House Passes $10-Billion, 5-Year Superfund Renewal

The House overwhelmingly approved a five-year, $10-billion renewal of the Superfund Tuesday after substantially raising taxes on chemical and oil companies to pay for the toxic-dump cleanup program.

By a 391-33 vote, the House called for a program more than six times the size of Superfund in its first five years and established new schedules and standards to increase the pace and improve the quality of cleanups. Environmentalists called the bill a “major victory in the war against hazardous waste.”

But, for the chemical and petroleum industries, the House action was a major and bitter defeat. By a slim 220-206 margin, congressmen abandoned proposals to pay for Superfund with a new, broad-based tax on manufactured goods and decided instead to more than double the levies paid by petroleum and chemical companies.

The vote followed an intense lobbying campaign--marked by a full-page newspaper advertisement in the Washington Post Tuesday--to persuade Congress to share the burden of cleanup through an excise tax on all manufactured goods.

The House approved the increase in industry taxes after proponents cited examples of congressmen who lost elections after supporting a so-called “value-added” tax, which would raise the price of consumer goods. They predicted that such a tax, once approved, would inevitably be raised to pay for other programs.

Supporters of the new tax had argued that it would be unfair to make only two industries pay for the bulk of the program while several thousand other businesses that dump deadly wastes would pay virtually nothing. Although the chemical, petroleum and metal industries generate 93% of the toxic wastes in the country, they treat much of it to remove the poisons before dumping.

In a prepared statement read immediately after the House action, the American Petroleum Institute declared itself “appalled” by the vote.

“It places a staggering 90% responsibility for the total cost of the cleanup program on the chemical and petroleum industries, which contribute less than 22% of the deposited waste,” said R. G. Ensz, a spokesman for the group. “This decision is out of touch with the realities of the waste cleanup situation in the United States today.”

Senate Plan

The Senate already has passed a Superfund bill that would expand the program to $7.5 billion over five years, and pay for it largely with an excise tax on manufactured goods. President Reagan’s advisers have urged him to veto any bill with such a tax. Differences between the House and Senate bills will be ironed out next year by a conference committee representing both houses.

Despite the narrow House vote to approve the heavy taxes on the chemical and oil industries, Rep. Thomas J. Downey (D-N.Y.), one of the provision’s co-authors, insisted that the House would not compromise to allow any broad-based tax in the Superfund law. “This is not a negotiable item as far as we’re concerned,” he said.

Congressmen who, like Downey, voted for the tough taxes on the chemical and oil industries received substantially less in campaign contributions during the two years before their 1984 election victories than those who opposed the tax.

Campaign Contributions

Congressmen who opposed the taxes received an average contribution of $13,900, according to an analysis by Edward Roeder, editor of the Washington-based Sunshine News Services. Those who voted for the taxes received $7,231--barely half as much.

Downey said he believes most of those who opposed the taxes passed by the House were reflecting large petroleum and chemical constituencies in their districts. “The chemical and the oil industries are enormously powerful lobbies to do battle with,” Downey said.

By a single vote, the House retained a controversial Superfund provision approved last week requiring chemical companies to disclose emissions of substances that cause or are suspected of causing cancer, birth defects or any chronic health problem.

Asked for Reconsideration

The provision had been narrowly approved shortly before midnight Thursday after many members had gone home. Opponents asked for a reconsideration, arguing that it would hurt small businesses and overwhelm local government agencies with paper work.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee M. Thomas had written congressmen to say that he was “extremely concerned” by the initial vote. He warned that it would require millions of facilities across the country, including gasoline stations and possibly even beauty parlors, to file reports on thousands of potentially dangerous substances.

The House bill would permit citizens to sue polluters to force cleanups and require the EPA to begin cleaning up at least 600 dump sites over the next five years. A 0.2-cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline, diesel fuel and other motor fuels would be levied to pay for cleanup of leaking underground storage tanks.

During its first five years, Superfund spent $1.6 billion and cleaned up six dumps, one of which was later found to be leaking poisonous chemicals and must be cleaned up again. The Reagan Administration had asked for a $5.3-billion renewal and opposed mandatory cleanup timetables.