Bush is the only president since the Superfund was created in 1980 not to ask Congress to reauthorize the tax on polluting industries.

Once the Superfund trust fund runs out, taxpayers will have to cover the cost of cleaning up toxic sites created by industry. Past administrations have held that Superfund cleanups should be paid for by the polluters.

“I strongly believe that the funds used to pay for the program should be generated entirely through (taxes on industry), not the general Treasury,” President Ronald Reagan said in requesting an extension of Superfund fees and taxes on industry in 1985.

The Superfund program was designed to have polluters pick up the tab for cleaning up highly contaminated hazardous waste sites. If the source couldn’t be determined or had gone out of business, the cleanup was to be paid for from a trust fund – financed by an excise tax on the oil and chemical industries and a small environmental income tax on other corporations. But those taxes expired in 1995, when the Republican-led Congress refused to renew them. Hence, the trust fund is now almost out of money, according to Congress’s investigative arm, the General Accounting Office. When it runs out, likely later this year, taxpayers will be left with the bill.

According to the EPA, one of every four Americans lives within four miles of a Superfund site.

“These sites represent the legacy of decades of neglect,” Reagan said in 1985. “We, as a society, must address these serious health threats.”

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[1] U.S. PIRG fact sheet, http://www.pirg.org/enviro/superfund/superfund.asp?id2=6108&id3=superfund&
[2] Reagan Statement on Proposed Superfund Reauthorization Legislation, Feb. 22, 1985, http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1985/22285b.htm
[3] General Accounting Office report: “Superfund Program: Current Status and Future Fiscal Challenges,” July 31, 2003, http://www.gao.gov/atext/d03850.txt
[4] Ibid.