White House Makes Heroic Effort To Get Superfund Renewed This Year

Abstract

After months of near silence, the Clinton Administration is making a last-ditch effort to keep the Superfund reauthorization process alive. Last week, the White House convened chief executive officers from key companies and from community and environmental groups having major stakes in Superfund reform to get their support for a new Administration package to revamp Superfund. At press time, the Administration had achieved the consensus it wanted -- one that would allow Congress to use the package as a vehicle for legislative markup. The purpose of the meeting was to ensure that all the invited CEOs were willing to actively support this package as a legislative vehicle for Superfund reform this year. The Administration wanted the CEOs to acknowledge that although there is some room to move around the edges, there is very little room to move very far in any one direction through the legislative process.'' In short, the White House is asking the CEOs not only for their support for the package but also for their pledge to discourage major amendments to it as it moved through Congressional and conference committees.