Trump Regime’s Controversial Superfund Administrator Nominee
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
The federal superfund program was established in 1980 by the Carter administration.
It’s responsible for cleaning up hazardous waste sites, caused by corporate polluters and natural disasters - its aim to protect public health and the environment.
Initially funded by taxing chemical and hydrocarbon polluters, taxpayers were largely left to foot the bill after the mid-1990s under the Clinton co-presidency.
From 2000 to 2013, the number of federal Superfund sites dropped from 80 to 13, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Post-9/11, the so-called National Priorities List increasingly got short shrift, notably by Trump’s EPA - run by polluters for polluters, public health and ecosanity be damned.
Last March, the Trump regime nominated former Dow Chemical (now DowDupont) lawyer Peter Wright to serve as EPA assistant administrator for Land and Emergency Management.
The nomination was the latest example of choosing corporate lawyers, lobbyists, and others representing monied interests at the expense of popular ones.
Since the 1990s, Wright represented corporate polluters like Dow, Monsanto and others, his nomination to oversee federal cleanup of chemical, oil, and other hazardous waste site yet to be congressionally approved.
DowDupont is responsible for scores of Superfund hazardous waste sites and hundreds of others needing remediation.
Monsanto polluted the nation with a 100 or more Superfund sites, along with hazardous to health GMO proliferation in America and numerous other countries.
Wright’s nomination raised obvious red flags, chosen to delay or avoid corporate responsibility for cleaning up toxic waste sites they created.
He recused himself from cleanups relating to Dow, his former employer. He once called himself “the company’s dioxin lawyer.”
It’s one of the most deadly known substances, a potent carcinogenic human immune system suppressant. Minute amounts can cause serious health problems and death, including cancer, numerous other diseases, congenital disorders and birth defects.
Dow got the Bush/Cheney regime to fire former EPA regional administrator Mary Gade for wanting the company held accountable for stonewalling efforts to clean up contaminated waterways it created.
Other corporate polluters are just as irresponsible, wanting public tax dollars used for remediation activities, not their own.
Washington is no friend of the earth under Republicans or undemocratic Dems - supporting corporate interests over ecosanity, public health and welfare.
With dirty energy advisors in charge of his environmental agenda, the Trump regime is more beholden to corporate polluters than his predecessors.
He’s hostile to clean air, clean water, public health, and efforts to hold corporate polluters responsible for cleaning up hazardous waste they created.
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