The 1980 Superfund Act was established to clean up heavily polluted areas contaminated by the toxic waste of bankrupt companies. At least 50 million Americans currently live within 3 miles of a Superfund site. There are about 40,000 Superfund cleanup sites across the country - the vast majority of which require relatively short-term fixes. About 10% of these Superfund sites are “orphaned” - sites where no responsible party is present or able to pay for cleanup. New Jersey, with 114 sites, followed by California and Pennsylvania have the most hazardous waste sites. As of 2019, there has been 452 contaminated sites remediated and removed from the cleanup list. The National Priorities List is a list of 1,334 hazardous waste sites requiring significant and long-term cleanup efforts that will be financed by the federal Superfund program.

The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act commits $21 billion t environmental remediation, including cleaning up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaiming abandoned mine land, and capping orphaned oil and gas wells. However, this amount is insufficient for addressing all our Superfund sites.

Pending Legislation: H.R.1444 - Preparing Superfund for Climate Change Act of 2023
Sponsor: Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (MO)
Status: House Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials (Energy and Commerce)
Chair: Rep. Bill Johnson (OH)