Should Superfund Tax Be Reinstated
In the early eighties through the early nineties, the Superfund program was funded largely by taxes on imported petroleum, crude oil, imported substances that use hazardous chemicals as a feedstock, and on corporate modified alternative minimum taxable income (Solid Waste and Emergency Reponse [OSWER], 2010).
Since those taxes expired at the beginning of 1996, Superfund has been largely financed from General Revenue transfers to the Superfund Trust Fund (OSWER, 2010). The Superfund program was designed to protect human health, and cleanup hazardous sites (OSWER, 2010).
According to the OSWER, Superfund over the course of its time cleaned 900 of the most contaminated sites in the nation and inspired other waste protection programs such as the Brownfields program involving less contaminated sites (OSWER, 2010). There has been talk about reinstating the program, but some are for it. While others believe that although it should be reinstated, tax payers shouldn’t be footing the bill.
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He further states that congress must reinstate the polluter pays fee (Easton, 2014). Which would make both taxpayers and the company pay towards the funds.
Without corporate fees to replenished superfunds, there would not be enough money to do the critical job of cleaning up waste (Easton, 2014). Furthermore, Fortune 500 corporations are declaring bankruptcy and avoiding the cost of cleaning up, leaving taxpayers to make up for allthe cost (Easton,
As of January 1, 2003, the Canadian city of Toronto, Ontario started to ship one hundred percent of its garbage into the landfills of Michigan. In 2003, Toronto exported garbage at a rate of 7.2 tons per minute. Garbage trucks from Toronto run seven days a week twenty-four hours a day, so at the rate of 7.2 tons per minute it works out to be that Michigan imports 10,368 tons of Toronto's garbage per day. But it wasn't always like this, Governor John Engler and his administration turned garbage into a growth industry. The state lowered the liability standards for landfill owners and also provided tax-free financing for new facilities. The result of these changes lead to too many landfills and not enough garbage to fill them. So the landfill owners lowered their prices and searched even harder for garbage. Today, Michigan's private landfills charge ten to fifteen dollars per ton to dump while other landfill owners in neighboring states charge twenty five to fifty dollars per ton. Toronto did the math and realized that it is cheaper to haul its garbage 300 miles and dump it in Michigan then it is to dump it close to home. And on top of that, Michigan has eliminated funds fo...
The author proposes different partial solutions for the "oil problem": a surtax on gasoline consumption, development of mass transport and alternative energy sources, fuel efficiency. In the actual context, these propositions are more or less wishful thinking. A complete change of mind will only arrive when the oil price will reach astronomical heights and when all cheap oil sources will be dried up.
...0 billion per year due to an average of 130,000 deaths from this problem (Diamond, 2005). Therefore, the "U.S. Clean Air Act of 1970, although it's cleanup measures do cost money, has yielded estimated net health savings (benefits in excess of costs) of about $1 trillion per year, due to saved lives and reduced health costs" (Diamond, 2005). Saving the environment has far-reaching implications. The improvement of many environmental conditions ultimately helps human health and saves money; a clear case in point being New Orleans. In this case, Washington D.C. should more strongly consider mitigating environmental problems when they arise.
The Superfund program, which was better known as just Superfund, is also known as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability act (CERLA) of 1980 was developed by the federal government as a way to preserve and protect the ecosystem and to clean up toxic, uncontrolled, abandoned hazardous waste sites. (Boorse & Wright, 2011, p.577). The Superfund program cleans up any hazardous waste, be it abandoned, accidentally spilled, or illegally dumped; any of which may pose a threat to future or current health or the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency works with the community, the responsible parties or the potential responsible party in identifying these hazardous waste sites in formulating plans to clean up these sites. Superfund provides laws and standards for the disposal and storage of such wastes. In addition, the Superfund program provides emergency financial support to existing environmental agencies to monitor removal of toxins, and to provide emergency cleanup services, provide monetary reparation to people who faced health or financial difficulties and concerns from toxic waste, and, if needed, to help enact emergency evacuation procedures. Superfund also provides for liability of persons responsible for releases of hazardous waste at these sites, and can establish a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries to make available for cleanup when no responsible party could be recognized. The National Priorities List, or NPL, is a list of the worst hazardous waste sites that have been identified by Superfund. (Boorse & Wright, 2011, p. 578). Any site on the NPL is eligible for cleanup using Superfund Trust money.
When deciding what to do about federal mandates that are not funded, one must consider both sides. With federal mandates such as the Clean Air Act, Superfund cleanup and the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. government sets national standards that states and local governments don’t necessarily want. If the laws are necessary, taxpayers at the local level should approve them. Otherwise, the federal government should be expected to pay for the mandates they regulate. Unfunded mandates are one more way for Washington bureaucrats to transfer responsibility for their actions onto the backs of local taxpayers.
... water pollution cleanup in the Everglades, and Amendment 6, establishing an Everglades Trust Fund.
The environment and the health of the surrounding population go hand in hand. The Environmental Protection Agency takes on this ever so important mission of protecting them both. The mission statement of the EPA states, “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Small Business Programs is to support the protection of human health and the environment by advocating and advancing the business, regulatory, and environmental compliance concerns of small and socio-economically disadvantaged businesses, and minority academic institutions (US Enviromental Protection Agency, 2010).” The impact of its mission can be defined clearly as it examines the impact of contamination in the air, the water, and the land on human health.
...ization to determine the extent of environmental contamination and the cost of removal or remediation. Then, funds should be set aside either from the Superfund Trust Fund or general revenues to provide resources to local governments to develop brownfield site inventories, site assessments, and brownfield redevelopment strategies, the main goal of which would be to attract private investment. EPA should expand their Brownfields Initiative to include funds for preparation and implementation of brownfield redevelopment strategies. Federal funds should be made available for the creation and capitalization of local revolving loan funds for local governments or the private sector to perform activities such as removal, remediation, and small business development at brownfield sites. HUD should provide resources to accelerate actual development, through leveraging private sector investment and other means, to move beyond cleanup and remediation. All agencies need to find ways to assist by providing resources that will aid in the redevelopment of brownfield sites.
faced in restoration projects. Are these bills necessary or is there a better solution that politicians are overlooking?
I agree that recommending Dr. Babin weigh in on the EPA review of the San Jacinto River superfund site, on behalf of the local communities, is a good idea. The local officials and constituents will appreciate DBB’s interest in the issue. By supporting their call removal, he may gain unlikely and very vocal allies in the environmentalist community.
Even though The Sydney Tar Ponds have been remediated, dumping chemical byproducts in the nearest water source is not the most effective solution for controlling your industrial waste because The Tar ponds contain over 700,000 tons of toxic sludge, there was an abundance of health concerns and deformities in humans and animals that lived near the area, and the cost for remediation totaled to a whopping amount of 400 million dollars.
Importantly, when thinking about the cost-benefit approach, it should be borne in mind that its proponents are not strictly motivated to act ethically, unless the cost of not doing so is sufficiently high, or if acting ethically will result in economic profit. For example, a industrial company may know that dumping chemical waste into a nearby river is harmful to the environment, and by extension, human and non-human animals, although still decide to dispose of their waste in such a manner, as it is economically cheaper to do so, than to dispose of the waste in a safe but more costly manner. In coming to such a decision, they may have also weighed the potential fines and loss of business if they are exposed, although determined that such costs are not sufficiently high compared to the economic savings of cheaper, inappropriate dumping, so will maintain the current method of disposal.
“The Open Fuel Standard Act of 2013 is a Fiscal Policy that if passed would require each fleet of a manufacturer of passenger automobiles (including light-duty motor vehicles) to comprise at least: (1) 30% qualified vehicles in model year 2016, and (2) 50% qualified vehicles in model year 2017 and each subsequent year.” (https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr2493#summary) A qualified vehicle would be one that operates on natural gas, hydrogen, biofuels, E85, M85 or electric drive vehicles. This would be a giant step in the right direction if this were to be passed into law and it would have a huge impact on all automakers, especially the truck market.
...water added fluoride in their products as well. However the bad sides of fluoride were discovered and realized that some customers are looking for fluoride free water, because the people with young children do not want their children to drink fluoride water and end up with having fluorosis. Therefore they do not want to feed their children with tab water, because it still contains the fluoride in it, and looking for fluoride free bottled water. Therefore those industries which produce fluoride free water, made a lot of money. Also the government uses the fluoride waste from the aluminum factories or the other factories that create fluoride waste to fluoridate the water supplies. As the results, the factories do not have to care about their fluoride waste and end up saving a large amount of money. This is the connection between the fluoridated water and industry.
National Parks have hazardous materials, even though they are thought to be clean and pure areas. An example is the Padre Island National Seashore on Texas’ Gulf Coast. They spend $325,000-$500,000 removing hazardous waste annually due to illegal dumping into the sea. There are many other national parks suffering from hazardous materials. The National Park Service (NPS) has insufficient resources to clean up existing environmental hazards. The problem is escalating. Many environmentalists suggest that the NPS should lead education efforts in waste reduction and conservation but is low on funds and resources to wage the campaign due to cost of cleaning up hazardous waste. Park Services must undergo change in attitude to become a leader in waste