Word: toxicants
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
UNDER the mismanagement of Reagan-appointed administrator Anne Gorsuch Burford, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has suffered its worst year ever. Charged by environmentalist critics with moving slowly in toxic-waste cleanup efforts, the Agency is currently under investigation by the Justice Department and a half-dozen congressional subcommittees seeking answers to allegations of mismanagement of the $1.6 billion Superfund and of the use of cleanup decisions for political leverage. Each day the list of charges grows longer, highlighting the agency's failure to meet its responsibilities, and raising serious questions about Burford's understanding of her job description...
...Hill was thick with shadowy suspicions, cover-up charges and three-ring theatrics last week. There was little new, substantive information to feed the six, count 'em six, congressional committees investigating allegations that the Environmental Protection Agency had made "sweetheart" deals with polluting companies and delayed cleanups of toxic-waste dumps for political reasons. But there was enough sound and fury to prove that the affair Capitol wags have dubbed Waste Watergate (Wastegate, for short) was, as one worried presidential aide put it, "out of control...
...White House, which had reacted slowly at first, moved to stanch the political damage. With EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch facing a contempt-of-Congress citation, the Administration acquiesced to a plan to give a subcommittee of the House Public Works Committee full access to toxic-waste-enforcement files that Gorsuch had refused to yield. The subcommittee agreed to follow certain safeguards when reviewing the documents so that sensitive material will not leak out. The White House had claimed that the documents subpoenaed by Congress were protected by Executive privilege, but was prodded into a "compromise" by mounting public pressure...
...center of the congressional investigations is the $1.6 billion Superfund program, created by Congress three years ago to clean up the nation's most dangerous toxic-waste dumps. On Friday, House leaders were given a new EPA audit showing that the agency cannot account for $53.6 million, almost one-third of the 1982 appropriation for the Superfund. "At best, EPA officials have been sloppy and incompetent," said Democratic Representative James Scheuer...
...openly with Robert Perry, EPA's general counsel. Their first big clash came last spring, when Perry urged her to avoid a conflict of interest in the case of the Stringfellow Acid Pits dump near Riverside, Calif., a high-priority EPA target site where 32 million gal. of toxic wastes had been dumped during 17 years. Before joining EPA, Lavelle had worked for the California chemical company Aerojet-General Corp., where she developed a public relations campaign to counter pollution charges against the company. It was a job that kept her busy. In 1979 California accused the company...