Congress acting on hazardous waste bills

Abstract

For the past several weeks Congress has been scurrying to meet its May 15 budget deadline, extended this year to noon Saturday, May 16, for reporting fiscal 1981 authorization bills. But it also found time for a number of bills dealing with hazardous wastes, both nuclear and chemical. For example, the Senate subcommittees on Environmental Pollution and Resource Protection broke a week-long deadlock late last month and approved for full committee action a bill, S. 1480, creating an $800 million superfund to pay for cleanup of hazardous chemical spills and hazardous waste dump sites. The bill provides for federal cleanup of releases from hazardous waste dump sites; sudden, episodic releases of chemicals into the environment, as from a truck or rail accident; and of any release that causes an imminent hazard to public health. The fund would be financed by fees in the amount of $700 million on petrochemical feedstocks, crude oil, and inorganic chemicals. ...