In 1995, when the taxing authority for the Superfund ended, Congress also expanded Superfund's emergency response to cover terrorist acts after the Oklahoma City Federal Building was bombed. The EPA exercised this responsibility again after the  September 11, 2001 terror attacks. The EPA worked to protect rescue workers and the public at the World Trade Center and Pentagon disasters and the Anthrax contamination of the Hart Senate office building a month later. It also responded to the 2003 Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, protecting workers during the debris recovery.

 

     The EPA under CERCLA undertook a massive cleanup effort of the Hudson river in 2000, recovering over 100,000 pounds of PCB's from the riverbed.

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     The infamous Love Canal site was finally delisted from the NPL in 2004, though it may have been premature. Some areas, though, have been sold for light industrial and commercial redevelopment. 

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     In 2005, the EPA acted to respond to emergencies caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita and in 2010 and Sandy in 2012. It aided the Coast Guard and first-responders after the 2010 BP Oil Spill, assisting in cleaning oil from the shore and monitoring the chemical dispersants and their effects.

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     Most recently, the discouraging trend of cutting appropriations for the Superfund reached a new low when Mick Mulvaney, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), announced what can only be described as draconian cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency as part of President Trump's proposed new budget for Fiscal Year 2018. Only $5.7 billion has been requested for the EPA, down 3.1% from last year's $8.2 billion which calls for major cuts across the board, but also completely eliminates over fifty programs completely and 3,200 jobs, and all to help balance a $54 billion boost to military spending. This is on top of a 20% drop in funding already since 2010.

 

     The impact to the Superfund specifically is ominous for the current 1,337 Superfund fund sites currently on the NPL. Superfund programs will only get $762 million, down 30.2%, or $330 million, from last year's $1.092 billion allocation. Enforcement alone loses $129 million, which is a 23.5% drop from last year's $548 million down to $419 million.

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     What does this mean in practical terms? Less lawyers, less inspections, fewer new sites (if any) added to the NPL, and a drastic slowdown or end to current cleanup projects. President Trump wants to shift most responsibility and financial input to the states. For economically challenged states this clearly mean an end to their programs. And with enforcement cut, polluters can escape paying what they owe. It's a big win for violators of Federal law, a strange vision for the self-proclaimed "law and order candidate." This will inevitably lead to greater exposure of the public to harmful chemicals and a rise in pollution-caused illness, which along with the President's cuts to health care, will lead to projected saving in Social Security payments over the next ten years (according to the OMB - grim as it sounds). Progress in cleanup technology development will come to a standstill despite that being a key principle of CERCLA. 

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     This will affect not only individual state projects, but multi-state projects as well. The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Chesapeake Bay cleanup have been canceled, meaning that somehow states with different approaches to remediation likely won't cooperate on doing it themselves. Add to this the end of methane release data collection at petroleum extraction sites and a complete shutdown of all climate change research and data collection and we have the makings of a major negative impact on public health, not to mention the harm to the environment as well. 

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     The only hope lies, ironically, with Republican lawmakers who depend on many of these programs to win votes in their home states, since a great deal of the impact of these cuts will fall on Red States. Hopefully, self-interest may bring some sanity back to the budget process when the full budget is assembled later this year. Click the link below to voice your opinion to your local representatives and make sure they hear you come election time!

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