Will President Obama get off the hook where President Bush did not? That’s a reasonable question for those wondering about reports that the Environmental Protection Agency plans to do less environmental cleanups than it did under the last administration, or any other since 1991.
According to a report from the Associated Press, the EPA estimates it will finish removing the last traces of pollution at 20 sites in 2009 and 22 sites in 2010. That’s a scant few compared to the average of 38 per year under Bush.
But Bush’s EPA was reviled by groups like the Sierra Club. In a January 2004 release, the Sierra Club accused Bush of underfunding the program, leading to unnecessary delays in the cleanups. Obama faces the same constraints, but has received few complaints.
This is because Obama is calling for the reinstatement of a tax that was ended in 1995 that forces companies that deal with contaminants to pay into the fund. But this tax has the effect of forcing companies to pay for contamination in general — not the contamination for which they are directly responsible. The law even makes it possible to tax those who simply own the land but did not contaminate it.
The tax would go into effect in 2011. Meanwhile, the White House has asked for more money than Bush for Superfund — $1.31 billion compared with $1.29 billion. An additional $600 million comes from the stimulus.
