Superfund Reform, Part 2: Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due

Last week, I offered less than fulsome praise of EPA Administrator Pruitt's announcement that he was taking control of remedial decisions for big Superfund sites.  Now, he's followed up with a memorandum announcing establishment of a task force to look at ways to reform Superfund implementation.  While he's still plainly wrong in putting Superfund "at the center of the agency's core mission," I have to confess that I think he otherwise has pretty much hit a home run with the latest memorandum.

Let's start with the basics.  Superfund is a mess.  It's one of the most poorly written statutes in Congressional history, and Superfund cleanups take way too long, are way too expensive, and fail to deliver bang for the buck in either risk reduction or productive reuse.