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EPA Releases So-Called Superfund “Accomplishments” Administration Fails to Acknowledge End of Polluter Trust Fund, Communities Left at Risk Washington, D.C. – America’s federal Superfund toxic waste cleanup program is in dire straits, despite a rosy assessment released today by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The report fails to acknowledge that the polluter-funded trust ran out of polluter contributed funds last month, according to a recent General Accounting Office report, leaving taxpayers to shoulder the financial burden and leaving communities across the country at risk and slowing the cleanup rate. “The Bush Administration is touting what they call 'accomplishments,' but they should not be proud of putting the brakes on the 'polluter pays' principle and slowing the rate of toxic cleanups to a crawl,” said Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director. “The Bush Administration’s approach to Superfund will merely add it to a long list of chronically underfunded federal programs, leaving communities across the country at risk.” President Bush has refused to push for the renewal of polluter-pays tax that expired in 1995, the first president not to support the principle that polluters should pay to clean up their messes since President Reagan signed the Superfund reauthorization into law in 1986. With more than 1,200 toxic waste sites still in need of cleanup, the ramifications of a dwindling polluter trust fund to cleanup toxic waste places our communities and environment at risk. Already, one in four Americans, including 10 million children, lives within a short bicycle ride of a toxic waste site that is considered a Superfund cleanup priority. “We teach our children that they are responsible for cleaning up the messes that they make. The Bush administration should demand no less of corporate polluters,” said Pope. “They are letting wealthy corporations off the hook while strapping taxpayers with the burden of cleanups.” Next year, American taxpayers will pay about $1.1 billion for the Superfund program, an increase of about 400 percent since the fee expired in 1995. According to a Congressionally-mandated study concerning the future of the Superfund program, the cost of implementing the program between FY 2000 through FY 2009 ranges from $14 billion to $16.4 billion. Underfunding cleanup of America’s toxic waste sites is yet another example of the administration putting corporations over public interest. “Is it fair to make Americans pay twice for toxic cleanups -- once with their health and again with their taxes?” Pope asked. From the EPA’s “Accomplishments” list for Superfund, FY 2003, · Completed work at 40 sites across the country for a total of 886 or 58 percent of the National Priority List. REALITY: The Superfund program cleaned up an average of 86 sites per year in the middle and later 1990s, but his number has since fallen nearly 50 percent in the last three years. And 42 percent of sites listed on the National Priority List still need cleanup. · Listed 20 new sites on the National Priority List, and proposed 14 sites for listing. REALITY: There are thousands of Superfund candidate sites across the country, and cash-strapped states are clamoring for help from the federal government to help clean up orphan sites. Their pleas have fallen on deaf ears within the Bush Administration as they make the argument: Why list more sites if there is not enough federal money to clean up the sites already listed? It is the responsibility of the administration to protect public health and the environment and to cleanup toxic waste sites. · Superfund supported the “polluter pays” principle. REALITY: The Bush Administration touts the 70 percent of Superfund cleanups paid for directly by responsible polluters. While this is true and always has been, 30 percent of sites do not have a responsible party from whom to recoup cleanup costs. Cleanups at these “orphan sites” had historically been funded by the Superfund trust fund, filled with money from the polluter pays fees. As the trust fund has disappeared, the cost of “orphan site” cleanups has shifted to taxpayers, who paid only 18 percent of their costs in 1995 and will pay to up to 100 percent in FY2004. |
