Easing Up on Toxic Waste Cleanup

Just HAD to reprint this rant from today's CAP Progress Report:

Halting Toxic Cleanups A new report by the EPA shows that "cleanup work at 11 of the worst toxic dumps in the country hasn't started because the Superfund program doesn't have enough money." The Bush Administration has played a direct part in creating the funding problem, ending the tax on corporate polluters that funded the program, at the behest of the oil/chemical companies that have funded its campaigns. BREAKING THEIR PROMISE: The Administration specifically promised not to choke off Superfund's funding. As a candidate for Vice President, Dick Cheney was asked on the 7/30/00 edition of Meet the Press whether he "would support authorizing funding for Superfund to clean up toxic waste?" He replied "I would." Less than 19 months later, the White House announced its decision to end the corporate tax that funds the Superfund. EFFORTS TO REINSTATE TAX REJECTED: Last year, the White House and its allies in the Senate voted down an attempt by progressives to reinstate the Superfund tax, despite dwindling resources for cleanups, and increased concerns over the public health effects of toxic dumps. THE HALLIBURTON INFLUENCE, AGAIN: The Asheville, NC Citizen, a newspaper that covers an area with a Halliburton-owned toxic site, pointed out in a 12/5/02 editorial that the Administration's elimination of the Superfund tax is a major gift to polluters like Halliburton and its other financial backers, with the result being "taxpayers left holding the bag" for cleanups. Knight-Ridder reports that "the chemical, oil and gas industries [that pushed for the tax elimination] have donated more than $158 million to political candidates since 1996." For more details on those contributions see the Center for Responsive Politics special Superfund site, and its corresponding Superfund write-up. BY THE NUMBERS: Because of the Administration-backed funding shortfall, a Knight-Ridder "analysis of EPA data shows that over the past two years, the EPA has designed fewer cleanup plans, started less waste-removal work and finished far fewer jobs than it did during the Clinton administration and some years before that." Specifically, the number of Superfund cleanups completed in fiscal years 2001 and 2002 plummeted 41 percent compared with the annual average over the previous eight years. In calendar year 2002, 39 sites were cleaned up - the fewest since 1991. So far this year, only three cleanups have been finished. And "according to three EPA Inspector General reports, seven ready-to-clean Superfund sites last year received no money to start removing waste." WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE AVERAGE PERSON: The Administration's decision to end the corporate tax that funds Superfund (and thus bankrupt the program) will have serious consequences throughout the country. As the U.S. Public Interest Research Group notes, " one fourth of Americans live within four miles of a Superfund site, the nation's worst toxic waste sites. Superfund sites are contaminated with dangerous substances and linked to cancer, birth defects and learning disabilities." In Libby, Montana, where 200 workers have already died from toxic exposure, Lee Newspapers reports "federal efforts to clean up the sites is being delayed by a lack of money."

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