Book contents
- Responsive States
- Responsive States
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Federalism and Policy Feedback
- 2 The Surprising Persistence of Unemployment Insurance
- 3 The Brief Life of the Sheppard–Towner Act
- 4 The Remarkable Expansion of Medicaid
- 5 The Rise and Demise of General Revenue Sharing
- 6 How Superfund Sowed the Seeds of Its Own Instability
- 7 No Child Left Behind and the Politics of State Resistance
- 8 Policy Design, Polarization, and the Affordable Care Act
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - How Superfund Sowed the Seeds of Its Own Instability
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 September 2019
- Responsive States
- Responsive States
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Federalism and Policy Feedback
- 2 The Surprising Persistence of Unemployment Insurance
- 3 The Brief Life of the Sheppard–Towner Act
- 4 The Remarkable Expansion of Medicaid
- 5 The Rise and Demise of General Revenue Sharing
- 6 How Superfund Sowed the Seeds of Its Own Instability
- 7 No Child Left Behind and the Politics of State Resistance
- 8 Policy Design, Polarization, and the Affordable Care Act
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Signed into law during a lame-duck session of the 96th Congress, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) established a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries that was dedicated to a trust fund for cleaning up abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. Known colloquially as Superfund, CERCLA received strong bipartisan support in the Senate and in the House, partly due to a series of high-profile incidents at places like Love Canal in New York and Valley of the Drums in Kentucky. Since its adoption in 1980, however, Superfund has been the subject of considerable controversy, so much so that its dedicated taxes have lapsed twice and its operations came to a “virtual standstill for more than a year” (Patashnik 2000, 162). In addition to being politically unstable, Superfund has been characterized as ineffective, with one observer describing it as “notorious for fostering too much litigation and too little actual cleanup” (Babich 1995, 1520).
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- Information
- Responsive StatesFederalism and American Public Policy, pp. 132 - 161Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019