Pruitt writes the EPA’s Superfund program a check that Trump won’t cash

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt called the Superfund program “absolutely essential,” and in an agency-wide memo, declared that these cleanup efforts “will be restored to their rightful place at the center of the agency’s core mission.” The EPA chief is even insisting that he must personally be involved in decisions affecting any cleanup with estimated costs of $50 million or more. (The 142 largest Superfund sites would cost about $140 million each.) This is good news, given that one in four Americans lives within three miles of a hazardous waste site, and more than 1,300 Superfund sites appear on the EPA’s National Priorities List. President Trump, however, apparently missed Pruitt’s memo, because the administration’s proposed budget would slash Superfund spending by a third—about $330 million—annually, beginning next year.