Asbestos Funds Cut From Conferees' 1994 Spending Bill

By Jessica Portner

WASHINGTON--The only federal program that pays for reducing an environmental hazard in schools apparently will not be funded this year--and may effectively be dead.

A fiscal 1994 appropriations bill that is headed for final Congressional approval contains no funding for the Asbestos School Hazard Abatement Act, which Congress had maintained for eight years despite the objections of Presidents Reagan and Bush.

Senators last month added $29 million in ASHAA funding to their version of HR 2491, which would fund the Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development departments as well as independent agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, which administers ASHAA. (See Education...