Senate EPW hearing spotlights slow Superfund cleanups; committee presses EPA, offers fixes

Senator Shelley Moore Capito, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, opened a hearing Tuesday on the pace and management of the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program, saying the program must "refocus the agency's work on the core environmental missions to deliver the cleanups and environmental solutions that most benefit the environment and America's health and welfare."

The hearing, which followed committee roll-call votes to report three presidential nominations favorably, brought lawyers, private developers and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to testify about long timelines, rising costs and practical steps to speed cleanups of heavily contaminated sites.

Why it matters: Superfund sites are often in or near communities that suffer ongoing exposure risks and lost redevelopment opportunities while cleanups remain incomplete. Committee members and witnesses tied delays to a combination of complex sites (especially sediment and mining sites), reduced regional staffing, and a procedural approach they said colors outcomes and increases costs rather than accelerating remediation.

Witnesses and committee members described the problem in direct terms. Robert Fox, senior partner at Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox, said the program has "strayed from meeting [its] goals" of prompt voluntary cleanup and ensuring polluters pay, and urged EPA to adopt mandatory agency review timelines and greater use of statutory tools that already exist to speed work. "EPA should adopt the policy to do the same," Fox said, describing state programs that use required review times to clear backlogs.

Steven Riddell, president of Industrial Development Advantage (IDA), described private-sector practices that can compress timelines, including early alignment of remediation plans with…