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 a site's intended reuse and greater use of voluntary cleanup tools such as prospective purchaser agreements, covenants not to sue and environmental insurance. Riddell said IDA's East Chicago, Indiana, project illustrated that a coordinated public-private approach can finish operable-unit soil remediation faster than the default Superfund trajectory.

Jay Alfredo Gomez, director of GAO's Natural Resources and Environment team, summarized GAO findings that Superfund appropriations have generally declined since 1999, and that staffing and funding trends have affected cleanup pace. Gomez told senators that appropriations fell from roughly $2.6 billion in 1999 to about $537 million in FY2024, and that supplemental funds and newly reinstated taxes (from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act) have added recent resources but regional staffing declines have continued to complicate work.

Committee members pressed witnesses for concrete reforms. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (ranking member) emphasized that speed must not sacrifice scientific rigor: "Speed must not come at the cost of efficacy. Scientists, engineers, and project managers ensure that cleanups are done right." Several senators pressed witnesses to identify a small number of actionable changes that would yield faster results; Fox and Riddell repeatedly pointed to shortening administrative review steps, wider use of mixed-funding settlements and orphan-share compromises, and more aggressive use of oversight tools that would let remedies proceed while liability is sorted separately.

On site complexity and climate risk, Gomez noted GAO analysis showing many NPL sites are in areas prone to flooding, storm surge or wildfire and said remedies should account for those risks in five-year reviews. "There are many sites across the country that are located in places where these things are happening," Gomez said, referencing EPA's need to ensure remedies remain protective as climate impacts change exposure pathways.

Multiple senators framed the harms in local terms: Senator Merkley cited the Portland Harbor/Willamette River site to describe decades-long planning with little on-the-ground cleanup and urged EPA to use authorities that allow cleanup work to proceed while allocation of costs among potentially responsible parties continues. Senator Husted (Ohio) asked witnesses for ideas to move several long-pending Ohio sites off the list; witnesses recommended fresh regional audits, targeted staffing, and use of state-led voluntary programs where appropriate.

Areas of consensus and disagreement: Committee members and witnesses broadly agreed that (1) some procedural elements of remedy selection can be streamlined; (2) declining regional staff and long review timelines cause delays; and (3) existing statutory authorities'including mixed-funding settlements, orphan-share compromises, and reimbursable oversight-cost limits'are underused and could be applied more to incentivize private actors to perform remediation quickly. They diverged on whether the central obstacle is statutory text, EPA implementation policy (for example, the National Contingency Plan), or insufficient staffing; several witnesses said implementation and process are the main bottlenecks, not the underlying law.

Votes at a glance: before the hearing the committee held roll-call votes and the clerk reported each nominee as favorably reported by the committee. The transcript records the nominees and that each was "favorably reported," but does not provide a complete, unambiguous numerical tally in the public verbatim record.

- Sean Donahue, Presidential Nomination 25-11, to be Assistant Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency ' Outcome: favorably reported by committee (roll-call taken; numerical tally not specified in transcript).

- Jessica Kramer, Presidential Nomination 25-28, to be Assistant Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency ' Outcome: favorably reported by committee (roll-call taken; numerical tally not specified in transcript).

- Brian Nesbick, Presidential Nomination 25-35, to be Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ' Outcome: favorably reported by committee (roll-call taken; numerical tally not specified in transcript).

What witnesses recommended (selected): require agency review timeframes for EPA responses to private-party submissions; expand use of Section 120 mixed-funding arrangements and orphan-share compromises; limit or better define EPA's reimbursable "oversight costs" charged to private parties; empower state-led cleanups and provide clearer EPA comfort/assurance letters and lien waivers when appropriate; and expand R&D and climate resilience planning for remedies.

What happens next: Committee members said they will follow up with questions for the record and consider legislative or oversight steps to adopt or incentivize some of the reforms discussed. Several senators emphasized bipartisan interest in accelerating cleanups while preserving scientific and public-health safeguards.

Ending note: The hearing underscored persistent tensions inherent in Superfund: the technical complexity of some contaminated sites, legal and transactional incentives that can delay work, and the practical limits of regional capacity. Witnesses and senators repeatedly returned to the same practical aim: finish protective cleanups sooner so communities living near contaminated sites can recover health and economic opportunity.