John Shanahan

Superfund was originally conceived of as a temporary program to clean up a few hazardous waste sites across the United States. Instead, argues John Shanahan in the following viewpoint, Superfund has become an ever-expanding permanent federal program that wastes billions of dollars in an impossible attempt to return contaminated sites that pose little danger to people to a pristine condition. Shanahan contends that, since contaminated sites are a local, and not a national, problem, the Superfund program should be reformed to give the states the authority to clean up the hazardous waste sites. Shanahan is a policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy organization in Washington, D.C.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. What are the four fundamental flaws of the Superfund program, in Shanahan’s opinion?
2. According to...