The Environmental Protection Agency proposed new procedures...

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed new procedures designed to hasten the cleanup of toxic waste spills and chemical dumps, but an environmentalist and a congressman said the plan was too little, too late. If adopted, the changes would be made in the federal “superfund,” a four-year-old, $1.6-billion cleanup program that expires Oct. 1. About 530 chemical dumps have qualified for cleanup under the program. But Linda Greer, a scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, said that as she interpreted the proposals, they would apply to only 14 substances. Rep. James J. Florio (D-N.J.), an author of the 1980 superfund legislation, said many of the proposals were procedures that the agency should have been following all along.