A coalition of environmental and public interest groups has called on Congress to reinstate the Superfund tax on the chemical and oil industries, eliminating what they say is a $4-million-per-day tax break for polluting companies. At the same time, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that the Bush Administration would look to reimpose the Superfund tax in 2004.
The eighth annual Green Scissors 2002 report, a joint effort of the Friends of the Earth, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, identified 78 federal programs that the groups said Congress and the Bush administration should cut "to protect the environment and save" taxpayers more than $54 billion.
The Superfund tax expired in 1995. The monies are used to pay for Superfund cleanups at sites where no responsible party is named. Independent lubricant manufacturers paid the tax as a pass through from suppliers.
The Bush administration did not seek to renew the tax in its fiscal year 2002 budget request; however, EPA Assistant Administrator Marianne Horinko told a Senate environment panel that the Bush administration would revisit the Superfund tax issue in its 2004 budget request. Congressional Democrats have criticized EPA and the Bush administration for not reinstating the tax, claiming there has been a significant slowdown in the pace of Superfund cleanups. Horinko said the pace of Superfund cleanups has slowed during the past several years because, during the Clinton administration, the cleanup of many smaller sites was completed, and there now remain more so-called “mega sites” that take more time and money to clean up. “Mega sites” are defined as those that cost more than $50 million to clean up and are usually large-scale sites.
"It's important to note that at the sites that are now completed, work has been done over many years," Horinko said. It takes about ten years to get a site completed once it is listed on Superfund's National Priorities List, she added.
The coalition’s report also named as "wasteful and environmentally harmful spending" a $56 billion proposal to build a high-level nuclear waste facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Other programs the groups cite as wasteful include a proposal for a new floodway extension in Dallas; a proposal to deepen and expand the Savannah River Harbor through dredging, and a Federal program used by the Department of Interior and other agencies to manage wildfires.
