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Funding shortfall drastically impedes Superfund cleanup, leaving millions of Americans in the toxic lurch: report

In the report, Superfund Underfunded: How taxpayers have been left with a toxic financial burden, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group analyzed data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to generate a report on the state of cleanup since the initial funding mechanism, the Polluter Pays Tax on culpable corporations, expired in 1995.
“Millions of Americans live near these sites, which have chemicals either proven to cause — or suspected of causing — major health problems,” report author Jillian Gordner, who works on the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Education Fund’s campaigns against toxic substances, said in a statement. “Congress’s failure to reinstate a Polluter Pays Tax that would speed the cleanup of these sites is a choice to prioritize industry’s bottom line over the lives of Americans.”
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Photo Credit: Matthew Brown/AP

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SUPERFUND UNDERFUNDED

In 1980, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), informally called Superfund. The Superfund program was given the authority and funds to hold polluters responsible for cleaning up contaminated waste sites or clean up the sites themselves if no responsible party can be found or afford the cleanup. These toxic waste sites house some of the most “hazardous chemicals known to humankind.” The Superfund toxic waste program protects people from these contaminants and the serious health problems associated with them.
The program was originally funded by a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries, but that tax expired in 1995, and now the money for the Superfund program has come primarily through appropriations from the general revenue.
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Photo Credit: Kimberly Chandler/AP Photo