USA Today is reporting that the Bush administration has quietly overturned a 25-year-old ban on the sale of polluted property contaminated with PCBs. The EPA determined that the ban was “an unnecessary barrier to redevelopment (and) may actually delay the clean-up of contaminated properties.”

USA Today reports that the decision is already in effect but has yet to be made public. The EPA never allowed for public comment on the rule change. The agency said it wasn’t needed because the lifting of the band was simply a “new interpretation” of existing law.

Opponents of the change fear, PCB-contaminated soil may now be more easily spread to other properties.