http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0903-05.htm
Published on Wednesday,
September 3, 2003 by the Washington Post
Superfund To Run Out Of Money, GAO Says
by Eric Pianin
An industry-financed trust fund that for years helped offset
the cost of Superfund cleanup projects will run out of money
next month, placing added demands on the federal budget to meet
the cost of cleaning up some of the worst hazardous waste sites
in the country, according to a new General Accounting Office study.
While the trust fund
has declined from as much as $2 billion
in 1995 to a few hundred million dollars this year, the
Environmental Protection Agency has continued to add sites
to the National Priorities List (NPL) of the most contaminated
sites.
"The Superfund
program's need for federal cleanup funds
to address sites that lack alternative sources of cleanup
funds may grow in the future, while the program's funding
from sources other than general fund appropriations dwindles,"
the GAO said. The report noted that because the Superfund
lacks indicators to fully measure the cleanup efforts,
the EPA has asked an advisory council to develop criteria
by which to measure the program's progress.
Superfund spending
has remained relatively constant over
the past six years -- between $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion
annually. In the past, revenue from a special tax on the
chemical and oil industries and an environmental tax on
corporations was used to pay for the cleanup of abandoned
"orphan sites," of which the responsible party could
not
be identified or is unable to pay.
Those taxes expired
in 1995, and President Bill Clinton
and President Bush did not asked Congress to reauthorize
them. Democrats have criticized Bush for failing to put
the cleanup program on a sound financial footing.
A spokesman for Sen.
George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio),
who requested the report, said it included some positive
news, including that "sites are being cleaned up and taken
off the NPL list."
© 2003 The Washington
Post Company
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