by Wayne T. Brough

About the author: Wayne T. Brough is chief economist at Citizens for a Sound Economy, an organization working for less government and lower taxes.

When [former] President Bill Clinton was first elected, both the new administration and Congress were calling for significant reforms of Superfund, a program created to clean up the nation’s toxic waste dumps. “[W]e all know it doesn’t work—the Superfund has been a disaster,” noted President Clinton. Three Congresses later, however, Superfund remains virtually untouched by reform, despite broad consensus that the program is broken and ill-suited for accomplishing its original mission.

At the most fundamental level, Superfund is a flawed program built from a premise that guarantees its failure. Although created with the best of intentions— to identify and clean...