You make a mess, you clean it up: that's the classic principle behind Superfund, which forces polluters to pay for the clean-up of their messes. Forced, that is: Today, September 30th, marks the one year anniversary of the bankruptcy of the Superfund Trust Fund. The federal Superfund toxic waste program ran out of polluter-contributed funds exactly a year ago, leaving taxpayers with the entire bill. Once the Bush administration refused to honor the polluter pays principle, they stopped holding big oil and chemical companies accountable for the messes they made.

Just can't let this go. The Graham profile in the Seattle Times is so broad that it may not be immediately apparent the extent to which Graham has set back regulatory policy and kept the agencies from serving the public interest. Here are some of those missing details:

• OMB Role in Fuel Economy Change Exposed
• Administration Asks Manufacturers for Regulatory Hit List
• GAO Finds OMB Regulatory Review Not Well Documented
• Graham Advises Agencies on Valuing Lives of Seniors
• OMB Waters Down Standards on Factory-Farm Runoff

The latest evidence of the Bush administration's pattern of failing the public comes from the Heritage Foundation, no less. The kind folks at Heritage have actually quantified the rollback:

In case you missed it: Saturday's Washington Post featured an in-depth look at the Bush administration's environmental record. Check out "Oil and Gas Hold the Reins in the Wild West: Land-Use Decisions Largely Favor Energy Industry," Washington Post, Sept. 25, 2004, at A1. This article, like other comprehensive retrospective analyses in the press of the Bush administration regulatory record, is listed and linked here on our website.