THE ENVIRONMENT

Sequoias in Yosemite National Park

Senator Boxer's Environmental Record and Positions

Senator Boxer is one of the nation's leaders in the ongoing effort to protect our natural environment and keep our air and water clean. As a member of the Senate Environment Committee, she has led the fight to protect the California coast and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling. She has written bills to make polluters - not taxpayers - pay the costs of toxic Superfund clean-ups. She wrote the law to set drinking water standards at levels that protect children and other vulnerable populations, and she led the successful fight to stop the rollback of national arsenic standards.

Senator Boxer authored the California Wild Heritage Wilderness Act, which would protect 2.5 million areas of public lands in 81 different areas across the state as well as free-flowing portions of 22 rivers. These areas would remain open for recreational activities but not for logging or new mining and drilling activity. In November 2002, Congress passed crucial portions of Senator Boxer’s Wilderness Act, which will protect Big Sur and the Los Padres Forest in San Benito and Monterey. In December 2004, the Senate passed another portion of Senator Boxer's bill -- those areas in California California's 1st Congressional District.

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Senator Boxer authored an amendment that required the Bush Administration to set a tougher standard for arsenic in drinking water. It also reinstated the community right-to-know program, which educates communities with drinking water containing arsenic about the associated risks. The Boxer amendment passed the Senate 97-1. Following the Senate vote, the Bush Administration reversed its previous position and implemented a new, tougher standard.

Senator Boxer coauthored the bipartisan Brownfields Revitalization and Environmental Restoration Act of 2001, which assists communities in their efforts to clean up abandoned, contaminated waste sites commonly known as Brownfields. This law gives priority for clean-up funding to low-income communities and sites where children play. There are thousands of Brownfield sites in California alone, and the EPA has identified and begun cleanup at more than 60 sites in the state.

Senator Boxer is fighting to ensure that polluters, not American taxpayers, pay to clean up our nation’s most toxic waste sites, also known as Superfund sites. Currently one in four Americans, including 10 million children, lives within four miles of a Superfund site. In January 2003, Boxer and Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) introduced a bipartisan bill requiring oil and chemical companies to take responsibility for these clean-up costs.

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Senator Boxer authored legislation to fund research on perchlorate, a chemical that has been detected in the drinking water supply of many Californians. Under Boxer’s amendment, Congress called for the National Institutes of Health to conduct a study on the health effects of perchlorate, particularly on children, pregnant women and the elderly.

Preliminary research shows that perchlorate causes thyroid gland malfunction, which affects human metabolism, growth and development. Boxer has introduced legislation to speed up establishment of a federal perchlorate standard and to require companies to inform the public about storage, transportation, and spills of perchlorate.

Senator Boxer has been a leader in the nationwide effort to ban the toxic gasoline additive MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether). In March 2000, the EPA committed to working with Congress toward a four-year phase-out of MTBE under the Clean Air Act. MTBE is contaminating drinking water supplies from leaking underground storage fuel tanks, fuel pipelines, and recreational water craft. In 2003, Boxer also led the Senate fight to eliminate a provision in the energy bill that shields MTBE manufacturers from liability for MTBE contamination.

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In September 2002, the U.S. Senate passed Senator Boxer’s amendment calling for a halt of any development for the next year on the 36 undeveloped oil leases off the coast of California. Boxer, who has been a leader in the fight to protect California’s coastal waters during her 20 years in Congress, also introduced The Coastal States Protection Act to extend any moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling from the state boundary to federal waters. Further, when Congress stood in the way, Boxer led the effort in support of the Clinton Administration Department of Interior’s rule requiring oil companies to pay fair royalty payments for oil drilled on federal land.

Senator Boxer successfully led the 2003 Senate floor battle to block oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which would destroy thousands of acres of fragile Arctic habitat, threaten the diverse array of species that live there, and forever ruin one of America’s last great wild places. In 2005, Senator Boxer was one of the leaders to block oil drilling again. Senator Boxer vows to save thisprecious resource.

Throughout her career, Senator Boxer has fought to protect our air quality and to prevent efforts to gut current protections. She has authored legislation requiring all trucks in the United States to comply with Clean Air Act requirements, cosponsored legislation to clean up smog, soot, mercury, and carbon dioxide, and is fighting to insure that industries install modern pollution control equipment.

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As the Senate leader on clean fuel vehicles, Senator Boxer successfully fought to repeal the luxury tax on electric cars and other alternative fuel projects, supported funding for clean fuel vehicles, and introduced legislation to remove subsidies for gas guzzlers.

Senator Boxer has throughout her career worked to protect our most precious, environmentally sensitive lands, helping to secure over $200 million for land acquisition in California, including areas in: the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Pt. Reyes National Seashore, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the Los Angeles Padres National Forest in Big Sur, the Cleveland National Forest near San Diego, and the Tahoe National Forest.

Senator Boxer is fighting to secure full funding for the Urban Parks and Recreation Recovery Program. This program was created to provide “close-to-home” recreation opportunities for residents in densely populated areas, and maintain urban parks and recreation centers. The Bush Administration’s current budget proposal eliminates all funding for urban parks.

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In 2001, Senator Boxer introduced the Salmon Restoration Bill that would provide five western states and tribal areas with $350 million for salmon recovery efforts and habitat recovery projects. This legislation is beneficial to the environment and California's economy.

Senator Boxer fought to defeat a Republican effort to sell the Presidio of San Francisco and authored legislation in the Senate to create a government-owned Presidio Trust to manage over 500 historic buildings and preserve the 1,480-acre national treasure for future generations to enjoy. She led the successful fight for passage of a larger omnibus parks bill, including the Presidio legislation, on the Senate floor. The bill, which contained dozens of park projects, was cited as the most significant parks bill to pass Congress in almost two decades.

Senator Boxer played a key role in defeating "regulatory reform" that would have resulted in seriously undermining our existing health, safety and environmental laws. Senator Boxer offered an amendment that passed by a unanimous vote of 99-0 to exempt important pending regulations on mammography standards from the bill. Passage of this amendment was critical in forcing further negotiations on regulatory reform initiatives.

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Boxer’s legislation to allow consumers to receive an annual report detailing what level of contaminants are in their drinking water was included in the final Safe Drinking Water Act bill signed into law by President Clinton. Boxer’s original amendment failed to pass the Senate in 1995, but was included in the conference committee in 1996. The law requires water utilities to provide “plainly-worded” reports to customers.

Boxer sponsored an amendment to the Safe Drinking Water bill that protects vulnerable populations, including children, infants and the elderly. The Boxer initiative requires EPA drinking water standards be set at levels that take into account groups that are at substantially higher risk than the average healthy adult.

Senator Boxer continues to work hard for clean water in our communities, cosponsoring legislation to ensure that all water bodies are clean, and fighting to increase funding for safe and clean drinking water and ground water.

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Senator Boxer was instrumental in blocking a proposed nuclear waste dump at Ward Valley in the California desert. In 1998, Senator Boxer convinced the Clinton Administration to carry out key health and safety tests at the site; she then blocked every legislative effort to transfer the land for the purpose of establishing a dump before completion of these tests. In 1999, a federal judge ruled that Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt had acted correctly in giving California jurisdiction over the transfer of land at the site. Governor Gray Davis’s opposition to the project then ended the possibility of a nuclear waste dump at Ward Valley.

In 2002, Boxer sponsored a bipartisan bill with Republican Senators George Voinovich (OH), Susan Collins (ME), and Arlen Specter (PA) to elevate the Environmental Protection Agency to a cabinet-level department.

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