[CPEO-BIF] New Superfund tax? EPA to study

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

New Superfund tax? EPA to study 
 
Promise comes at tense Senate hearing over cleanup delays 
 
ASSOCIATED PRESS 
 
WASHINGTON, April 11 — The Bush administration might ask Congress to 
reimpose a “polluter’s tax” to pay for cleaning up highly toxic waste 
sites, an Environmental Protection Agency official told senators 
Wednesday. The statement came at a tense hearing where a senator accused 
the EPA of withholding a list of Superfund sites across the country that 
could face cleanup delays. 

THE EPA’S administrator of the Superfund program told a Senate 
Environment and Public Works subcommittee that the White House is 
reconsidering the tax, which expired in 1995 and which President Bush 
did not seek to resurrect in his latest federal budget.

“We will look at that again” in the 2004 budget year, which begins in 
October 2003, said Marianne Horinko.

Horinko spoke after Senate Democrats renewed criticism of the 
administration’s handling of Superfund cleanups. Sen. Barbara Boxer, 
D-Calif., who chairs the subcommittee, charged that the administration 
is reluctant to go after corporate polluters.

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/737149.asp