Superfund tax rejection may delay Maine toxic site cleanups

The cleanup of once-toxic sites such as Eastland Woolen Mill in Corinna and the Callahan Mine in Brooksville could be delayed with the failure this week of a federal effort to make chemical manufacturers pay to clean up toxic pollution at Superfund sites.

Thursday evening, the Senate voted 52-44 to reject the Lautenberg Amendment, which would have reinstated a tax on chemical companies that built a trust fund to help with cleanup costs to a high of $3.8 billion in the mid-1990s.

The tax expired under President Clinton’s watch in 1995, and was voted down repeatedly by the Republican-led Congress against Clinton’s recommendation.

The trust fund is now bankrupt and Maine’s 13 Superfund sites could be affected.

Maine’s Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins were among only four members of their party who went against the administration to support the tax. The vote was a surprise to environmentalists, as both senators voted against a similar amendment in 2002.

The tax could have raised $8.3 billion over five years, Snowe said in a statement released Thursday.

“For states like Maine, our economic development is dependent on renewing land from toxic sites,” she said.

Collins supports the tax citing the need for more funding in Corinna. However, she also called on the EPA to “correct injustices” in how responsibility for Superfund sites is assigned – for example, How’s Corner in Plymouth, where people are being charged to clean up oil they brought to a badly managed recycling facility, she said.

With only a handful of Democrats opposing the tax, the vote split along party lines. Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry wasn’t on hand to vote on the measure.

The Bush administration has called for “Superfund reform” and does not support the tax, saying that it unfairly penalizes companies that were not personally responsible for pollution.

“I’m not saying that all of them are innocent, but a lot of them are,” said EPA spokesman Dave Ryan from his Washington, D.C., office Friday afternoon.

Superfund, a federal program to clean up the toxic waste that often remains behind when industries and landfills shut down, was created in 1980.

When possible, the companies responsible for the pollution pay to clean it up. That system worked for sites such as Loring Air Force Base, where the U.S. government covered the costs of an extensive cleanup.

Ryan said that three-quarters of all cleanups are accomplished in this way – the preferred approach for the agency.

However, even in instances where polluters can be identified, state and federal environmental agencies sometimes must front the money to secure a site’s safety. That money isn’t always paid back, Maine Department of Environmental Protection officials have said.

And “orphan” sites like those in Corinna, where the responsible party has long since gone out of business, are paid entirely from the tax trust fund and from annual congressional appropriations for the Superfund program.

Those appropriations have remained steady over the past five years – with Congress approving $1.257 billion for fiscal year 2004, Ryan said.

Meanwhile, the trust fund from the tax has been drained. In the mid-1980s, just 18 percent of the cost of orphan sites came from the federal budget, while the rest came out of the industry trust fund. Today, taxpayers handle 100 percent of orphan sites.

Individual sites, including several in Maine, which have seen decreases in their funding in recent years, could lose again in 2004, and advocates for the tax blame the administration’s policy.

But Ryan argues that, at 1,240 sites, the Superfund program is at a near peak number, an indication of the administration’s commitment to the program.

Congress chose to reduce the appropriation for Superfund that was proposed in the president’s most recent budget, he said.

With limited funds, EPA has to prioritize based on health risks, Ryan said.

“Everybody wants more money, but there’s only a finite amount,” he said. “We have to make tough decisions.”

Susan Sargent, Maine spokeswoman for the National Environmental Trust, who has lobbied hard for the tax, said Thursday that she continues to believe in the tax and she is looking to next year.

“Taxpayers are having to pay for these things and not polluters,” she said. “That’s unfair.”