Author: United States Government Accountability Office

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2017-10-05

Total Pages: 28

ISBN-13: 9781977959140

The federal government owns over 700 million acres of land. Some of this land-which is primarily managed by USDA, Interior, DOD, and DOE-is contaminated with hazardous waste from prior uses, such as landfills and mining. To respond to problems caused by improper disposal of hazardous substances in the past, in 1980, Congress passed CERCLA, also known as Superfund. Among other things, CERCLA requires owners and operators of hazardous waste sites to notify the federal EPA-which manages the Superfund program-of the existence of their facilities, as well as known, suspected, or likely releases of hazardous substances. This testimony focuses on (1) numbers of contaminated and potentially contaminated federal sites for four departments; (2) spending and estimates of future costs for cleanup at these federal sites; and (3) EPA's role in maintaining the list of contaminated and potentially contaminated federal sites and ensuring that preliminary assessments of such sites are complete. This testimony is based on prior GAO reports issued from March 2009 through March 2015.