http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/01/national/01SUPE.html
Bush
Slashing Aid for E.P.A. Cleanup at 33 Toxic Sites
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
WASHINGTON, June 30,
2002- The Bush administration has designated
33 toxic waste sites in 18 states for cuts in financing under
the Superfund cleanup program, according to a new report to
Congress by the inspector general of the Environmental
Protection Agency.
The cuts, imposed because
the cleanup fund is hundreds of
millions of dollars short of the amount needed to keep the
program on schedule, mean that work is likely to grind to a
halt on some of the most seriously polluted sites in the
country, confronting the surrounding communities with new
uncertainty over when the work will resume, how quickly
it will proceed and who will pay for it.
Among the sites that
for now would receive less money - in some
cases, none - are a manufacturing plant in Edison, N.J., where
the herbicide Agent Orange was produced, several chemical plants
in Florida and two old mines in Montana. The report to Congress
is the first public listing by the environmental agency of where
it intends to cut Superfund spending. It was provided to
The New York Times by Democrats on the House Energy and
Commerce Committee who oppose the cuts.
The administration
had already indicated it would scale back
spending from the special fund that pays for cleaning up sites
where the original polluter has gone out of business or is
otherwise unable to pay for remediation. The fund has been
running out of money since Congress refused several years ago
to extend the taxes on industry that had replenished it each
year. It once contained billions of dollars from those taxes.
The administration
wants to reduce the payments from the fund
by covering fewer sites. To do that it would shift the costs
of further work to the government's general accounts, paid
for by all taxpayers. Congressional critics have said this
amounts to abandoning the precept that "the polluter pays,"
on which the Superfund program was founded.
While Congress theoretically
could override the administration's
plan and impose a different approach, Congress has failed in
past years to resolve bitter, often partisan, differences among
lawmakers on how to revamp the program, and no consensus on
it has emerged this year.
Regional offices of
the environmental agency had asked for
$450 million for remedial action at the 33 sites, but the
administration has allocated only $228 million, the inspector
general's report says.
Like all sites covered
by the Superfund program, the 33 that
are targeted for reductions are among the most contaminated
grounds in the country and pose some level of health and
environmental hazards to their communities. The documents
provided by the inspector general did not indicate how these
sites were chosen for cuts.
The report makes clear
that under the administration's approach
the costs of cleaning up these sites would eventually shift to
all taxpayers, and that in the meantime the whole program would
be slowed down.
It also shows that
the administration is putting less money into
continuing 54 long-term remediation projects around the country.
Regional offices of the Environmental Protection Agency had
requested $46.7 million, but the administration is giving them
$33.2 million.
Two Congressional Democrats,
Representatives John D. Dingell
of Michigan and Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey, asked the
environmental agency's inspector general for the report in
April and provided a copy to The Times. Both represent states
with heavy concentrations of Superfund sites.
Businesses have long
complained about the Superfund program.
At one time, chemical and oil companies, among others, were
required to pay a special tax that cost them collectively
about $1 billion a year. The tax went into the fund to clean
up contaminated sites, but businesses said the system of
allocating the money was unwieldy and badly managed.
The report identifies
five sites for spending reductions in
New Jersey, five in Florida, three in Texas, one in New York
and one or two in several other states as well as in the Virgin
Islands. The sites have been in various stages of cleanup over
decades.
For example, in Edison,
the Chemical Insecticide Corporation,
which made pesticides and defoliants like those used by the
military in the Vietnam War, including Agent Orange, contaminated
soil and groundwater with chemicals until 1972, when the company
went bankrupt.
The E.P.A. stepped
in and for 11 years has been working with
community and environmental groups to have the site cleaned up
by contractors. The agency spent $8 million for initial remedial
work but eventually determined that the best response would be
to cart away 150,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil at a cost
of $40 million. In February, agency officials told the local
groups that removal would begin in November.
The new report says
that no money will be available for the
project.
Robert Spiegel, executive
director of the Edison Wetlands
Association, an environmental group formed to monitor the
cleanup, said that the environmental agency was under a
binding agreement with the community to pay for the cleanup.
If the Superfund does not allocate money, he said, the
government's general funds will have to do so.
"They are required
by law to do the remedy even if they don't
have the money," Mr. Spiegel said. "Someone will have
to pay,
and the Bush administration wants the American people to do it."
It would take new Congressional
action to spend federal funds
other than Superfund reserves for cleanup.
Because the owner of
Chemical Insecticide, Arnold Livingston,
went bankrupt and then out of business, the cleanup money was
supposed to come from the Superfund trust fund.
The fund was set up
in 1980 with a special tax on chemical and
oil companies to clean up so-called orphan sites, or those where
the polluter could not be identified or would not pay, as well
as for recalcitrant companies and emergency action.
But the trust fund
is running out of money. Congress let the
corporate taxes expire in 1995. Without them, the fund has
dwindled from a high of $3.8 billion in 1996 to a projected
$28 million next year. President Bush's budget made clear
that he did not intend to reauthorize the tax.
The orphan sites, whose
cleanup may now shift from the trust
fund to general taxpayers, account for about 30 percent of
the 1,551 sites on the Environmental Protection Agency's
national priority list of toxic sites in pressing need of
remediation. The total budget for the Superfund is $1.27
billion, which covers investigations, enforcement, litigation
and engineering studies as well as cleanup.
Mr. Spiegel said of
residents near the sites, "These people
have no idea that all the time and energy they put into getting
their sites listed and cleaned up has now been discarded because
there is no money." He said that the administration was reluctant
to release the information on the specific sites because "they
know there will be some serious problems with their voters
because they will be called to task on this."
Scott Stoermer, a spokesman
for the League of Conservation
Voters, said that shifting cleanup costs from industry to
taxpayers was already a potent political issue in certain
Congressional districts and was likely to become more so
in the current atmosphere of corporate scandals.
"This is all about
government letting corporations get away
with things that hurt average Americans and leave taxpayers
to foot the bill," Mr. Stoermer. "It's not just about
cleaning
up toxic waste, it's about fairness and which side are you on."
