, obviously, I am in opposition to this Energy bill. The Senator from New Mexico is my friend. We go nose to nose and toe to toe and fight on a lot of issues. We are in real disagreement over this bill. But I respect him and like him very much. When we do come together on issues such as mental health parity, it is a wonderful feeling for us to be on the same side fighting together. Unfortunately, today that may not be the case, but tomorrow I hope it is. I have a great deal of respect for him and for all the hard work he and his staff and so many others put into this legislation.
What I like about Senator Domenici-I guess most of all-is his candor. He tends to play cards with the cards face up. You know what you are dealing with. He is very honest and plain-spoken. That is a refreshing virtue and quality in this world of politics. He was quoted on the floor the other day, talking about this Energy bill:
We know that as soon as you start reading the language, we are duck soup.
That is what he said. I have to say to the Senator from New Mexico that I have read some of the language. It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, and it sounds like a duck. It is a duck. And we are in the soup if we enact it.
There are provisions in this bill that are very good for America and very good for my home State, provisions which I have long fought for throughout my congressional career: Expanding the use of ethanol, expanding the use of biodiesel. These are positive steps to help farmers, rural communities, to clean up air pollution in a sensible way, to provide energy resources which are not being used as much as they should. You might not expect to hear that from a Senator from Illinois because we have the largest ethanol production in the Nation. I have been honored to represent a congressional district that includes Decatur, IL, home of Archer Daniels Midland, the largest single ethanol producer in the Nation.
I came to this issue with some knowledge and with an inclination to try my best to expand ethanol. Throughout my public career, I have done it. I have been chairman of the congressional alcohol fuels caucus. I have introduced legislation, sponsored it. I have led efforts with letters and speeches, just about all you can do to promote ethanol. If it is enacted, the ethanol provision in the bill will be the most dramatic expansion in the Nation's history. I certainly support it.
To all of my friends in the farm community back home who are disappointed because I oppose this bill, trust that my commitment to ethanol is not going to change. I am just going to hope that the next venue, the next opportunity to discuss ethanol, will be in a much different bill, a much better bill.
Sadly, what is included in this bill, beyond the ethanol provisions and the biodiesel provisions and efforts to look for new ways to burn coal in an environmentally safe way, many of the provisions are very bad, very troublesome.
Tomorrow we will have a vote. That vote will decide whether this bill goes forward to final passage. It really is the key vote. It is going to be close, probably within one or two Senators' votes. They will decide what happens to this Energy bill. It is my hope that the Senators who are on the fence now or worried about the vote will consider several things.
First, we can do better. If this is supposed to be an Energy bill for America's future, we can do so much better. Take any family in your State, wherever you are from-Tennessee, Illinois, New Mexico, or Delaware-sit down with them and say: When it comes to the energy future of America, what is the first thing we ought to look at? My guess is that most of those individuals, with no particular scientific or technical knowledge, will say: How about all the gasoline we are burning in our cars and trucks? That is the most obvious use of energy in America.
It is the No. 1 use of imported petroleum products, conversion into gasoline to fuel our cars and trucks. So you would assume that in this lengthy bill, the first chapter of the bill would relate to how we can burn this gasoline more efficiently, how we can reduce our consumption of gasoline, how we can make our cars and trucks more fuel efficient so there is less pollution and less dependence on foreign oil.
Most Americans would assume that.
Well, there is bad news. You can search this new law that is being proposed, page after page after page for 1,400 pages, and find precious little, if any, reference to fuel efficiency and fuel economy of America's cars and trucks. Why? How can we in good faith say to the American people that we are concerned about our energy security and energy independence without addressing the fuel efficiency of our cars and trucks?
There was a time, in 1975, when the average fuel efficiency was about 14 miles a gallon. Congress passed a law that almost doubled that fuel efficiency to 27.5 miles a gallon by 1985. That was 18 years ago. You ask yourself: How good are we today? Have we improved on that mark? Are we doing better than 27.5 miles a gallon on average? The answer, sadly, is no. We have gone in the opposite direction. We are closer now to 22 miles a gallon.
What has happened in 18 years? No leadership-not from Congress, not from the President-no leadership that leads us to more fuel efficiency. Instead, we have left it to the forces of the marketplace. There are many here who believe that is all we need to worry about; let the market work its will.
The market has worked its will and, as a result, we are selling cars that are less and less fuel efficient. We are importing more oil from overseas and burning it to fuel heavier, less fuel-efficient vehicles. In fact, this Congress, if it has shown any leadership, has gone in the opposite direction. We have created tax incentives for people to buy the most inefficient cars and SUVs in America, these monstrous Humvees that come rolling down the highway. We are going to give you a great big tax credit if you will buy those. Do you know why? Those big old monsters get between 9 and 15 miles a gallon. We will give you an incentive to buy those.
Yet when it comes to incentives to buy fuel-efficient cars, hybrid vehicles, we are going to have to phase that out. We do have a deficit.
Isn't that upside down? Shouldn't we be thinking about encouraging more fuel-efficient vehicles if we truly want to lessen our dependence on Saudi Arabia and Middle Eastern oil? That is obvious to most people in the State I represent. It is obvious to most Americans. It certainly was not obvious to the sponsors of this Energy bill. They wrote this bill listening to Detroit. The automobile manufacturers in Detroit-I have worked with them on a number of issues-are just plain wrong on this. They have fought tooth and nail every proposal to bring more fuel-efficient vehicles to America.
Do you want to hear the irony of this situation? The irony was brought out by a disclosure-quoting here from the Baltimore Sun of November 19, 2003. Listen to what they wrote:
Chinese leaders are worried about their nation's growing dependence on imported oil. What's more, pollution from such fossil fuels threatens to become a parallel concern as China's booming economy matures.
So they've hit upon an obvious energy strategy that somehow has eluded U.S. lawmakers: conservation.
In what should be an embarrassing juxtaposition for leaders here, China is moving to impose tighter fuel-efficiency rules on cars and SUVs than the U.S. requires, while Congress is adopting an opposite approach-boosting domestic production of fossil fuels to meet all-but-unchecked demand.
. . . adds insult to injury by subsidizing the purchase of monster gas-guzzlers, such as the Humvee.
They conclude:
The Senate still has a chance to stop this monstrosity [the Energy bill]. It should take a cue from China and prepare for the future, instead of squandering precious resources trying to maintain an unsustainable past.
Chinese thinking on energy is very clear, I might say. It is the thinking of American politicians that is inscrutable. How in the world can we be talking about energy independence and ignore fuel efficiency for the cars and trucks we drive? That, sadly, is the reality of this legislation. That is why it cannot be taken seriously. You cannot believe this is the best the Congress in America can produce to deal with energy, without addressing that issue.
There is another issue here which I think goes to questions of justice and fairness, maybe even morality. I hate to raise that question, but we hear a lot about morality and virtue and values on the floor of the Senate. Occasionally, we should apply those same words to the legislation we consider. That relates to section 1502 of this legislation.
Section 1502 of this legislation has created a "get out of jail free card" for the producers of MTBE. What is MTBE? It is a substance that has been added to gasoline for years in America to reduce the tailpipe emissions and to make your engine run more smoothly. It is what is called an oxygenate. You probably didn't even know it was there. But it is blended with gasoline for those purposes, as an oxygenate. It is a product of waste products of the oil-processing procedure. So it is a pretty cheap commodity. It has been blended, for years, with gasoline in the United States. Other oxygenates include ethanol, which I referred to earlier, and, like alcohol, it is benign and doesn't really threaten the environment.
But MTBE-this additive-turns out to be extraordinarily dangerous. It is a poison, a toxic substance which, if it leeches into a water supply, can make it undrinkable, at best, and dangerous, at worst, leading those who consume it to a greater likelihood of serious illness and disease, even the potential of cancer.
So what has happened across the United States is that the oil companies that use MTBE as an additive learned that when the underground storage tank at your gas station started to leak-little drips day after day-ultimately, that MTBE-blended gasoline would reach the water table under the ground, and the water supply of the community where the gas station was located. As it reached the water supply, it didn't biodegrade but continued to be toxic and lethal. As a result, the consumers, the families, the children, and the schools that consume this water were at a public health risk.
Well, this contamination has now spread across the United States. It is in Illinois and in many other States. Let me show you how bad this is.
Here is a map showing States with MTBE contamination in ground drinking water. The Presiding Officer's State of Tennessee does not have contamination in drinking water but does have contamination sites. Tennessee has 1,394 MTBE contamination sites. Illinois, where I live, has 9,546 MTBE contamination sites. Look at this map of America. You can see that where MTBE has reached the ground water, and now the drinking water, we have the public health hazard that has swept across America. Only six States in the continental United States have not been touched by this. Hawaii has not but Alaska has. Alaska's drinking water has been contaminated as well.
Why is this important? Because, for the first time in my memory, and I have asked my legal staff to keep looking-I may be wrong-we have decided to put into legislation protection from liability for product liability cases that are filed against MTBE producers. If you are an oil company that had MTBE blended with your gasoline and it ended up contaminating drinking water, causing a public health hazard, this bill, in section 1502, says, for you, you are in luck, you get a "get out of jail free card."
How can we do this? How can we, in all fairness, say the corporations and businesses that made a conscious decision to use this additive, and because of the use of this dangerous substance are endangering the public health and lives of Americans, will somehow be free of liability?
One of the first things we decided in America-those who sat down and, in their wisdom, created our Constitution-was that we would do away with royalty; we weren't going to give people titles such as "princes" and "viscounts" and whatever it happened to be in the old country. No, in America it is different. There is no royalty. We are all the same. People are treated the same. The highest and the lowest in rank in America are held accountable.
But that is not the case when it comes to this Energy bill because if you happen to be an oil company with MTBE contamination, we are going to treat you like royalty with a "get out of jail free card." We are going to say that you are not going to be held responsible as will the business next door selling another product. That is just plain wrong.
Senator Domenici came to the floor and said repeatedly-understand, he turns the cards over so there is no doubt what is going on. He says: Understand what this bargain was. If you want ethanol, you want to sell more ethanol-the oil companies hate ethanol; they don't make ethanol. In order for them to go along with this bill, in order for the oil company giants to agree to promoting ethanol in America, we had to give them this MTBE waiver of liability. Those are not my words. I think they are an accurate paraphrase of Senator Domenici's words, repeated many times on the floor of the Senate. He said: If you don't give the oil companies this protection from liability for their own wrongdoing, from product liability lawsuits, frankly, there is going to be no ethanol in your future.
Isn't it a sad outcome that we would turn our backs on 153,858 MTBE contamination sites in America and say to the communities, to the towns and cities, the subdivisions and the families, to the individuals who are harmed by this MTBE: We are sorry, you will not have a day in court. You will not be able to hold the people accountable who ended up endangering your family. Why? Because we had to strike a political deal. We had to say that when it came to using ethanol-which is a benign substance, environmentally acceptable-we had to swallow hard and say to the makers of MTBE and the oil producers that we are going to let them off the hook.
Do you know what else is in this bill? It is not just a protection from liability. Imagine this, if you will. We provided in this bill that you can continue to sell MTBE in the United States until 2014. Now, here is a substance that we know is damaging the environment in 153,858 contaminated sites, and this bill gives the companies the express permission to continue to sell it in America. It goes on to say that any Governor or the President can stop the MTBE ban for any State or region, which means 2014 is not a real deadline. Then, to add the ultimate insult, it gives to the industry $2 billion to transition away from MTBE.
My mind is spinning to think that Congressman DeLay of Texas, who supposedly is the author of this, was so audacious as to walk into the conference and say: Here is the deal, my friends. This lethal chemical in gasoline can continue to be sold in this country for 11 or 12 more years, and any Governor or President can extend the sale of that beyond that period; any company that wants to stop selling it is going to get a Federal subsidy to a total tune of $2 billion; and, furthermore, while this MTBE additive continues to contaminate water supplies and endanger public health, we are going to make sure that those who are injured, the innocent victims across America, cannot go to court and sue under a product liability claim.
How can we do this? How can we in good conscience do this? How can we ignore this section of the bill, this outrageous section of the bill?
Frankly, this is good reason to say to our friends who have worked long and hard on this conference report: Enough; send this bill back for more work. Remove this outrageous section about MTBE. Protect innocent American families and communities, and do it now.
There are those who argue, frankly, that there are other lawsuits that can be filed, that you don't have to use the product liability theory. Here is a lawsuit that was filed in Lake Tahoe, CA, South Tahoe Utility District v. ARCO, Atlantic Richfield Company. Here is what the jury verdict was in the case.
Lyondell-the maker of the MTBE additive-Lyondell's MTBE was defective in design because Lyondell failed to warn of the environmental risks.
They went on to say: Gasoline containing MTBE refined by the other defendants at trial was defective in design because the environmental risks of MTBE outweigh the benefits and the refiners failed to warn of its risks.
They went on to say: There is clear and convincing evidence that Lyondell and Shell acted with malice as they developed, promoted, and distributed their defective MTBE products.
What this tells us is that the companies which were sued knew they had a dangerous product, they continued to make it, continued to sell it, and continued to endanger people. Not only are they clearly guilty under a product liability standard, they are guilty, I think, in the worst scenario. As I recall from law school, it is whether they knew or should have known. This is not a "should have known" situation. The wrongdoers with MTBE actually were found, in this case, to have known it was a dangerous product.
Yesterday, I came to the floor and talked about this MTBE issue. I no sooner left the floor than the oil industry decided to put out a rebuttal to the remarks I had made on the floor. It is a lengthy rebuttal, but I would like to address the elements in it.
Frankly, they were plain wrong and the record should be set straight. I stated in my floor statement yesterday and I repeat again today, there were alternatives to MTBEs in the 1990s. Some would have you believe we had no choice when it came to oxygenate; it was MTBE or nothing. But listen to this: The MTBE manufacturers knew conclusively by 1984 that MTBE was a dangerous product that could contaminate water wells throughout the United States. They misled the Environmental Protection Agency in direct responses to inquiries in 1986 when they claimed they were unaware of MTBE water contamination.
Because of this deception by the MTBE companies about the dangers of their product and their efforts to discredit anybody who said otherwise, the industry increased its production at the expense of the alternative oxygenate, ethanol.
It should be noted, MTBE, as I said earlier, is a waste product, cheaper than ethanol. Had the manufacturers of MTBE disclosed the truth about MTBE contamination, the ethanol industry would have done quite well, and Congress might or could have prohibited this product at a very early stage. But because of the active deception of the MTBE industry, starting with their knowledge in the 1980s of the danger of their product, this didn't happen.
I went on to say that MTBE was found to be a probable cause of cancer. I spent a lot of my years on Capitol Hill fighting the tobacco companies. I know how they work. The MTBE gang is up to the same bag of tricks. They are now starting to dispute medical evidence as to whether MTBE is dangerous.
The industry, in rebuttal to my remarks, said:
MTBE is one of the most widely studied chemicals in commerce, including pharmaceuticals, and that the overwhelming majority of scientific evaluations to date have not identified any health-related risk to humans from the intended use of MTBE in gasoline.
Then they go on to cite "numerous government" and "world-renowned independent health organizations" having found no sufficiently compelling reason to classify MTBE as carcinogenic.
Let me tell you, the MTBE industry, like the tobacco industry, when it comes to playing games with medical evidence, is plain wrong. The University of California at Davis concluded that MTBE is a known animal carcinogen.
In addition, the director of the General Accounting Office's Office of Natural Resources and Environment testified before Congress in May 2002 and stated:
An interagency assessment of potential health risks associated with fuel additives to gasoline, primarily MTBE, concluded that while available data did not fully determine risk, MTBE should be regarded as a potential carcinogenic risk to humans. . . . A primary rule in epidemiology is "Absence of evidence of risk is not evidence of absence of risk."
The data has been coming in leading community after community, jury after jury, to conclude that this dangerous product might or could have endangered the health of Americans.
The removal of MTBE, as I said yesterday, is a growing problem. Their industry spokesman said:
It's more water soluble and can be transported more readily in soil and water than other gasoline constituents.
I will tell you this: The largest MTBE manufacturer in the United States, Lyondell, has already been forced to revise its product safety bulletin and state, in their own industry safety bulletin:
A relatively small amount of MTBE, less than 1 part per billion, can impart a displeasing taste and odor to water.
The U.S. Geological Survey has determined MTBE is the second most frequently detected pollutant in the United States, second only to chlorine, which is intentionally added to water, to give you an idea of how pervasive this issue is.
I also stated that the defective product claim is the most effective to secure relief against MTBE. The industry denies it. Yet what we have found is this: We have had to, in most communities across America, dig up gasoline storage tanks because they leaked. It was through the Leaking Underground Storage Trust Fund-the LUST fund-that a lot of this was paid for. We did it because we found this leaking gasoline was contaminating underground wells and aquifers.
The point I make is this: Despite our best efforts to dig up these underground storage tanks, the problem across America has not abated. About half of the States have reported finding MTBE they can still attribute to leaking tanks and suspect it came from other sources, even above-ground tanks to store fuels.
The point I would like to make is this, for those who are attempting to rebut my remarks of yesterday: The problem with MTBE has not gone away and is not likely to go away soon. What this legislation is designed to do is to hold those wrongdoers, those producers of MTBE, harmless from liability in product liability lawsuits for selling an inherently dangerous and defective product, a product which the industry has known since 1984 would contaminate water supplies and endanger public health.
This, in my mind, is the ultimate in irresponsibility. Frankly, I would like to say to my friends in the farm community who have said to me, You have to look the other way; we have to allow ethanol to expand even if it means endangering the lives of people from contaminated water in public water supplies-I would like to say to them, remember what you said yourself.
The president of the Illinois Farm Bureau, Ron Warfield, a good friend of mine, called and spoke to me about this issue. He has testified before Congress, and he said:
We recognize the urgency of ending MTBE use to protect drinking water supplies.
Mr. Warfield went on to state:
MTBE has adverse human health and environmental impacts.
He went on to state:
The farm bureau's belief-
This is the Illinois Farm Bureau-
that any legislation that addresses MTBE must be national in scope. Allowing States that have different programs will not allow us to achieve our national energy goals.
This bill goes directly against the Illinois Farm Bureau's position. This bill says, when it comes to MTBE we are going to allow them to escape liability. We, who have said for years that MTBE was a dangerous contaminant, cannot forget our own word.
My colleague in the Senate, Senator Fitzgerald, I believe in 2002, introduced legislation to ban the use of MTBE and to move toward the use of a safer oxygenate, specifically the use of ethanol. My colleagues in the House of Representatives, Congressman Shimkus from Illinois, and Congressman Ganske, introduced similar legislation.
Senator Fitzgerald said in his press release, March 6, 2000: Despite relatively limited MTBE use in Illinois, the Illinois EPA reports that at least 25 communities across the State have detected the chemical in their water supply, and three towns have had to discontinue use of wells as a result of MTBE contamination.
That is a quote from Senator Fitzgerald's press release in March of 2000. He understood the seriousness of this risk. He understood the danger to Illinois and its communities. Frankly, the situation has not gotten better. It is worse.
Taking a look at this chart, we can see that in Illinois we have 9,546 contaminated MTBE sites, including drinking water sites. So for my colleagues, Senator Fitzgerald, Congressman Shimkus, my friends at the Illinois Farm Bureau, and other farm organizations, I hope they can understand how this bill, frankly, makes a mockery of what we have said in the past.
If we have said, under oath at times, that MTBE is dangerous to the public health, how can we in good conscience now support this bill, which includes section 1502, which lets the producers of MTBE off the hook? How can we say to the communities and families of Illinois, or any other State affected, that we are going to limit their opportunity to come to court?
Yesterday, Senator Domenici likened lawsuits against MTBE producers to lawsuits against McDonald's because a woman was scalded when hot coffee was spilled on her lap. I might say to the Senator, there is all the difference in the world between the two of them. The lawsuit against the MTBE producers is a lawsuit based on the fact that this industry had knowledge, almost 20 years ago, that what they were selling was environmentally dangerous. They continued to sell it. They deceived the Government. They secreted information away from the public, and now they are trying to escape liability for their fraud and trickery.
Why should we be party to their fraud? Why should we say that they will not be held accountable for their wrongdoing? Is it not a premise of law and the rule of law in America that each and every individual and business will be held accountable for their wrongdoing? Why, then, do we cut this wide swath and say that these contaminants, the companies that made them, and the lawsuits that might come from them, should somehow be changed by this law? That is fundamentally unfair. Why would we do that at the same time that we offer $2 billion in taxpayer money to these companies as they phase out the use and production of that product?
I can think of plenty of businesses in my State of Illinois, or the States of New Mexico, West Virginia, and Texas, that are struggling to survive, that could use a Federal subsidy to get through a transition. We are not giving them a subsidy, but we are giving a subsidy to the oil and chemical companies that make MTBE a $2 billion subsidy. That, to me, is unconscionable, unreasonable, and indefensible. It is good reason for us to stand and oppose this bill.
When we look at the States that are affected by this-New Mexico, 1,126 contaminated sites; the State of West Virginia, 1,333 contaminated sites; Texas, 5,678 contaminated MTBE sites, and the list goes on and on-it says to each one of us that this crisis is not over. This crisis will continue. If we fail to hold the wrongdoers accountable, others will pay the price. There will be injured individuals and families who will have to bear the brunt of this environmental crime. There will be cities, towns, villages, and States which will have to pay to put infiltration systems in, new water systems and cleanup because of these polluters.
Why is it that this administration, and its friends in Congress, are dedicated to polluter protection instead of the basic principle that polluters should pay?
Polluters should pay for their own pollution. This is a classic example. Section 1502, which absolves in product liability lawsuits MTBE manufacturers from their responsibility and their liability, I think that is classic in terms of special interest legislation.
As I mentioned at the outset, Senator Domenici said there was a real danger-and let me quote him directly: We know as you start reading the language, we are duck soup. That is what Senator Domenici said on the Senate floor.
Well, we have read the language and, as we read it, we are saddened and troubled that in the Senate we would have such an egregious carve-out, such a blatant effort to reward one special interest group. I understand Congressman TOM DELAY's political strength, his persuasive ability, but to think that he could walk into a conference and force this provision into this conference committee is something that I do not think we should accept.
This is what we have to face. Those of us from States with MTBE contamination cannot walk away from our responsibility. We have to acknowledge that this bill, so long as it contains this provision, needs to be defeated. This bill must be stopped in its tracks. We must say to those who spent so much time on it, they need to go back and tell Congressman DeLay, the oil companies, and those who are pushing for this provision, that this is patently unacceptable and it is, frankly, unprecedented in American law that we would exempt one company from its own wrongdoing. But that is exactly what we are doing.
Once we have removed this offensive provision, we need to sit down and write a real Energy bill, an Energy bill which tries to encourage alternative fuels and renewable fuels, an Energy bill which focuses once and for all on "conservation," which seems to be a blasphemous word in this administration, in this Congress, but one that most Americans understand. We need an Energy bill that deals with fuel efficiency and fuel economy. Sadly, this bill does not.
We need an Energy bill that looks to reducing our dependence on imported oil in the future. Maybe we should invite the Chinese to come over and give us some guidance on how we could move toward conservation and fuel economy and less dependence on foreign oil because, frankly, they understand it far better than we do. We need an Energy bill that does not have to get passed by being larded up with a gusher of giveaways. If one wants to talk about oil exploration, there is a gusher of giveaways in this bill, giveaways to cities, towns, States, Congressmen, and Senators. Is that what it takes to develop an energy policy in America? I hope it does not.
I am no newcomer to Capitol Hill, and I understand that sometimes one has to keep the process moving along and they have to help one State or this region or one industry or that industry, but when it goes to this extreme, when it goes to the extreme of absolving a polluting and contaminating industry from their legal liability in products liability lawsuits for contamination of 153,000 sites across America, then it has gone entirely too far.
I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the motion for cloture. If that motion is stopped, this bill is stopped. When it is, it can go back to conference.
Let us hope that for the first time we will have an open process. This whole energy policy started when Vice President Cheney created a secret task force with secret meetings, producing a secret bill, leading to the administration's energy policy. It continued apace through the congressional process and returned to secrecy when two individuals, my friend the Senator from New Mexico and the Congressman from Louisiana, Mr. Tauzin, sat down in a room without other Members and without anyone from the minority party and wrote this bill.
The reason there is such resistance today is the fact that this was not an open process. It should have been more open. Had it been more open, I do not believe anyone could, in good conscience, have proposed this MTBE exclusion from liability. You could not have brought this out in public with a straight face. But in private you can, and that is what happened.
Now the bill is on the floor and America gets a chance to read it. Having read it, I urge those who happen to be from the States with contamination of MTBE-and I put this map up here for those who are following the debate, for my colleagues to note. If your State is in black on this map, you know you have MTBE contamination. If it has one of those gold circles as well, it is contamination of drinking water.
If you vote for this legislation, you are saying to the people living in your State and your communities: We are closing the opportunity for you to go and hold the people accountable who have created this environmental disaster in your State.
I wouldn't want to go home and try to explain that. And I am not, because, frankly, I am going to oppose this bill so long as it contains this provision.
I yield the floor.