Is the Superfund Program Winding Down? On the Contrary, Says EPAArticle from Environmental Business Journal Volume XVI No.7/8 2003
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| The Hazardous Substance Superfund Trust Fund will be depleted by the beginning of FY 2004, according to a recent report by the General Accounting Office (GAO), and the Bush Administration has no intention of reinstating the Superfund taxes. The Administration also has reduced Superfund cleanup activity by about 50% compared with the pace during the late Clinton years, environmental groups and Congressional Democrats allege, and cleanups have slowed down or even come to a halt at numerous sites. Is the Bush Administration attempting to wind down and close out the Superfund program, as many suspect? No, says the director of EPA’s Superfund program. “It’s actually the opposite situation,” says the official, Mike Cook. “The current Administration asked for a $150 million increase in the program for FY 2004. So not only are they not winding down the program, they are recommending an increase.” As of mid-September, the House and Senate appropriations committees had approved Superfund budgets either at or slightly above the FY 2003 level for Superfund, but less than the Administration requested. Cook explained that the availability of the Trust Fund monies, or lack thereof, has had little impact on how EPA implements the Superfund program. “The way it works is, money goes into the fund, but we can’t take anything out of the fund unless it’s appropriated to us, and that’s subject to the overall budgetary ceilings Congress has to work with. There’s an overall target for appropriations, and then each subcommittee has a target they are working with. And that’s the principal balancing act that is in the appropriations process. The source of the funding doesn’t seem to matter much, whether it’s general tax revenue or the fund. We’ve gotten the same appropriation for several years, even as more and more of that has come from general tax revenues than from Superfund monies. “What has happened recently is that we have moved a number of sites through to the point where they are ready for construction, and the demand for construction money exceeds the availability right now, given level appropriations,” Cook goes on to say. “That’s why the Administration asked for an increase in the appropriation. We are not putting in less money into construction, we’re putting more in, and we’re asking for still more.” Cook says that he expects to see a continuing, robust program for placing sites on the National Priorities List (NPL). “There seems to be a steady stream of sites that are being identified and that are serious enough problems to warrant listing. A lot of these sites are old problems that are being identified now as serious problems, but there are some newly created sites as well. We have some creosoting facilities where the wood-treaters have gone out of business, some mining sites that have fairly recently gone out of business, and some petrochemical operations—often recycling-type operations related to that industry. There’s a wide variety of facilities,” he says. “I don’t see any horizon to the Superfund program,” he concludes. n [Home] [EBJ] [Reports] [Data] [Segments] [Surveys] [Links] [Free Sample] [About EBI] [Contact] Copyright ©2004 Environmental Business International, Inc. 4452 Park Blvd. Suite 306, San Diego, CA USA Phone: (619)295-7685 | Fax: (619)295-5743 Web Site: www.ebiusa.com | Email: ebi@ebiusa.com All rights reserved. This website, or any part, may not be duplicated, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without prior written permission of the publisher. Unauthorized use of this information is illegal. Disclaimer: Although EBI has made every effort to be accurate errors may appear and are unintentional. |