AR-News: (US CA) Cuts to Program Damage the Environment

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

By ANDREW FITZGERALD ADAMS
Tuesday, February 17, 2004

In his first days in office, President Bush slashed taxes paid into the 
Environmental Protection Agency controlled Superfund, a trust created to clean the 
dirtiest, most polluted sites in the nation. The Superfund Act which was 
passed in 1980 taxes the chemical and petroleum industries under the “polluter pays”
 principle. The taxes on heavily-polluting industries help cover the indirect 
costs of pollution that exist in the form of asthma, birth defects and cancer 
felt primarily by those exposed to hazardous waste. 
If these industries were going to create dangerous by-products, then the 
Superfund was formed to find out who was responsible for the toxins, and charge 
them for the damage. In many situations, these sites have changed hands many 
times in an attempt to shift the blame and cover the liability involved in 
dumping hazardous waste. In cases where ownership of a plot was unclear, the tax 
trust and public funds cover the cost of the clean up. 





full story:
http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=14196 

"The world is a dangerous place,
not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Albert Einstein
      /\   /\         
>' .' <   
                              
There is no justice, just us!  








    
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20040217/6fe0625a/attachment.html