This connection between enforcement and the generation of cleanup funds is vital to the overall hazardous waste cleanup program in this country. The prospect of NPL listing and federal funding, as well as state funding of cleanup costs, is essential to setting the cost-recovery mechanism into motion. But Congress has done far more than make money available for cleanups. It has leveraged its money into far greater matching private dollars by creating and preserving liability for cost recovery. Clear potential cost-recovery liability is the chief reason for private cleanup funding.
Strict liability eliminates litigable issues and encourages voluntary cleanups.
Case law established over nearly 20 years has added to the predictability of the outcome in litigation. In contrast, every change in the law carries with it a loss of predictability, with potential cleanup funding consequences. In our state there is no right under State statutory law to cleanup-cost recovery without first going through an administrative hearing. Our administrative process, which requires a full evidentiary hearing before liability can be established, is rarely used. The statute should be broad enough to address current abuses where, for example, states are subject to counterclaims based on sovereign ownership interests in groundwater, stream and river beds and other natural resources.