Senate holds hearing on Superfund cleanup crisis

October 17, 2007 - As Sen. Barbara Boxer noted in her opening remarks, one in four U.S. residents lives within four miles of a Superfund site, including 10 million children. Yet cleanup efforts have slowed to a virtual crawl. Indeed, a year-long investigation conducted by the nonprofit Center for Public Integrity released earlier this year found that:

* Cleanup work was started at about 145 sites in the past six years under President Bush, while the startup rate was nearly three times higher during the last six years of Bill Clinton's presidency;

* The number of sites declared "construction complete" in the six Clinton years averaged 79, while that average dropped to 42 a year under the Bush administration; and

* The EPA's 2007 target for construction completions was 40 sites, but it has been scaled back to 24. The 2008 target is 30 sites, according to the EPA's 2008 budget request.

More . . .