Frank Lautenberg: “today I am introducing the Equity and Public Involvement in Superfund Act of 1997 [TEPI]. Hazardous sites, the legacy of…”

“today I am introducing the Equity and Public Involvement in Superfund Act of 1997 [TEPI]. Hazardous sites, the legacy of our industrial growth, litter the landscape across America. Many of those sites are toxic and pose real threats to the groundwater, the air and our water, and accordingly, our health and the health of the environment. The worst of those sites are so foul and so polluted that they are beyond the capacity of most States to handle. These sites, placed on the national priorities list for clean up under the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation, and Liability Act commonly known as Superfund can take years to clean up and cost tens of millions of dollars to clean up. They are ticking time bombs that threaten the health and survival of entire communities. Over the years the hazardous waste clean up program has been heavily criticized as being too slow, involving too much litigation and too expensive. Congress addressed many of those problems in 1986, and Administrator Carol Browner of the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] has instituted many reforms to speed up the cleanup program. The results are dramatic. EPA has completed cleanup construction at 498 sites and more than 500 additional sites are in construction. Taxpayers have saved $12 billion because polluters responsible for these sites are performing or funding approximately 70 percent of Superfund long-term cleanups.”