A report released at the end of June by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Inspector General (IG) details the lack of sufficient funds for the Agency to maintain the pace of Superfund cleanups. According to Democratic staffers on Capitol Hill, the report buoys congressional Democrats' legislative efforts to reimpose the now-expired Superfund taxes. ILMA has been monitoring this issue because base oil suppliers had passed through the Superfund tax as a separate line item on invoices before the tax expired in December 1995.

The IG’s report concluded that EPA faces a funding shortfall of more than $225 million for fiscal year 2002 (which ends on September 30, 2002), with the Agency not funding 33 Superfund sites in 18 States. The report also finds that an additional 15 sites are being underfunded.

EPA’s IG was asked in April by Reps. John Dingell (D-MI), the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Frank Pallone (D-NJ), the ranking Democrat on the panel’s environment subcommittee, to investigate EPA’s Superfund spending in order to lobby for increased funding next fiscal year (which begins on October 1, 2002).

The release of the report comes at a time when EPA has been under increasing criticism from Senate and House Democrats after the Bush administration testified earlier this year that the Agency would only complete 40 Superfund cleanups this fiscal year and that EPA had only completed 47 last year, although the Agency had projected that 65 sites would be remediated.

Congressional Democrats now will use the IG’s report as proof that the Bush administration has underfunded the Superfund program to the detriment of the protection of human health and the environment. As a result, Democratic staffers on Capitol Hill have told ILMA that they believe it will be easier to build support in both houses for the reauthorization of the Superfund taxes

The taxes, which expired at the end of 1995, are used to finance the dedicated trust fund from which Congress appropriates monies to pay for EPA's Superfund program, including cleanups at sites where polluters cannot be found or are insolvent. Supporters of the reimposition of the taxes say congressional action is urgent because the Superfund is expected to be depleted by September 2003, forcing Capitol Hill appropriators to draw the funds from the general treasury.

Legislation, introduced recently by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), would reinstate for ten years both a tax on oil and chemical companies and a general corporate environmental income tax. According to the bill’s sponsors, the tax would generate $15 to $16 billion over that period.

EPA’s IG also told lawmakers in the report that the pace of cleanups is only one of several problems with the Superfund program. However, some high-ranking EPA officials dispute some of the IG’s findings, arguing that the downturn in the pace of Superfund cleanups is not related to the available funding. Instead, they say that the number of sites completed follows a cyclical pattern based on when the Agency began cleaning up sites.

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