The original Superfund law was adopted in 1980, as a means to address serious hazardous waste from major toxic polluters, like factories and oil companies, in an effort to force those polluters to contribute to the cleanup effort so the burden would not fall on taxpayers.
As of November 2002, 22 years after the law's enactment, 846 sites (56 percent) placed on the Superfund's National Priorities List had been removed to the Construction Completed List. The Superfund liability system has serious flaws. Levels of cleanup under the law are inconsistent from one site to another. Cleanup costs and risk levels are very high because of a liability scheme generally considered unfair and conducive to excessive litigation. The average cost of cleanup is about $30 million per site.
The law has been especially burdensome on small businesses and other minor parties who get caught unfairly in the liability net. The authority to collect the taxes that support the trust fund ended in 1995, and has not since been reauthorized.
Read ABC's legislative position on Superfund/Brownfields