Superfund Work Slows

EPA: Superfund Work Slows on Lack of Funding
Mon Jul 1, 4:40 PM ET

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A $225 million shortfall in the Bush administration's budget will slow the pace of cleanup of toxic pollution at a New Jersey plant that once made Agent Orange herbicide, and at other Superfund sites in 19 states, the Environmental Protection Agency ( news - web sites) said on Monday.

A report from the EPA's inspector general raises questions about the White House's plan for the federal Superfund program, which cleans up the most dangerous contaminated waste sites in the country.

Green groups and Democrats have long accused the Bush administration of being too pro-business when it comes to protecting the environment from mining waste, carbon dioxide emissions and other industrial contamination.

EPA's regional offices had requested about $450 million in Superfund cleanup funds for the current budget year, but the administration allocated about $224 million, according to EPA's inspector general.

The new report was sought by two Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. They say the number of cleanups at Superfund sites fell by almost half under the Bush administration, compared to the average of 87 sites per year during former President Bill Clinton's second term.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said the White House should back Democratic legislation that would reinstate a Superfund tax on oil and chemical companies to pay for cleaning up contaminated sites. The tax expired in 1995.

"The administration's claim that we can't afford to clean up sites poisoned with Agent Orange and other deadly chemicals at the same time it is pushing for hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars in new tax cuts for the very wealthy is a damning statement about their priorities," Daschle said in a statement.

Money in the Superfund has steadily dwindled since the tax expired, and the money in the program is expected to run out in 2004. Taxpayers paid about 18 percent of Superfund cleanup projects in 1995, and will pay 54 percent in 2003.

Sites affected by the funding cuts include a manufacturing plant in Edison, New Jersey, which made the dioxin-laden herbicide, Agent Orange for use in the Vietnam War, as well as several chemical plants in Florida and two old mines in Montana, according to the report.

EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman ( news - web sites) last month created a panel of 31 advisers from industry, universities, green groups and government to assess what changes might be needed.

"Superfund continues to be a priority in this administration," Whitman told reporters. "Seventy percent of the polluters still pay for (clean up) sites and we are continuing to be aggressive about the polluter-pays focus."

Whitman said the EPA budget asked for the same amount of Superfund money that was spent in the previous year. The agency's Superfund cleanup list "always" has sites deleted as the year goes by and timetables are modified, she added.

"These are big sites and complicated sites. The easy ones have all been done," she said.

But Democrats said the new EPA report contradicts Whitman's promise to Congress last year to make cleaning Superfund sites a top priority.

"This goal is being seriously imperiled by the slowdown in cleanups caused by inadequate funding in the president's budget," said Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, one of the lawmakers who requested the EPA report.

Democrats said during 2001 the agency intended to clean up 75 polluted sites, but finished only 47.

The Bush administration had planned to clean 65 sites during the 2002 spending year, which ends on Sept. 30, but now predicts only 40 sites will be cleaned because of lack of funding, Dingell said.

More than 1,200 sites remain to be cleaned up on the EPA's national priority list of Superfund sites.

The Sierra Club ( news - web sites) said the Bush administration's plan to slash the Superfund program would leave dozens of communities exposed to toxic wastes and let polluters off the hook.

"Superfund cleanups are already running on fumes and if the Bush administration has its way, the program will be completely out of gas," said Carl Pope, Sierra's executive director.