WASHINGTON, June 21 (UPI) -- The Obama administration will push to reinstate the "Superfund" tax used to clean up polluted sites across the United States, aides said.

The tax, which went into a cleanup trust fund, was imposed on oil and chemical companies, along other several other specific corporations, for 15 years until 1995,when it expired and the fund ran out of money, The Washington Post reported Monday.

Now, however, officials said the Environmental Protection Agency will send a letter to Congress, calling for legislation to reinstate the tax.

Proponents say the tax will help ease the burden on taxpayers, who currently foot the cleanup bill for "orphaned sites," plots of polluted land where no one claims responsibility for the contamination. Opponents said the tax is an unfair penalty.

"This is really about who should pay for the cleanup," said Mathy Stanislaus of the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response.

"Should it be the taxpayer, who has no responsibility for contaminating the sites, or should it be those individuals who create hazardous substances that contaminate the site?"

Since the fund ran out of money at the end of fiscal year 2003, the annual appropriation of public funds has slowed the cleanup of the orphaned sites, which account for 606 of the 1,279 sites across the nation. The program completed 19 sites last year, compared with 89 in 1999, when the fund was flush, the EPA says.