For 25 Years, Taxpayers Picked Up Pollutersâ Superfund Bill. That May Finally Change.
Fees on oil producers and petrochemical companies once funded toxic waste cleanups. Republicans let them expire in 1995. Democrats want them back.
The Washington Post via Getty Images
Trevor Beckermann and his mother, Meagan Beckermann, pictured in 2017 at their home near the West Lake Landfill, a Superfund site, in greater St. Louis, Missouri. The family blames the child s autoimmune disease on exposure to toxic contaminants at the site.
For 15 years, the industries responsible for the nationâs worst toxic pollution helped pay into a federal trust for cleaning up waste sites through special taxes on petroleum, chemical components and corporate income. That program became known as âSuperfund.âÂ