Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
In office Hodding Carter has discussion with Representative James Florio (D - New Jersey) and William Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator they discuss who will pay for superfund, what the E.P.A. and superfund have done thus far.
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Hodding Carter, Congressman, this has almost become a motherhood issues as far as the headlines seem to be. What really are the issues that are going to be politically difficult when getting the extension? James Florio (D - New Jersey), Well, it is something that everyone is in support of now. Unfortunately everyone says someone else ought to pay for it. Hodding Carter, Let s start with who should pay. Who should pay? You ve been looking at this a long time. Who ought to pay for this? William Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator, Well, there are always two groups of people who pay for this kind of things, one is the taxpayer and the other is the consumer. They re not the same person. Congress has a choice. They can decide to have a general tax system that either directs itself at the taxpayer as a whole or directs that payment at an individual company that has produced waste that ends up at a dump.
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Hodding Carter, Part of the fight as I understand it, at any rate, is an effort to shift even the general tax notion off of a Federal level and onto a state and local level. Is that now still possible? Is it before the Congress? James Florio (D - New Jersey), If we talk about the universe of sites, the movie that we saw, talked about this being a serious problem. It doesn t give a sense of the magnitude of it. Superfund will clean up only 800 of that big universe. The balance of the sites in the country are the exclusive responsibility of the states. They have to clean up 100% with financing at the local level.
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Hodding Carter, Even though you are out, I understand you are still doing some advising with the EPA on these matters. William Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator, Let me try to respond because I think there s an important principle involved here. It sill boils down to the taxpayers. It s the taxpayers or the consumers that are going to pay for this. The reason I think there ought to be some portion, not by any means the majority, but some portion of the cost of the clean up, even of superfund size, born by the states and partially the local government, is because if you don t get the proper weighing of what risks production do we want to achieve at what costs, if we don t get that balance struck by the people who benefit from it, then the whole question that the Congressman raises about how clean is clean, which is a terribly important question, will never get addressed by the very people who stand to benefit because when they ask for zero risk, there s no cost associated with that. And if you don t get that proper balancing located in the people that benefit, we re never going to get, I don t think, to the point at which we can make some objective assessment as to how these dumps ought to be cleaned up.
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Hodding Carter, Do we really have the technology to do more than shift the problem form one dump to another? James Florio (D - New Jersey), I think the answer is yes, we do. First of all we have to keep in mind we are talking about a fixed universe of sites. Hopefully they ll be no new Love Canals being created. Because if the existing law, a separate law, is enforced by the EPA, as we hope it will be, no more inappropriate dumping is going to take place. Hodding Carter, Do you agree? Do we have the technology to take care of this? William Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator, The dilemma on people like Congressman Florio and others is that they have constituents that want these sites cleaned up, they want them out of the way, they don t want any additional risks to their children, we ve seen them on tapes earlier in this show - very sympathetic people. The Office of Technology Assessment, an arm of the Congress, did a very interesting study and I think significant study which said they should divide this program into two phases. The first phase being aimed at eliminating the imminent, immediate health hazards, something that the EPA has been doing a better job at. And the truth is on some of these sites, there are gaps in our technological ability to finally clean them up. We don t know what to do. And if we force moneys to be spent to try to finally clean those sites up before we understand exactly what it is we ought to be doing, we run the risk of wasting very great amounts of money.
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Hodding Carter, You are saying in effect what? That we can t spend the 10 or 11 billion that the Congress thinks we can? William Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator, It may be 100 billion. It may be the Office of Technology Assessment is right, the phases that we ought divide it up into. Let s get rid of these immediate health hazards. Let s get those out of the way. Where we ve got the chronic, longer-run health hazards where we got these gaps, let s try to make sure we know what we are doing and finally solve the problem before we rush in and spend a lot of money which may be wasted. James Florio (D - New Jersey), No on is advocating we waste money. We won t do something that is not needed. What I m saying is that unfortunately in some instances, the fact that we have not got the total perfect solution to everything is being used as justification for doing virtually nothing.
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Hodding Carter, Alright, but I m the critic sitting out there, I m the person sitting next to a dump, I look at the record from the last 5 years, a billion and a half, a billion 6 and I say what s happened - six sites maybe, if you really go and stretch it. What s Congress going to do that s gong to speed this pace up? James Florio (D - New Jersey), Well hopefully, we re going to put some teeth into the law to make sure we re not sitting here 5 years from now and seeing not to terribly much done. The way to do that and it s a very important basic point to understand, that Superfund was designed to provide to EPA the authority to go and clean up. Then go litigate, go find out who caused the problem and have the fund replenished. EPA has gotten away from that understanding of the function and therefore they are into protracted negotiations to get someone to come forward and voluntarily do the clean up, which is desirable if it can be done, but first and foremost the Superfund provides the authority and the funding for immediately going onto the site, doing the remedial work that can be done, then at a later point attempt to recoup monies and find responsible parties. That s the difficulty and philosophic difference I have with some at the agency.
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Hodding Carter, Well, you ve sat there within the last two years. Is EPA going to move with more dispatch in the next 5 years? William Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator, I wish it were that simple. It s a very unfair, and I think misleading statement, in the sense of the Congressman s own program is leading to suggest that nothing has happened. There have been over 100 instances now in which immediate health hazards have been handled by the agency. It s these longer range, ground water, potential air pollution, kinds of problems which they really don t know quite how to handle at this point, where it appears that they re stalling. There are some sites where we re in a terrible mix of lawsuits, where as many as 300 responsible parties have all hired a lawyer, they re suing the government, they re suing each on another over how you ought to allocate the costs of these sites. That is a mess. The question of how you move that program faster, I don t know how we deal with that in the Congress. James Florio (D - New Jersey), In a sense that kind of makes my point. The lawsuits will ultimately resolve who is it that is going to be responsible for reimbursing EPA. And unfortunately I think there has been entirely too much emphasis put on negotiated settlements and litigation when we didn t need EPA or Superfund if we were just going to rely upon that approach.
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Hodding Carter, Let me ask you this. What are we waiting on? What s actually going to come out of Congress this time? What kid of a bill do you see emerging at the end of the process? James Florio (D - New Jersey), Well, I m hopeful it will be a generously funded bill. EPA, at one point, acknowledged the fact that they could easily put to use anywhere from 9 to 12 billion dollars over the next 5 years. Hodding Carter, Could they? William Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator, I don t think they could wisely. You could spend the money. Hodding Carter, Why did they change their minds? James Florio (D - New Jersey), I assume its budgets constraints, the philosophic bias of some - The Office of Management and Budget, quite frankly. The Office of Management and Budget, and I expect Mr. Ruckelshaus, could testify to this. It s not as environmentally sensitive as it could be. They have another agenda which is legitimate from their standpoint.
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
William Ruckelshaus, former EPA administrator, Nothing about this program is simple. We have taken we have taken what was traditionally a local governmental responsibility and elevated it to the federal government and said you now construct a brand new program to solve it. We had some initial scandals, some miss-starts in the program which badly prejudiced everybody, including the Congress against this administration. How we go from where we now are to making sure that these health hazards are handled, these dumps are ultimately cleaned up that they are done effectively, efficiently and in some kind of timely fashion, is a very difficult dilemma. Hodding Carter, it is obviously too complex a subject for the time we ve had. It is also one for which the American people are looking for answers. From what you are both saying, they re going to get some, but maybe not all from this legislation over the next 5 years. Mr. Ruckelshaus, Congressmen Florio, thank you both for being with us.
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Hodding Carter thanks guests and closes out show
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
Credits roll over shots of Maine waterways
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
DO NOT USE PBS funding credits
Capitol Journal - Superfund / Toxic Waste
DO NOT USE PBS Logo