Petition Drive Planned to Expand Superfund
WASHINGTON — Launching a nationwide petition drive shortly before the Senate confirmed Lee M. Thomas as the Environmental Protection Agency’s new administrator, an anti-pollution coalition urged Congress to vastly increase the EPA’s spending authority to clean up hazardous waste dumps.
The National Campaign Against Toxic Hazards, a coalition of environmental, labor and religious groups, hopes to gather 1 million or more signatures to support its call for the EPA to spend $13.5 billion on dump cleanups over five years.
The EPA’s Superfund now has authority to spend $1.6 billion on toxic cleanups in that time.
The group’s signature drive was announced just before the confirmation of Thomas, a career government manager who directed the Superfund before becoming acting agency head last month when William D. Ruckelshaus left. The Senate action occurred Thursday.
The chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Robert T. Stafford (R-Vt.), said Thomas’ appointment has “brought us one step closer toward restoring the nation’s confidence†in EPA.
He was referring to the stormy tenures of Anne McGill Burford as EPA administrator and Rita M. Lavelle as head of the Superfund.
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