Washington, D.C. ---U.S. Senators Jon S. Corzine (D-NJ), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) today expressed outrage regarding recent statements by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Assistant Administrator Thomas Dunne suggesting radical changes to the Superfund program to ease pressure on the Superfund's tightening budget and to lower expectations in affected communities.

The three New Jersey lawmakers sent a letter to President Bush today saying Dunne's statements at a Virginia seminar earlier this month show how difficult it is for EPA to clean up Superfund sites without the financial resources once available through the Superfund Trust Fund. Corzine, Lautenberg and Pallone voiced particular concern regarding Dunne's statement that new Superfund sites should not be added to the National Priorities List, the list of all Superfund designated sites, until the sites now on the list have been completely cleaned up.

"We cannot pretend that the current National Priorities List is comprehensive, and to tell New Jersey communities with highly contaminated sites that they will not get Superfund consideration until some unknown future date is to abandon the promise Congress made in 1980 with the passage of CERCLA [the Superfund law]," the lawmakers wrote.

The lawmakers also cited a recent EPA report that found groundwater contamination is not under control at 23 Superfund sites across New Jersey, and an additional 20 sites where data is insufficient to determine whether groundwater migration is under control.

"Now is not the time to slow down Superfund cleanup efforts," the lawmakers wrote. "These could be potentially serious public health threats to our constituents, and greater funding is needed to remove the contamination and ensure the safety of drinking water supplies."

"The Bush administration wants to continue to down play the huge problems Superfund faces without any money in the Trust Fund," Pallone said. "EPA simply cannot do the work expected of it without these crucial funds, and rather than try to change the program, the administration should reinstate the Superfund tax."

In their letter, Corzine, Lautenberg and Pallone called on President Bush to reinstate the Superfund Trust tax, which required chemical corporations to pay a tax used by the federal government to clean up sites where either a responsible polluter could not be determined or had gone bankrupt. The tax was allowed to expire in 1995 when a Republican controlled Congress refused to extend it. Pallone authored legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives that would reinstate the tax. Corzine and Lautenberg are cosponsors of a similar measure in the Senate.