Democrats Seek Superfund Tax
The long-debated Superfund tax will likely re-emerge in the 110th Congress, according to Democratic aides in the House and Senate.
At a private lunch sponsored by the D.C. Bar Association yesterday afternoon, Richard Frandsen, counsel to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, described a "very strong need for additional funding" of the Superfund program, and he predicted the tax "will be proposed again" this session, with the House Ways and Means Committee taking the lead.
Bettina Poirier, staff director to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committtee, concurred and suggested that the new budget may be a vehicle for addressing the change. Poirier noted that Superfund cleanups have dropped "very rapidly." The Superfund program cleaned up an average of 86 sites per year in the 1990s, but the number has fallen by about half in recentyears. Democrats blame President Bush's decision not to reinstate the Superfund tax, which collected money primarily from oil and gas companies to clean up toxic sites.
Reinstating the tax will meet stiff resistance, however, from Sen. James Inhofe, ranking member of the Senate committee. An increase "will not be an Inhofe initiative," said a top Inhofe staffer. "Under the old Superfund tax, gas and oil companies paid 50 percent though they were maybe responsible for about 20 percent [of the contaminated sites]."
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