According to the Center for Public Integrity, the Environmental Protection Agency has been able to get illegally polluting corporations to clean up their toxic sites by threatening to clean up the sites itself using money from the “Superfund” trust fund and then charge the corporations for the cost. But under George W. Bush, the size of the EPA’s Superfund has been allowed to dwindle. In 2006, Bush called for a $7 million cut in appropriations for Superfund, and in 2007 Bush called for a $7 million cut to be made again. Now corporations know that the EPA doesn’t have the money to do cleanup and charge the corporations for it, so the corporations are complying less often with EPA demands. The EPA is making fewer requests for cleanup, too: The result: fewer corporate toxic waste sites have been cleaned up under Bush than under previous administrations.
(Source: Center for Public Integrity, May 18 2007)
