EPA Eyes New Superfund Policy To Speed Cleanups, Address Criticisms

摘要

EPA's fiscal year 2011 budget document reveals for the first time key details of a major new Superfund policy initiative aimed at increasing the effectiveness of its cleanup programs and better measuring their progress in response to long-running criticism by lawmakers that not enough cleanup work is getting done.rnThe effort is called the Integrated Cleanup Initiative (ICI), according to an informed source, and FY11 budget documents say it aims "to improve accountability, transparency and effectiveness" among the agency's cleanup programs. It involves a multi-year effort "to explore better uses of assessment and cleanup authorities to address a greater number of sites, accelerate cleanups, and put those sites back into productive use while protecting human health and the environment," according to EPA's justification to Congress for its proposed budget.