Mr. President. Inscribed on a wall in a side room of the Capitol is a wonderful statement from Theodore Roosevelt, reminding us that "The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value." The Bush Administration is ignoring this sage advice and turning its back on the Superfund program. This program has successfully removed PCBs, arsenic, lead and other toxic wastes from almost 900 communities. Yet, this Administration refuses to reauthorize the expired Superfund polluter-pays fees that were supported by Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton. As a result, the Superfund Trust Fund that once contained $3.6 billion dollars is now essentially bankrupt. Taxpayers are forced to pay for the clean up of abandoned toxic dumps, instead of the waste-generating chemical and petroleum industries. The impact of the resulting funding shortfall is illustrated by two sites in Vermont. The Elizabeth Mine site in Strafford has been denied funds for the second year in a row to clean up acid mine drainage that is leaching into the Connecticut River. The delay has forced EPA to spend millions of dollars in emergency funds to stabilize the site, while still failing to pay for actual clean-up. Only a few miles away lies another abandoned Superfund site - the Ely Mine site. It was added to the National Priorities List in 2001, but the Bush Administration has yet to fund the investigation to discover the full extent of the contamination, let alone begin clean-up. These examples illustrate how the Bush Administration's refusal to support reauthorization of the polluter-pays fees chokes off funds for sites at all stages in the cleanup pipeline. Not surprisingly, the pace of cleanups completed annually during the Bush Administration has plummeted by more than 50%. I therefore support the effort to reinstate the Superfund fees because every community deserves clean soil and water without delay. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to support the Lautenberg amendment.