A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office paints a dire picture of the potential impact of climate change on Superfund sites across the U.S. and concludes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is not doing enough to manage these risks and their potential impact on the environment and public health.

GAO建议EPA阐明其在非联邦国家优先事项中如何管理超级基金网站的行动如何与当前的代理目标和目标保持一致。GAO报告总结说：“如果不澄清这种结盟，EPA无法确保高级官员将在战略计划和责任制中发挥积极作用，以管理这些风险。”

The report finds that approximately 945, or 60%, of non-federal sites on the National Priorities List are at risk of being negatively affected by weather-related impacts such as storm surges, sea level rise, flooding and wildfires. Moreover, the GAO notes that EPA has omitted the words “climate change” from its agency strategy and planning documents, which could lead to inconsistent approaches to managing risk across the country.

In the agency’s response to the draft circulated in October, Peter Wright, EPA’s assistant administrator of the Office of Land and Emergency Management, agreed with GAO’s conclusion that EPA should standardize its approach to identifying and keeping track of the boundaries of non-federal NPL sites and noted that it has already begun taking steps to do so.

However, the agency disagreed with most of the report’s other conclusions. In a letter to GAO, Wright said the agency performed analyses of sites after the active hurricane season in 2017 and found that the remedies at the sites were “resilient.”

在11月18日写给美国环保署署长安德鲁Wheeler, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and other Democratic members of his committee wrote: “The Superfund program is not providing necessary resources and direction to regional officials that would help them assess and respond to site-specific risks due to climate change.”