You know, I wouldn’t mind seeing the EPA (or at least their budget) actually totally dedicated to cleaning up Superfund-type sites, rather than promulgating regulationss on the count of wooly bear hairs, or whatever it is the EPA does these days.
Those sites need cleanup, no private entity is going to take it on themselves to do it, the jobs are truly “shovel ready,” and the work should spur innovation in toxic waste handling and removal.
Thoughts?
Actually, I would rather see that any new industrial facility (i.e. factory, refinery, electrical generation plant, etc.) that chooses to build on a brownfield site be fast tracked and exempt from environmental analysis since the site is already dirty. The new plant owner is also exempt from liability from contaminants existing prior to the creation of the new facility. The EPA can step in if monitoring wells surrounding the site show that historical contaminants are escaping from the site, and can address that instead of a wholesale cleanup of the entire site. In any event, the new facility owner will not be liable for historical contaminants. This would do a lot toward putting Americans to work since there are thousands of acres of prime industrial land with excellent infrastructure service already in place available for fast tracked factories.
Yes, and at the expense of the polluters who created the problems.