Superfund

Implications of Key Reauthorization Issues Gao ID: T-RCED-96-145 May 3, 1996

This testimony comments on the Accelerated Cleanup and Environmental Restoration Act of 1996, which reauthorizes and significantly changes the Superfund program. Few of the nation's worst hazardous waste sites have been cleaned up under the current Superfund law. Moreover, the estimated costs of the cleanups have risen at a time when the government's resources are limited. GAO discusses six major changes that the proposed legislation would make to the Superfund program: (1) increasing the role of risk in decisions on whether and how to clean up waste sites, (2) expanding the range of alternatives available to address wastes at sites, (3) transferring some of the federal government's authority for cleanups to the states, (4) reducing legal costs, (5) limiting claims for damages to natural resources caused by contamination, and (6) fostering the wider use of cost-effective technologies for cleaning up federal facilities.



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