NYTimes.com Article: Keeping the Momentum for Superfund Cleanups

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Keeping the Momentum for Superfund Cleanups

July 18, 2002

By CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN

WASHINGTON

In 1980, Congress established the Superfund program to

clean up the most heavily polluted hazardous waste sites in

the country. Since then, the program has cleaned up

hundreds of sites, protecting the health of many thousands

of Americans and restoring the environment in communities

across the country. President Bush and I are committed to

completing the work begun in 1980, but we need Congress's

help to do so.

The challenges facing Superfund have only grown. The easier

jobs are all done; we still face some of the hardest ones.

Much of the Superfund structure remains sound. For example,

the president and I both believe strongly in the principle

that " the polluter pays. " Whenever my agency can determine

who polluted a site, we hold that polluter responsible for

the full cost of the cleanup. The expenses for cleaning up

roughly 70 percent of Superfund sites are paid, in fact, by

the polluters. The Superfund pays for cleanups only when

the E.P.A. cannot determine who was responsible for

polluting the site, or if that entity is bankrupt or no

longer in business.

Financing the cleanup of these orphan sites, as they are

called, comes from the Superfund trust fund and from

Congress's general revenues. The trust fund has been

financed primarily by a special tax on the oil and chemical

industries. The Superfund tax expired in 1995. Congress

decided not to reauthorize it, and has stuck by that

decision since. The trust fund has not been replenished and

at the end of fiscal 2001 it contained $860 million.

This does not mean that Superfund cleanups are about to

come to a halt. It doesn't even mean less money for the

program. The president's proposed budget for 2003 provides

nearly $1.3 billion for Superfund - the level it has been

at for years. And this figure actually represents an

increase, because about $100 million of that amount has

been used in the past to clean up brownfields, or less

hazardous sites. That $100 million is now in a separate

brownfields fund (to be augmented, if the president's

request for 2003 is honored, by an additional $100

million).

A recent report by the E.P.A.'s inspector general has been

used by critics to allege that money for Superfund has been

cut merely because not all funding requests by regional

offices have been met. This allegation is untrue. In most

government agencies, it is common for regional offices to

request more money than they will actually receive, but no

one should confuse this with cutting funding. Regional

budget requests are submitted at the beginning of the

funding cycle and adjusted due to many factors or delays.

For example, this year we expect an additional $25 million

to become available due to costs being overestimated at the

start of the fiscal year.

The inspector general's report also gave a snapshot of all

Superfund sites, showing how much money had been spent on

each by May of this year. Thirty-three sites had not

received funding by May, and this was mistakenly

interpreted as meaning their funding had been cut. But many

of these sites have since received funds. Some are not

ready to be funded, for various reasons. For the others, no

final decision has been made. Those decisions will be made

in the last quarter of this fiscal year. All sites with

ongoing cleanup projects will continue to receive funding

in 2002. No work is being suspended.

The past 20 years have provided valuable lessons that can

be applied to make Superfund more effective. The program

has achieved great progress in the last decade thanks to

bipartisan efforts to reform it. Bipartisan support was

also key to passage of brownfields legislation last year.

President Bush and Congress share the goal of cleaning up

these contaminated sites and revitalizing our communities.

I am optimistic that the work we are doing now to improve

Superfund will mean a cleaner and healthier environment.

Todd Whitman is administrator of the

Environmental Protection Agency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/18/opinion/18WHIT.html?ex=1027995495 & ei=1 & en=52d0\

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