Congress initially authorized Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) legislation in 1980 to clean up abandoned dump sites in the United States that contained hazardous waste. The activities mandated under CERCLA were to be administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The program was reauthorized in 1986 by the Superfund Amendment and Reauthorization Act (SARA) and more commonly referred to as simply the Superfund. Several provisions of CERCLA were changed or clarified.

Superfund sites identified in the original legislation were virtually ignored during the early 1980s. Several key EPA officials resigned after they were charged with mismanaging the monies allocated by the original legislation. The EPA attempted to speed cleanup of contaminated sites, but progress was still too slow for critics, some members of Congress and many individual citizens. When the program expired in September 1985, the cleanup activities at more...