The Superfund program for cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites was created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERCLA (P.L. 96-510, as amended). This report discusses recent development and background issues, superfund issues, revenue issues, comprehensive reauthorization, and legislation regarding superfund program.
The Superfund program for cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites was created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERCLA (P.L. 96-510, as amended). This report discusses recent development and background issues, superfund issues, revenue issues, comprehensive reauthorization, and legislation regarding superfund program.
The Superfund program for cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites was created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERCLA (P.L. 96-510, as amended). This report discusses recent development and background issues, superfund issues, revenue issues, comprehensive reauthorization, and legislation regarding superfund program.
The Superfund program for cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites was created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERCLA (P.L. 96-510, as amended). This report discusses recent development and background issues, superfund issues, revenue issues, comprehensive reauthorization, and legislation regarding superfund program.
The Superfund program for cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites was created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERCLA (P.L. 96-510, as amended). This report discusses recent development and background issues, superfund issues, revenue issues, comprehensive reauthorization, and legislation regarding superfund program.
The Superfund program for cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites was created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERCLA (P.L. 96-510, as amended). This report discusses recent development and background issues, superfund issues, revenue issues, comprehensive reauthorization, and legislation regarding superfund program.
The Superfund program for cleaning up the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites was created by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERCLA (P.L. 96-510, as amended). This report discusses recent development and background issues, superfund issues, revenue issues, comprehensive reauthorization, and legislation regarding superfund program.
The Brownfields Act authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to award grants for the assessment and cleanup of sites that pose a less serious threat to human health and the environment than sites addressed by the Superfund program. The authorization expired on September 30, 2006. In the 109th Congress, a reauthorization bill, H.B. 5810, was reported from the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on July 28, 2006, but went no further. This report contains information on the EPA's involvement in the program, EPA appropriations, Housing and Urban Development's involvement in the program and appropriations, other federal Brownfield programs, and Congressional actions of the 109th and 110th Congresses as related to the programs.
This report provides background on the issue(including state voluntary cleanup programs), surveys the Environmental Protection Agency's current program, and reviews congressional action, including a description of the new law.
The Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative is a pilot project to return idle or underused industrial and commercial facilities back to productive use, in situations where redevelopment is complicated by potential environmental contamination. The program is flexible, allowing cities to use a variety of approaches in utilizing grants of up to $200,000 to develop abandoned and underused sites, neighborhoods, and small regional areas. States and Indian tribes are eligible as well as local governments.
This report discusses the brownfields tax incentive, which expires on December 31, 2007. Enacted in 1997, the provision allowed a taxpayer to fully deduct the costs of environmental cleanup in the year the costs were incurred, rather than spreading the costs over a period of years.
The brownfields tax incentive expired on December 31, 2005. Enacted in 1997, the provision allowed a taxpayer to fully deduct the costs of environmental cleanup in the year the costs were incurred, rather than spreading the costs over a period of years. The provision was adopted to stimulate the cleanup and developers of less seriously contaminated sites by providing a benefit to taxpaying developers of brownfield properties. This report contains information on the background of brownfields, survey findings from brownfield tax incentive applications, and related figures.
The Superfund reauthorization bill, H.R. 1300, was ordered reported by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on August 5, 1999, and now goes to the Commerce Committee, which shares jurisdiction. Title I authorizes programs to assess and clean up brownfields, provides funding for state voluntary cleanup programs, and prohibits federal enforcement at sites cleaned up under state law. Community participation in decision-making is promoted by Title II, and the duties of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry are re-focused.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently engaged in a series of regulatory actions to address the transport of ozone pollution in the eastern United States. This report reviews this situation with respect to an EPA-proposed Ozone Transport Rule and other activities.
This report presents an analysis of the potential impacts of the Kyoto Protocol on U.S. energy demand. The analysis focuses on 27 common end-uses — light duty vehicles, residential space heating, industrial direct process heat, etc. — that describe the way energy is used in the United States
This report identifies the potential environmental, health, and safety opportunities and challenges of nanotechnology; explains the importance of addressing nanotechnology environmental, health, and safety (EHS) concerns; identifies and discusses nanotechnology EHS issues; and summarizes options for Congressional action, including the nanotechnology EHS-related provisions of selected legislation. The report also includes two appendices.
This report identifies the potential environmental, health, and safety opportunities and challenges of nanotechnology; explains the importance of addressing nanotechnology EHS concerns; identifies and discusses nanotechnology EHS issues; and summarizes options for Congressional action, including the nanotechnology EHS-related provisions of selected legislation. The report also includes two appendices.
This report: identifies the potential environmental, health, and safety opportunities and challenges of nanotechnology; explains the importance of addressing nanotechnology EHS concerns; identifies and discusses nanotechnology EHS issues; and summarizes options for Congressional action, including the nanotechnology EHS-related provisions of selected legislation.
This report briefly describes two issues associated with EPA implementation of risk management planning requirements in the Clean Air Act Section 112(r): whether dealers and distributors of propane and other flammable fuels should be covered by the law, and whether electronic access to off-site consequence analyses (OCA), and especially worst-case analyses, should be restricted to avoid misuse by terrorists or criminals. These issues are addressed by S. 880, as reported, and H.R. 1301 in the 106th Congress. The statutory requrrements and EPA implementation to date also are described. Covered facilities must submit risk management plans by June 21, 1999. This product will be updated when events warrant. For information on the status of legislation, see CRS Issue Brief lB10004, Clean Air Act Issues in the 106th Congress.
This report highlights the reasons why chemical plants are susceptible to security breaches due to the ineffectiveness of proposed congressional mandates.
This report briefly describes selected associations that have demonstrated strong and continuous interest in environmental protection policies of the United States. It provides background information on some of the active participants in national policy discussions. The set of organizations abstracted for this report is not comprehensive; many groups necessarily have been omitted, often because they failed to respond to our request for information. An attempt was made to balance divergent political opinions and to include groups with different perspectives. All associations included in the report have nationwide membership, maintain an office in the vicinity of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, and actively seek to influence national (as opposed to international or regional) environmental policies. The financial information provided varies depending on what was available to CRS.
More than 20 years of Federal pollution control programs notwithstanding, growing perception that minority and low-income communities remain at disproportionately high risk of exposure to toxic pollutants is focusing attention on "environmental equity" issues. Federal legislation has been introduced to ensure equal protection of environmental quality and public health. Equity legislation is opposed by people who are skeptical of its long-term prospects and believe that there is insufficient evidence of discrimination and that some inequities are inevitable in a free-market economy. Both sides agree there is a need to collect and analyze data on public health and exposure to environmental hazards and to compare health risks among racial and socio-economic groups.
This report describes and analyzes key issues and legislative options related to risk analysis and risk management at EPA and considers the potential impact of proposed legislative approaches on EPA's rule-making process and final regulations. The report describes the history of EPA's use of risk analysis and then summarizes and analyzes issues and legislative proposals for increasing such use. Legislative activities in the 105th Congress are described. A list of selected references and an appendix where key terms are defined conclude the report.
Between 1993 and 1998 Congress considered many proposals that aimed to increase or improve the use of risk analysis by federal agencies, especially in developing environmental rules. This report describes differences and similarities among selected provisions of key proposals: Senate-passed Johnston amendments to S. 171 and S. 2019 in the 103rd Congress; S. 343, as reported by the Committee on the Judiciary, in the 104th Congress; House-passed H.R. 9 in the 104th Congress; S. 981, as reported by the Committee on Governmental Affairs, in the 105th Congress, and S. 1728, as introduced, in the 105th Congress.
The focus of this report is on proposed amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). This report does not constitute a legal analysis of the bills or of existing law. Instead, it begins by describing the three international agreements and relevant provisions of TSCA. The report then summarizes selected provisions of H.R. 4591 and H.R. 4800, as introduced, and compares them in a brief narrative and more detailed table.
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are chemicals that do not break down easily in the environment, tend to accumulate as they move up the food chain, and may be harmful to people and wildlife. Between 1998 and 2001, the United States signed tow international treaties and one executive agreement to reduce the production and use of POPs and to regulate the trade and disposal of them. This report discusses these treaties in detail, as well as their ratification process and U.S. statutes that are inconsistent with these treaties.
Concerns about the national economy, environment, public health, and the quality of EPA's regulatory process have led Congress to consider proposals to require EPA analyses of risks, costs, and benefits of proposed regulations. Proponents of analysis want the results used to design more efficient regulations and to prioritize environmental problems for Federal attention. Risk analysis summarizes available scientific information about hazardous activities, chemicals, or technologies and the effects they may have on exposed animals or people under various conditions, for example, with or without regulation. Risk and economic analyses can be qualitative or, if information is sufficient, quantitative, but economists can only quantify economic benefits of enviromental regulations if scientists can quantitatively estimate risks to health and the environment.
This report includes information regarding the role of risk analysis and risk management in environmental protection. Views on potential uses of risk analysis, the information value of risk analysis, and legislature activity are among topics discussed in this report.
The recent change in the leadership in the Senate affects the prospects in the 107th Congress for comprehensive legislation that would mandate increased use of risk analysis by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Although the key Senate proposal for such risk legislation in the 106th Congress had bipartisan sponsorship, it was opposed by many Democrats, including party leadership. No comprehensive risk legislation has been proposed in the 107th Congress, although "unbiased" risk analysis would be required by H.R. 324, a bill to amend the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (i.e., Superfund).
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