House subcommittee begins CERCLA hearing

The House Environment and the Economy Subcommittee began a two-day hearing last week on the federal facility cleanups required by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).

Members of the committee questioned representatives of the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Federal agencies are required by CERCLA to manage hazardous waste contamination at their facilities. The hearing’s first day covered transparency in the process of evaluating and cleaning up these facilities, as well as how efficiently those cleanups are managed.

U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH), who is a member of the committee, took advantage of the hearing to give an example of the law falling short in his home state, where the clean up of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant site has been pushed back 30 years.

“I’m shocked that the Department of Energy has now extended the deadline, the timeline for completing that cleanup approximately another 30 years and it makes absolutely no sense to me,” Johnson said. “…It’s very unfortunate that for the third year in a row jobs are at risk because the administration has failed to request adequate funding to complete this work.”

The hearing will continue this week.