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Monday, October 22, 2007

Funding Shortfalls Plague Superfund

A subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing last week on the current state of Superfund, the federal government's toxic waste clean-up program.

Senators and witnesses discussed how the Superfund program has fallen into disrepair under the Bush administration. One major problem has been a lack of adequate funding. In her opening statement, subcommittee chairman Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said, "The administration has tied itself into knots defending the absurd position that more money would not help all that much. And they have been extremely secretive about this project, keeping information from the public, and stonewalling this committee."

Rena Steinzor, Professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and scholar at the Center for Progressive Reform, testified about the funding shortfalls and the unfortunate consequences: "In constant dollars, revenue appropriated for the Superfund program now stand at levels 40 percent lower than the amounts Congress specified when it last reauthorized the program in 1986."

Steinzor argues the program's budget has been cut even though many Superfund sites pose a serious threat to communities. She points out, as is too often true with environmental impacts, Superfund neglect disproportionately effect poor and minority populations:

Many of these communities are low income and comprised of people of color. Of the 50 sites we studied, 60 percent were located in neighborhoods where households reported median incomes in the range of $40,000 and some 26 percent were in the midst of populations comprised of 40 percent or more racial or ethnic minorities.