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Finance committee backs raising hazardous-waste cleanup fund cap, DEQ urges inflation tie
Summary
Lawmakers voted to report HB417 favorable after Department of Environmental Quality officials said the hazardous-waste cleanup fund cap — unchanged since the 1990s — needs to grow from $7 million to $8 million and be tied to CPI to meet rising cleanup and Superfund match costs.
Representative Zorane (S13) presented HB417, which would raise the hazardous‑waste site cleanup fund cap from $7,000,000 to $8,000,000 and tie the cap to the consumer price index to account for inflation. He said the money comes from DEQ fines and fees, not the state general fund.
Gary Fulton, remediation‑division administrator with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (S15), told the committee the fund pays for state cleanup work on sites where responsible parties lack resources. He said the requested increase reflects persistent use of the cap and rising costs.
Keith Warren, senior environmental scientist (S16), explained that the fund is used, in some cases, to provide the state's 10 percent match for EPA Superfund projects. "Under the Resource Conservation Recovery Act, the hazardous waste generators and facilities that fall under that regulation are required now to produce what's called financial assurance," Warren said, explaining that new requirements will help future sites but do not address the existing backlog. He offered a specific example: a Jennings site where pre‑COVID cleanup costs were about $9 million and are now expected to be roughly $12 million, pushing the state's match from approximately $900,000 to $1.2 million.
Committee members pressed DEQ on the source of the $8 million figure and the fund’s burn rate; DEQ staff said the cap increase was set to respond to inflation and that the fund’s ceiling had not been raised since the 1990s. DEQ staff said they generally expend the $6 million cap nearly every year and that excess rolls into an ETF fund for agency operations.
The committee moved HB417 favorable. Members and DEQ staff indicated the legislation is intended to give DEQ more flexibility to respond to costly cleanups and to preserve the state's ability to meet federal match requirements.
Next steps: HB417 was reported favorable and will proceed to the next legislative stage; DEQ offered to provide follow-up data on historical burn rates and specific site costs.
