Highlights of Senator Boxer's Record on Environment

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Environmental laws protect public health and preserve natural America for generations to come. A clean and healthy environment goes hand in hand with a strong economy, from California tourism to the creation of "green jobs."

Senator Barbara Boxer has long been recognized as one of the Senate's leading environmental champions. And now, as Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), she is setting the environmental agenda.

Climate Change: When Senator Boxer took over the chairmanship of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2007, she set an aggressive agenda to end years of inaction on the single biggest environmental challenge facing the world today: climate change. She held a series of groundbreaking hearings on the issue and committed to fight to pass long-overdue legislation to make the United States the world's leader in carbon reduction. In 2008, she managed a comprehensive climate change bill in the Senate and garnered the support of 54 Senators, only to be stopped by a Republican filibuster. Senator Boxer also wrote the 2007 law requiring federal buildings to use technologies that reduce energy use and global warming pollution; the law also provides grants to help local governments renovate their buildings to make them more energy efficient.
California Greenhouse Gas Waiver: Senator Boxer supports California's law to set standards for reducing tailpipe emissions from cars and other vehicles – standards that will result in a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles in California by 2016. Senator Boxer has authored legislation forcing the EPA to grant California's waiver request and has applauded President Obama's decision to have the EPA revisit the issue.
Superfund/Brownfields: Senator Boxer has long fought to expand the Superfund program to clean up toxic waste sites around the country. She supports reinstating the requirement that polluters – not taxpayers – pay for the cleanup of toxic Superfund sites. She also helped to write the federal law that assists local communities in cleaning up abandoned industrial sites known as Brownfields and that ensures priority is given to sites in low-income communities and to sites near where children play.
California Wilderness Protection: To protect 2.5 million acres of wild public lands, Senator Boxer introduced the California Wild Heritage Wilderness Act. Parts of her bill have been signed into law and nearly a million acres of Big Sur, the Los Padres National Forest, the California Desert, the Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, the Eastern Sierra, and Northern San Gabriel are now permanently protected. These lands are protected from new logging, mining, and drilling while remaining open to recreational activities.
Offshore Oil Drilling: Senator Boxer has been a leader in the effort to prevent new offshore oil drilling off the California coast for the past three decades, beginning when she was a County Supervisor in the 1970s. She fought to renew annual prohibitions on drilling and pushed the Clinton Administration to declare a longer-term moratorium. She introduced legislation to establish a permanent ban on new offshore oil drilling – and has called for prohibiting any development of the 36 undeveloped leases off the coast of California.
Arctic Refuge: Senator Boxer has been a leader in the effort to block oil drilling in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska and has supported legislation to permanently protect ANWR as wilderness. Oil drilling would destroy thousands of acres of fragile Arctic habitat, threaten the diverse array of species that live there, and irrevocably damage one of America's last great wild places.
Pesticide Testing on Children: In 2005, Senator Boxer brought to light a study being funded by the EPA and the pesticide industry that would pay primarily low-income families for allowing their newborns and infants to be exposed to pesticides. She was successful in forcing the EPA to cancel the study. Senator Boxer also wrote the law placing a moratorium on testing pesticides on humans until new regulations were established to outlaw testing on pregnant women, infants, and children and to ensure that all human pesticide tests comply with widely-accepted ethical guidelines.
Drinking Water Standards for Children: Senator Boxer wrote the law that requires the EPA to set drinking water standards at a level that would be safe for children and other vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women and the elderly. Prior to the Boxer law, contaminant levels were set according to their effect on healthy adult men.
Perchlorate: Perchlorate is the main ingredient in rocket fuel, and it has contaminated the sources of drinking water for up to 10 million Californians. Senator Boxer has authored legislation to require the EPA to set a maximum contaminant level for perchlorate – and set at a level that provides an adequate margin of safety for the most vulnerable populations. She also introduced a bill to require public disclosure of information on perchlorate levels in tap water.
MTBE: MTBE is a gasoline additive that has poisoned the drinking water in several California communities. When attempts were made in Congress to exempt MTBE producers from being held liable for the cleanup, placing the financial burden on taxpayers and local communities, Senator Boxer helped lead the effort to deny this special-interest waiver.
Leaking Underground Storage Tanks: For the most part, MTBE contamination has been the result of leaking underground storage tanks. But MTBE is only part of a much larger problem of toxic chemicals leaking from such storage tanks around the country, posing substantial risks to groundwater quality and human health. Senator Boxer authored legislation to require that all new and replaced underground storage tanks near a water system or other sensitive area include secondary containment, such as double walls.
Arsenic in Drinking Water: Senator Boxer led the successful fight against the Bush Administration's plan to weaken the arsenic standard for drinking water. After she won passage in the Senate calling for a tougher arsenic standard, the Administration backed down from its plan.
Clean Water: In 2007, Senator Boxer cosponsored legislation to provide assistance to help small communities clean up their drinking water systems so that they are in compliance with national drinking water standards. She has also authored legislation to expand and improve the Clean Water State Revolving Fund program and the Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund – both federal programs that help states and local communities ensure cleaner water.
Ward Valley: When a nuclear waste dump was proposed at Ward Valley in the California Desert, Senator Boxer criticized the plans to store the waste in unlined trenches. When geologists revealed that the dumpsite was near the Colorado River aquifer and could put drinking water for millions of southern Californians at risk, she opposed building the dump until additional safety studies were conducted. As a result of her efforts, plans to build the dump were abandoned.
Clean Air in Port Cities: Senator Boxer authored legislation to reduce the emissions from large ships, which is contributing to soot and smog pollution that endangers the health and welfare of people who live near ports.
San Joaquin Valley Air Quality: Thousands of children in the San Joaquin Valley are suffering from the health effects of high levels of air pollution. Senator Boxer is the author of a bill to provide grants to reduce air pollution in the region by replacing or repairing vehicles and engines that contribute to the high levels of pollution.
Clean Fuel Vehicles: As a leading advocate of clean fuel vehicles, Senator Boxer wrote the law that repealed the luxury tax on alternative fuel vehicles. She also won federal funding for the military purchase of electric vehicles and led the effort to provide funding for electric and natural gas buses for California transit systems as well as for Yosemite National Park.
Lead Poisoning: In 2002, Senator Boxer led the effort in the Senate against the Bush Administration's proposal to eliminate funding to test poor children for lead poisoning. The Administration backed down and kept the testing in place. In 2008, she introduced legislation to require the EPA, when regulating lead cleanup activities in housing, to ensure that lead is cleaned up to an extent that would ensure the safety of children and pregnant women.
Rocketdyne Cleanup: Senator Boxer has worked to obtain federal funds to clean up the Rocketdyne site in Ventura County and to establish clean-up standards that protect the public. Boxer urged the Department of Energy to ship all contaminants from Rocketdyne to facilities designed to accept and safely store radioactive waste.
Ocean Protection: According to numerous independent analyses, the damage caused to the world's oceans from pollution, over fishing, and invasive species are threatening to permanently harm the world's climate and environment – and to cause severe economic disruption to states and communities that border the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Senator Boxer has introduced comprehensive legislation to protect and conserve marine wildlife and habitat, to strengthen fisheries and fish habitat, and to improve the quality of ocean water.
Beach Protection and Preservation: California's beaches are a main tourist attraction, which in turn provides a large boost to the California economy. Senator Boxer has long fought for federal funding to prevent the erosion of California's beaches and to clean up beaches from contamination. In 2008, she supported legislation to increase funding for the nationwide beach protection program.
Salton Sea: Senator Boxer authored legislation to restore the Salton Sea. She also secured $4.0 million to aid habitat restoration and protect the Salton Sea from further environmental degradation.
Mercury: Senator Boxer supported legislation, now law, to generally prohibit the export of mercury from the United States and to prohibit the U.S. government from conveying mercury to others.
Valuing a Human Life: The EPA sometimes uses the value of a statistical human life in establishing standards and issuing regulations. Senator Boxer is deeply troubled by the moral and ethical issues raised by placing a dollar value on a human life, and she was even more troubled when the EPA decided to reduce the value of a human life by nearly $1 million. She has authored legislation that prevents any further reduction in the valuation of a human life and that clearly states that Congress does not endorse this type of cost-benefit analysis.
Dolphin Protection: While a member of the House of Representatives, Senator Boxer authored the Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act to create a dolphin-safe label for tuna caught using methods that were not harmful to dolphins. Since this legislation passed in 1990, dolphin deaths from tuna fishing have decreased from over 100,000 per year to less than 2,000 per year. Senator Boxer fought efforts by the Bush Administration to allow the dolphin-safe tuna label to be used with certain fishing practices that were nonetheless harmful to dolphins.
Elephant Protection: Also while a member of the House, Senator Boxer was a champion of the law halting the ivory trade and protecting elephants. Later, she persuaded the U.S. Agency for International Development to prohibit U.S. dollars from being used to support trophy hunting of the African elephant, an animal at risk of extinction. In 2007, she supported legislation to provide additional funding for the U.S. efforts to protect the African Elephant as well as the Asian Elephant.
Captive Primates: Senator Boxer authored a bill to prohibit monkeys, apes, and other primates from being transported across state lines for the pet trade.