The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will be in Spokane next month before traveling to Idaho for her first look at the Bunker Hill Superfund cleanup.

Christie Whitman accepted the invitation of Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Spokane, to meet with a variety of local interest groups in a "roundtable discussion" on Aug. 12.

Whitman's Spokane roundtable will be closed to the press and public, Nethercutt's office said Tuesday. There'll be less posturing that way, Nethercutt said in an interview.

"I think you get a better exchange and frankness in a nonpublic meeting. I want everybody to get a chance to have their say," he said.

Although Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell are invited to the Spokane meeting, Nethercutt's announcement was met with coolness by their representatives.

In an April 23 letter, Murray and Cantwell also invited Whitman to Spokane to hear local opinions on the EPA's cleanup plans.

"We've received no response from Whitman and no invitation from Nethercutt," said Todd Webster, press spokesman for Murray.

Others invited to meet with Whitman include Spokane County commissioners, Mayor John Powers, Mary Ann McCurdy of Gov. Gary Locke's Spokane office, Tony Grover of the Department of Ecology, Mike Peterson of the Lands Council, and representatives of the Spokane and Spokane Valley chambers of commerce.

The EPA has proposed expanding the Bunker Hill cleanup far beyond the 21-square-mile project at Kellogg.

The 30-year, $359 million cleanup plan would chase pollutants from the small mining towns of the Silver Valley to as far west as Spokane.

EPA's final cleanup plan, called a Record of Decision, will be made public in mid-August.

The Record of Decision is imminent but probably won't be signed during Whitman's visit, said Lindsay Nothern, spokesman for Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho. He's helping coordinate Whitman's Aug. 13 visit to the Silver Valley.

Nethercutt said it's time to quit delaying and launch the regional cleanup.

"I have great respect for the Idaho parties and their arguments, but I think it's in our best interests regionally to get going on a cleanup," he said.

The Spokane River should be a top priority for cleanup, he added. "It's in our back yard. I want to make sure we pay attention to the pollution," he said.

However, Nethercutt said he opposes legislation to reinstate corporate taxes that fueled the Superfund trust fund until the mid-1990s, when Congress failed to reauthorize them. The taxes paid for cleanup where the main polluter is defunct or bankrupt.

That's the situation at Bunker Hill, where the main polluter, Gulf Resources, moved its assets offshore and declared bankruptcy in 1993.

"I'm not supportive of the reauthorization of Superfund taxes in this environment, when the economy and business is struggling," Nethercutt said.

The Bush administration says it won't ask Congress to renew the corporate taxes -- forcing half the $1.5 billion annual cost of the program onto taxpayers. The administration wants the public to pay the full tax by 2004. Without the corporate tax, the Superfund has shrunk from $3.6 billion in 1995 to $28 million projected for 2003.

Nethercutt said all the parties interested in cleanup should share in the costs.

"There ought to be an accommodation -- a sharing of responsibility," he said.