Contrary to common complaint, the federal budget deadlock in the U.S. has produced at least one environmental benefit. New York Times reports that, thanks partly to funding interruptions caused by the fiscal showdown between Congress and the Clinton administration, the notorious Superfund "is now in nearly complete disarray."
Only one thing could be better for the environment than disarray of the Superfund. That, of course, would be disappearance of the Superfund. The 15 year old program for cleaning up hazardous waste sites is more hindrance than help.
Superfund has collected billions of dollars in taxes, mostly from oil refiners and petrochemical manufacturers, and cleaned up little hazardous waste in relation to the cost. Mostly, it has motivated companies that might be held accountable for past or future hazardous waste pollution to sue one another and the government. It has also produced an entertaining contest of blame-fixing between the government's executive and legislative branches.
When President Clinton warns that Republican budget proposals threaten to turn back the clock on environmental regulation, therefore, Superfund provides excellent reason to warmly embrace the prospect. A fresh start on U.S. cleanup of hazardous waste would not be a bad thing.
Broader issues
The Superfund mess provides a lens through which to focus important issues inevitably blurred in the dramatics of government shutdowns and political bickering. In the current climate, fiscal hard-liners become characterized as obstructionists determined to make government go away, their ideas dismissed as extremist.
The characterization is wrong. What most fiscal hard-liners are in fact saying is that those parts of government that are ineffective, excessively costly, or inappropriate ought to go away. Superfund falls squarely within those parameters.
Its history shows why. In 1980 the U.S. confronted a real environmental problem: disposal sites poisoned by hazardous substances or threatened to be so, where responsibility was difficult or impossible to legally assign. In response, Congress created the Superfund.
There were troubles from the start. The clean-up challenge proved to be larger than expected. And the program itself had flaws. When Superfund needed reauthorization 5 years later, Congress acted as though the program's problems were simply insufficiencies of money, regulatory power, and punishment for polluters. In 1986, an election year, they raised Superfund taxes, especially on refiners, broadened the program's scope, expanded the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement powers, and complicated liability questions.
As a result, companies now have too little say over clean-up methods, too little certainty about what clean-up standards apply, but potentially huge liabilities if current or future standards aren't met. They have little choice but to litigate in order to clarify liability or avoid it altogether.
When EPA this month began furloughing Superfund site workers and idling contractors for lack of funds, therefore, the environment didn't suffer much in relation to either the problem or the amount of money spent on disputes over clean-up responsibilities. Taxpayers have been getting very little clean-up for their money.
Favoring punishment
The problem isn't EPA or its contractors or the companies struggling to escape punitive liabilities for antique pollution. The problem is a Congress that until recently has mistaken spending for solutions generally and favored punishment over science where the environment is concerned.
Congressional budget hard-liners act as though they want to break from that legacy. Their aim is not extremism. It's a move toward appropriate and effective government. Without such a move, solutions to inherited environmental problems will remain elusive.
