Posted on 02/20/2004 1:03:56 PM PST by .cnI redruM
"A steady decline in Superfund funding has alarmed lawmakers," the Washington Post breathlessly reports this morning. This morning's full-page MoveOn.org ad in The New York Times, featuring Al Gore, also complains about declining Superfund spending. But declining Superfund spending is good news! Toxic emissions by U.S. industry have been falling for more than 15 years; the total number of Superfund sites has been falling, owing to completed cleanups. So of course Superfund spending is declining--less is needed because there's less to clean up.
Bear in mind that Superfund was originally enacted in 1980 as a temporary, emergency program in response to the Love Canal, Times Beach, and other toxic-waste discoveries. Like other "temporary" government efforts, Superfund has morphed into a permanent fixture whose initial purpose has been forgotten, and is now dominated by budget politics. Superfund's initial purpose--protecting the public from old toxic wastes--has long since been fulfilled. Now it's viewed by Congress as a public-works funding mechanism for funneling contracts to favored districts. Fundraisers like MoveOn.org view Superfund as a scare mechanism with which to solicit donations. Superfund hasn't been about environmental protection or public health protection in years. It's about who gets how much money and who can denounce whom.
The primary danger of Superfund sites came from unregulated toxic-waste dumping that occurred from roughly World War II through the 1970s. In the '70s, strict federal laws were passed (RCRA, TOSCA, and CERCLA, to give just their acronyms) that prohibited the land disposal of untreated toxic wastes and imposed complex rules on those toxic-handling sites still in operation. So the first point to understand about Superfund is that hardly any Superfund locations have been created in decades, with a few exceptions. (Officials declared some of the spots where debris from the space shuttle Columbia fell to be Superfund sites, on the reasoning that the shards of metal had become "waste.") Most Superfund cleanup effort is focused on sites that are old and as the old sites are cleaned up, the scope of the problem declines.
Some 2,129 sites were placed on the National Priorities List, the inventory of Superfund sites considered dangerous to public health. As of late last fall, cleanup had been completed at 886 of the NPL sites, a little over 40 percent, while all NPL locations were considered stabilized and no longer threatening to public health. Speed and efficiency of Superfund cleanup improved markedly during the Clinton administration. So even a worst-case analysis would say that 40 percent of the program goals have been accomplished. We might then expect spending to decline--maybe by 40 percent!
Next, the overall scope of the toxic exposure issue has declined dramatically. Since 1988, toxic emissions by U.S. industry have declined by about 55 percent. (See table ES-21.) Equally important, with a few tragic exceptions such as Woburn, Massachusetts, studies have shown little or no relationship between Superfund sites and harm to public health, usually because no one is exposed to the chemicals from the sites.
Senator James Jeffords is quoted by the Post as asking, "How can we explain to the one in four Americans who live within four miles of a Superfund site that making their community cleaner is not a priority?" This science-illiteracy statement often crops up in Superfund scare stories. What effect could a substance four miles away from you have? None, unless you are exposed to it. (People in Woburn were exposed when toxics leeched into drinking water.) One hundred percent of Americans live much closer than four miles to some substance that could be lethal, assuming exposure. Pharmacies are full of incredible dangerous substances, and almost every American lives within four miles of a pharmacy--oh my God! Almost every home contains chemicals such as bleach that are fatal if swallowed, and every single American lives within four miles of a home--oh my God! Everyone lives close to highways or airport runways or other places of extreme danger, assuming exposure. This morning I stood on the platform of the Bethesda station of the Washington Metro subway as the train I had just missed accelerated out of the station at 45 miles per hour. I was inches away from certain death from a rapidly moving multi-ton object, yet nothing happened to me because I wasn't "exposed."
Some remaining Superfund sites pose vexing problems, a reason analysts such as Katherine Probst of the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future think spending should continue at significant levels for at least several more years. And the Bush administration made a fundamental error by halting a corporate tax for Superfund, shifting program financing onto general revenues. But overall, toxic emissions, toxic wastes, and dangerous Superfund sites are in a 20-year cycle of decline. Wouldn't it be nice if the coverage mentioned any of this?
He brilliantly describes the entire Superfund Program.
>>>>>This science-illiteracy statement often crops up in Superfund scare stories. What effect could a substance four miles away from you have? None, unless you are exposed to it......
His take-down on Senator Jeffords, bloviator/idiot, was a classic in the genre.
I'm convinced Easterbrook is bipolar or schitzo. His posting on poverty, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1081564/posts was the most ignorant treatise on American economics I've suffered exposure to since the last time I watched a Howard Dean speech.
God forbid if seniors saved for retirement, welfare was no longer needed, etc.
Paging John Stossel
My son came from school the other day and said that he confirmed John's census of children thinking things are worse now. - He set them straight.
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