Since it was established 23 years ago to mandate and underwrite the cleaning up of some of the country's most-polluted sites, the federal Superfund program has been pared back and bled dry. That status quo seems just fine, as far as the Bush administration is concerned.
In 1995, the so-called 'polluters pay' tax -- which provided the revenue for the Superfund by taxing highly-polluting companies -- expired. The Republican-led Congress let it die. And, unlike every president in the last two decades, George W. Bush has not included the 'polluters pay' tax in any of his budget proposals.
Under the Bush administration, the burden of paying for Superfund cleanups has shifted from the companies that pollute to the taxpayers that suffer as a result of the environmental damage. In 1996, when the Superfund program still had a $3.8 billion trust fund accumulated through 'polluters pay' revenue, only 18 percent of the program's cost was being passed along to taxpayers. Under Bush's 2004 budget, taxpayers would pick up 79 percent of the cleanup costs. By 2005, the League of Conservation Voters predicts, taxpayers could be paying for 98 percent of cleanups.
What's more, the number of sites being cleaned up has dropped. During the last four years of the Clinton administration, an average of 76 sites were cleaned annually. In 2001 and 2002, however, there were only 47 and 42 cleanups, respectively. The administration claims the numbers are misleading. The sites chosen in the last two years were more complex and expensive, they say, which is why the agency couldn't clean more sites. But legislators who have asked the Environmental Protection Agency for any documentation to support the claim have been denied.
The budgetary shortfall became obvious in July 2003, when the EPA announced it could only afford to begin 10 new cleanups in 2003, delaying 10 more that were initially placed on its to-do list.
"Even Ronald Reagan, who was not eager to tax corporations, supported the polluters pay principle," says Ed Hopkins of the Sierra Club. "When industries threaten our families' health with toxic waste, taxpayers shouldn't be saddled with the clean-up costs -- Americans want the polluters to pay."
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