Page 10
University Daily Kansan. September 29, 1983
Burford defends her actions at EPA
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — Her voice breaking at times, former EPA chief Anne Burford testified yesterday that she "may have made a flap remark about Gov. (Edmund) Brown" but that she did not stall a California toxic waste cleanup to hurt her Democratic Senate bid.
Burford, who resigned as Environmental Protection Agency administrator on March 9, defended her performance in her first sworn testimony since leaving office and told a House subcommittee that she and others were ousted on "baseless and unfounded allegations and innocuos."
SHE DENIED THAT POLITICS entered her decision to order a study delaying release of $6.1 million in Superfund money for the California toxic waste site, although skeptical House Democrats filled the record with evidence that the EPA staff had approved the federal grant.
Rep. Gerry Sikorski, D-Minn., a member of the Energy and Commerce panel, told Burford the "record is clear" that her decision to order the study also stalled release of $1.9 million for cleanup of a site threatening drinking supplies in a Minneapolis suburb.
"I resent it." he said.
"I know this allegation is completely untrue." Burford said of the charges. "The Department of Justice recently came to the same conclusion."
She suggested that the allegation, which emanated from the White House days before her resignation, may have been a setup to force her resignation and quiet the controversy at the BUFORD WAS JOINED at the HURFORD WAS JOINED at the
witness table for four hours by her attorney, Douglas Bennett. Her husband, Robert Burford, who heads the staff of the Land Management, sat nearby.
When she finished, Rep John Dingell, D-Mich., told her, "You have conducted yourself with extraordinary dignity."
In a tearful moment, Burford said that she strongly objected to a Justice Department decision last year to withhold Superfund files from Congress
Anne Burford
— a move she said intensified public anxiety about EPA.
She insisted that she objected, although assistant Attorney General Ted Olson wrote in an Oct. 25, 1982, memo to President Reagan that "the administrator concurs in this recommendation."
When Justice Department and White House officials pressed her to assert executive privilege, she said, "I gave up." She said she did not consider
resigning rather than face contempt of Congress charges.
"I TRIED TO serve this president," she said. "I tried very hard to carry out his orders when I received them. I think that politically it was a poor decision."
Most of the interrogation focused on an allegation about the Stringellow Acid Pits near Riverside, Calif., for which prosecutors could find "no competent evidence" to warrant an indictment.
Burford said she could not recall — but did not deny — commenting at a Republican luncheon on Aug. 4, 1982, that she planned to freeze until after the election funds to clean up the String-fellow site to hurt Brown and, in effect, assist Republican Pete Wilson, who defeated him.
THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT investigated after a participant at the luncheon quoted Mrs. Burford as saying, with reference to the String-fellow site, "I will be damned if I am going to let Brown take credit for that."
"I may well have made a flap remark about Governor Brown," she testified. But that had absolutely nothing to do with the vote. "I simply Stringfield grant in July of last year."
Burford noted that the allegation was not referred from the White House to the Justice Department until last March 4, five days before her resignation.
"It looked a little bit too much like made-for-TV to me," she told the man.
Burford said she was on her way to California to announce the grant in late July, 1982, when she found that briefing materials regarding the site were "severely inadequate" and raised questions as to whether California and other sites qualified for 90 percent or 50 percent federal aid.
GREEK WEEK
GREEKS . . . THE LEGEND LIVES ON
Thursday, Sept. 29
Greek Sing
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1983
Lab director hails Burns' poetry
By GINA K. THORNBURG Staff Reporter
He speaks the language of mouse genetics in his profession and research, and he spends some of his leisure time speaking the Lowland Scots dialect while he recites 18th century Scottish poetry.
John Weir, the director of the Mammalian Genetics Laboratory, spoke at yesterday's University Forum about one of his lifelong interests: the life and poetry of Robert Burns. a Scottish poet born in 1759.
SPEAKING IN THIS dialect, Weir recited "The Holy Fair," a poem by Burns about a Sunday fair in a village of 500 people.
Weir lived in a community of Scots in Saskatchewan, Canada, and his interest in Burns began when he was 11 years old. He lived in Canada until 1950, he said, when he came to the University of Kansas.
Weir's audience of 50 in the Ecumenical Christian Ministries, 1294 Oread Ave. laughed at the last paragraph of his book, "Why do you hearts this day convert, to sinners and of lasses! Their hearts of stone, by night, are gone, as soft as
Weir learned to speak the Lowland Scotts dialect while working with Scotland on a farm at the University of Saskatchewan, he said.
Weir joined many other Burns admirers across the world when he became a member of the Burns Federation, founded in 1885, at one of its annual meetings in Ontario, Canada.
WITH THE EXCEPTION of two meetings, one in Ontario and this year's meeting in Annapolis, Mc. the federation has its annual international meetings in Scotland, he said.
The meetings, known as "Burns suppers," usually start at 5 p.m. with the slicing open of a haggs, a pudding of sheep made of "all of the things you normally throw away mixed up with in a sheep's stomach," he said.
any flesh is. There’s some are full of love divine, or plain intoxication; and many games that day begin, may end in fornication — some other day.”
The Burns suppers feature a speaker who recites Burns' poetry, and end with the singing of Burns' "Auld Lane Syne." he said.
Wet spee at the 1982 international meeting in Scotland.
The nearest Burns groups are in St. Louis and Detroit. Weir said
Weir said the federation had been criticized for its enthusiasm for
"The excesses of the Burns movements are not taken too kindly by the literati, or presently, poets." he said.
BURNS' WORKS HAVE been translated into 30 languages, he said. One collection of poems of which only copies remain is worth $20,000. he said.
Born into a poor tenant-farm family in 1754, Burns never made much money in prison, even though he the musician that were set to the tunes of existing music.
"He's Scotland's great hero," he said.
AN ACTRESS FRIEND of Burns,
Miss Fontenelle, gave a performance
in 1792 in Dumfries, Scotland. Weir
said the theater had a benefit to
honor her performance, and Burns
wrote a short speech for her to recite.
Although Burns, his father and brother were poor, they all could read and write well. Weir said.
Burns also wrote about women's rights, Weir said, and chose an interesting occasion to present a poem on the subject.
Weir said that "Spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her Benefit Night" was probably given to an all-male audience: "While Europe's eye is fixed on mighty things, the fate of Empires, and the fall of Kings. While quacks of power, the most savage villains, even children lisp the Rights of Man. Amid this mighty fuss, just let me mention, The Rights of Women merit some attention."
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