NYT: Changes May Be Needed in Superfund, Chief Says

Changes May Be Needed in Superfund, Chief Says
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

Published: December 5, 2004


WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 - The head of the nation's Superfund program says that fundamental changes in the program may be necessary to continue cleanups as more contaminated sites demand attention and federal resources remain flat.

Thomas P. Dunne, an assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who oversees the Superfund, said pressures on the program's annual cleanup budget of $450 million and the growing list of sites to be restored were strangling the program's ability to operate effectively. A new report by the agency predicted that as many as 355,000 hazardous waste sites could require cleanup over the next three decades, at a cost of up to $250 billion.

As a result, Mr. Dunne said the time had come for "a frank, open and nonpartisan discussion" to balance public expectations for action and budgetary realities that make timely responses increasingly less likely....

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....Since 1995, when Congress did not renew a special tax on polluters, the cleanup money has come entirely from taxpayers.

President Bush sought no increase in the fund three years ago, and Congress has rebuffed his requests to increase the budget by $150 million in each of the last two years. Recent program reviews by the environmental agency's inspector general have cited the need for hundreds of millions of dollars more to meet a growing backlog of sites....


(According to the article, Mr. Dunne, in a speech, suggested three possible courses of action: partial funding by private businesses with interests in cleanups; separating larger sites from smaller sites so communities could have "a more realistic picture of how much help they could expect and when"; and "halting the listing of more contaminated sites until current work is completed.")


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/politics/05super.html

Since 1995, when Congress did not renew a special tax on polluters, the cleanup money has come entirely from taxpayers.


Why should the tax payers have to pay to clean up polluters mess?


Why does this smell like Monsanto?

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