Our friends at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) have just published their "Environmental Briefing Book 1999."  It's chock full of information on a wide range of environmental issues impacting business, entrepreneurs and the economy.

One troublesome issue is the federal government's failed Superfund program, which was set up in 1980 to cleanup hazardous waste sites.  CEI reports: "To date, American taxpayers, consumers, and corporations have spent over $20 billion on Superfund, yet there is little to show for it.  As of January 1998, the program had only cleaned 504 of the 1,243 hazardous waste sites in the program.  Due to Superfund's hyperstringent cleanup requirements, remediating a single site costs over $25 million on average and takes several years, and the problem is getting worse.  Both the cost and time required to clean a site is increasing, according to the General Accounting Office."

CEI's solution is simple and unequivocal: "Superfund should be repealed and cleanup responsibility transferred to the states."