Editorial: A super mistake to gut Superfund

Tuesday, July 2, 2002 | 9 a.m.

Congress created the Superfund program in 1980 to clean up toxic waste sites across the nation. The important program, supported by a tax on chemical, oil and other potentially polluting companies, lost its source of funding in 1995 when Congress -- due to partisan bickering -- let these corporate taxes expire. Next year there will only be $28 million available in the Superfund account, quite a fall from its high of $3.8 billion in 1996.

President Bush only seems too happy to let the Superfund wither away. The New York Times reported Monday that the Bush administration has targeted 33 toxic waste sites in 18 states for reductions in funding. That means the cleanup will stop at some of the worst sites in the nation, including work at a manufacturing plant in New Jersey that once made Agent Orange.

The administration says it's willing to continue the Superfund program -- on its terms. The president wants all taxpayers, not just the companies that historically have contributed to creating toxic waste sites, to fund the program. But changing the funding this way would be a terrible departure from the program's beginnings, which is that the polluter should pay.

President Bush's willingness to let the Superfund program die is but one of many concessions he has made to polluting industries, including, as Nevadans know all too well, his plan to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain. The White House's refusal to protect the environment today just means that another president a few years or a decade from now will inherit environmental disasters that will be that much harder -- and much more expensive -- to clean up. That is hardly the legacy of a president who cares about the environment.