A 30-YEAR-OLD ST. LOUIS SUPERFUND SITE POSES “EXTREME HEALTH RISKS” FOR CHILDREN: That’s according to Missouri Republican Rep. Ann Wagner. Unfortunately, as the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group’s Ethan Barton has exhaustively reported, the Missouri kids are far from alone.

“’The EPA has failed, failed more than 30 years in its cleanup of nuclear waste dating back to the Manhattan Project and World War II,’ she said. The Superfund process ‘and particularly the EPA have failed the people of St. Louis in the most heartless manner possible,’” Barton reports this morning. Her comments came during a House Energy and Commerce Committee panel hearing.

“The EPA’s Superfund program was created in 1980 to clean up America’s most polluted locations, but 329 sites could still threaten humans, according to EPA data. Only about one-third of the 1,328 Superfund sites have been completely cleaned,” according to Barton. Those that have been cleaned took on average 13 years to complete the process.

Illinois Republican Rep. John Shimkus pointed out during the hearing that “Superfund is now some 36 years old and the truth is some cleanup projects that we are working on seem as old as the law itself,” according to Barton. The bureaucratic inefficiencies of the Superfund program are the problem, Shimkus suggested.

Several Democrats on the panel, as well as EPA Assistant Administrator Mathy Stanislaus, agreed that Superfund cleanup delays are harmful and unnecessary. Their solution? Restore a Superfund tax they estimate would generate more than $25 billion by 2026. EPA currently spends $1 billion annually on Superfund.