Superfund destroys a business: the demise of Robert Cox's family business a decade ago is illustrative of the gross injustice wrought by the regulatory leviathan.(Business)

Like many other Americans, 56-year. old Robert M. Cox of Oreland, Pennsylvania, once worked in manufacturing. And like too many other Americans of that background, Cox saw his small business--a family enterprise that provided middle-class wages to scores of employees--destroyed by the federal regulatory leviathan.

Ten years ago, Cox was the CEO of the Gilbert Spruance Company, a successful family business headquartered in Philadelphia. Since 1906 the company had been producing industrial coatings for the furniture and kitchen cabinet industries. Clients included Bassett Furniture and Wood-Mode Kitchens. Spruance averaged $3 to $5 million in annual sales and had 45 to 50 employees. In short, Spruance was the quintessential successful all-American small business.

Cox is comfortable being labeled a "progressive" with regard to his political and business philosophy. He was involved in the first Earth Day celebration and is an admirer of the late Robert F. Kennedy. His company was committed to a "proactive position" toward recycling and waste disposal practices.

Cox's faith in the ability of his government to do the right thing was badly shaken when he collided with the federal juggernaut known as Superfund.

Eco-fanatics Strike

"When I started working in my business, I felt that an environmentalist in the paint and wood-finish coatings industry could co-exist with the federal environmental regulations so prevalent over the past 20 years. My experiences, however, proved me incorrect," writes Cox in his book, EPA and Superfund: A Small Business Story, published in 2002.

In 1980, Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), or Superfund. Administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the law, according to the agency, "provided broad Federal authority to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment." Its mission is to locate, investigate and oversee cleanup of "dirty dirt" and contaminated groundwater from hazardous waste sites. One of Superfund's more implausible goals is restoring these sites to pristine Garden of Eden-like conditions. A Superfund site is typically an abandoned factory, landfill or old mine.