Democrats eye revamp of toxic-cleanup Superfund

[RedEarth]

Democrats eye revamp of toxic-cleanup Superfund
One plan: Reinstate a tax on chemicalmakers to fund cleanups when polluters are out of business.
By Mark Clayton | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Although 1 in 4 Americans lives within four miles of a designated toxic-waste site, the federal program to clean up the sites has slowed.
Now, key Democrats in Congress are looking to push the program, known as Superfund, back into the spotlight. They're looking not only at its funding levels but also its funding sources. A central issue: whether to restore "polluter pay" taxes on industry to help fund cleanups.

"In some of these sites, the pollution is out of control, meaning it's still dangerous," Sen. Barbara Boxer, incoming chairwoman of the environment and public works committee, said this month. "We have to clean it up."

The California Democrat says she's making Superfund, along with global warming, focal points of her environmental agenda. She has tapped presumed presidential aspirant Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D) of New York to chair the Superfund subcommittee.

Superfund, started in the 1970s, has seen a decline in funding and completed projects in recent years. Between 1993 and 2005, funding fell 32 percent - from $1.8 billion to $1.2 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports. During the same period, the number of cleanup sites earning "construction complete" status fell by more than half - from 88 to 40 - the lowest level in more than a decade.

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which administers the program, deny funding is an issue. Fewer completed projects merely indicate transitions in construction cycles that can last a decade or more, they say.


http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1228/p03s03-uspo.htm

[wtmusic]

1. Those "construction cycles" sound eerily similar to "climate cycles"

in other words: nothing's really getting f*cked up forever. They're just horsies on God's merry-go-round.

[ThomCat]

2. I hope they really do make this a priority.

Poluters absolutely should pay for cleaning up this shit. x(