[CPEO-BIF] President shifting Superfund costs to public

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

President shifting Superfund costs to public 
He won't tax industry to rescue cleanup program

Katharine Q. Seelye, New York Times    Sunday, February 24, 2002 
  
Washington -- Faced with dwindling reserves in the huge account that 
gave the Superfund waste-cleanup program its name, the Bush 
administration has decided to target fewer sites for restoration and to 
shift the bulk of the costs from industry to taxpayers. 

The administration says it is dealing with much bigger and more complex 
sites, if fewer of them, and that deciding how to pay for the program is 
up to Congress. 

For years, Congress has failed to reach agreement on reauthorizing the 
tax on industry that used to be the source of money for the Superfund, 
which was founded in 1980 under the slogan, "the polluter pays." 

The trust fund used the special corporate taxes to clean up 
contamination at so-called orphan sites, or those where the responsible 
party could not be identified or could not pay, as well as for 
recalcitrant companies and emergency action. 

The trust fund has been used to clean up about 30 percent of the 1,551 
sites on the Environmental Protection Agency's national priority list, 
with corporations themselves paying to clean up the other 70 percent. 
Most companies prefer to pay for their own cleanup because they can do 
it for less than the government, which is allowed to charge the 
companies three times the cost, plus penalties. 

But the trust fund is running out of money. 

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/02/24/MN160386.DTL