Superfund program
Noun: A specific, long-term environmental initiative of the United States federal government. Its primary purpose is to identify, evaluate, and remediate the nation's most hazardous uncontrolled or abandoned locations contaminated with toxic substances. The program is managed and enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The term is used as a proper noun to refer to this specific government program. It often appears in discussions about environmental policy, hazardous waste cleanup, government funding, and legal liability. * The Superfund program prioritizes sites that pose the greatest risk to human health and the environment. * Funding for the Superfund program comes from taxes on the chemical and petroleum industries, as well as from federal appropriations. * Critics argue that the Superfund program has been slow to complete cleanups at many designated sites.
- The term can be used metonymically to refer to the system of laws, regulations, and liabilities (formally known as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act - CERCLA) that enable the cleanup program.
- The company faced significant financial liability under the Superfund program for its role in the contamination.
- It can be used in a critical context to discuss the program's administration or effectiveness.
- The investigation focused on allegations of mismanagement within the Superfund program.
- Superfund (noun): A common shortened form of "Superfund program," also used to refer to the trust fund that finances the cleanups.
- Superfund site (noun): A specific location officially listed on the EPA's National Priorities List (NPL) for cleanup under this program.
- CERCLA (noun): The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, the law that created the Superfund program.
- Hazardous waste cleanup program (general descriptive term)
- CERCLA program (formal, legal term)
- To be placed on the Superfund list: To be designated as a priority site for cleanup.
- The old factory was placed on the Superfund list after the soil tests.
- Superfund liability: The legal and financial responsibility assigned to parties deemed responsible for the contamination at a site.
- The court determined the parent company retained Superfund liability for its subsidiary's actions.
- the federal government's program to locate and investigate and clean up the worst uncontrolled and abandoned toxic waste sites nationwide; administered by the Environmental Protection Agency
- some have intimated that the Superfund's money may have turned into a political slush fund