pensation, and Liability Act of 1980 to clarify liability
under that Act for certain recycling transactions.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Superfund Recycling
Equity Act of 1997’’.
SEC. 2. PURPOSES.
The purposes of this Act are—
(1) to promote the reuse and recycling of scrap
material in furtherance of the goals of waste mini-
mization and natural resource conservation while
protecting human health and the environment;
(2) to create greater equity in the statutory
treatment of recycled versus virgin materials; and
(3) to remove the disincentives and impedi-
ments to recycling created as an unintended con-
sequence of the 1980 Superfund liability provisions.
SEC. 3. CLARIFICATION OF LIABILITY UNDER CERCLA FOR
RECYCLING TRANSACTIONS.
(a) CLARIFICATION.—Title I of the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
of 1980 (42 U.S.C. 9601 et seq.) is amended by adding
at the end the following new section:
‘‘SEC. 127. RECYCLING TRANSACTIONS.
‘‘(a) LIABILITY CLARIFICATION.—As provided in
subsections (b), (c), (d), and (e), a person who arranged
for the recycling of a recyclable material shall not be liable
under section 107(a)(3) or 107(a)(4).
‘‘(b) RECYCLABLE MATERIAL DEFINED.—For pur-
poses of this section, the term ‘recyclable material’ means
scrap paper, scrap plastic, scrap glass, scrap textiles,
scrap rubber (other than whole tires), scrap metal, or
spent lead-acid, spent nickel-cadmium, and other spent
batteries, as well as minor amounts of material incident
to or adhering to the scrap material as a result of its nor-
mal and customary use prior to becoming scrap.
‘‘(c) TRANSACTIONS
INVOLVING
SCRAP
PAPER,
PLASTIC, GLASS, TEXTILES, OR RUBBER.—Transactions
involving scrap paper, scrap plastic, scrap glass, scrap tex-
tiles, or scrap rubber (other than whole tires) shall be
deemed to be arranging for recycling if the person who
arranged for the transaction (by selling recyclable material
or otherwise arranging for the recycling of recyclable ma-
terial) can demonstrate by a preponderance of the evi-
dence that all of the following criteria were met at the
time of the transaction:
‘‘(1) The recyclable material met a commercial
specification grade.
‘‘(2) A market existed for the recyclable mate-
rial.
‘‘(3) A substantial portion of the recyclable ma-
terial was made available for use as feedstock for the
manufacture of a new saleable product.
‘‘(4) The recyclable material could have been a
replacement or substitute for a virgin raw material,
or the product to be made from the recyclable mate-
rial could have been a replacement or substitute for
a product made, in whole or in part, from a virgin
raw material.
‘‘(5) For transactions occurring 90 days or
more after the date of enactment of this section, the
person exercised reasonable care to determine that
the facility where the recyclable material would be
handled, processed, reclaimed, or otherwise managed
by another person (hereinafter in this section re-
ferred to as a ‘consuming facility’) was in compli-
ance with substantive (not procedural or administra-
tive) provisions of any Federal, State, or local envi-
ronmental law or regulation, or compliance order or
decree issued pursuant thereto, applicable to the
handling, processing, reclamation, storage, or other
management activities associated with recyclable ma-
terial.
‘‘(6) For purposes of this subsection, ‘reason-
able care’ shall be determined using criteria that in-
clude (but are not limited to)—
‘‘(A) the price paid in the recycling trans-
action;
‘‘(B) the ability of the person to detect the
nature of the consuming facility’s operations
concerning its handling, processing, reclama-
tion, or other management activities associated
with recyclable material; and
‘‘(C) the result of inquiries made to the ap-
propriate Federal, State, or local environmental
agency (or agencies) regarding the consuming
facility’s past and current compliance with sub-
stantive (not procedural or administrative) pro-
visions of any Federal, State, or local environ-
mental law or regulation, or compliance order
or decree issued pursuant thereto, applicable to
the handling, processing, reclamation, storage,
or other management activities associated with
the recyclable material. For the purposes of this
paragraph, a requirement to obtain a permit
applicable to the handling, processing, reclama-
tion, or other management activity associated
with the recyclable materials shall be deemed to
be a substantive provision.
‘‘(d) TRANSACTIONS INVOLVING SCRAP METAL.—
‘‘(1) Transactions involving scrap metal shall be
deemed to be arranging for recycling if the person
who arranged for the transaction (by selling recycla-
ble material or otherwise arranging for the recycling
of recyclable material) can demonstrate by a prepon-
derance of the evidence that at the time of the
transaction—
‘‘(A) the person met the criteria set forth
in subsection (c) with respect to the scrap
metal;
‘‘(B) the person was in compliance with
any applicable regulations or standards regard-
ing the storage, transport, management, or
other activities associated with the recycling of
scrap metal that the Administrator promulgates
under the Solid Waste Disposal Act subsequent
to the enactment of this section and with re-
gard to transactions occurring after the effec-
tive date of such regulations or standards; and
‘‘(C) the person did not melt the scrap
metal prior to the transaction.
‘‘(2) For purposes of paragraph (1)(C), melting
of scrap metal does not include the thermal separa-
tion of 2 or more materials due to differences in
their melting points (referred to as ‘sweating’).
‘‘(3) For purposes of this subsection, the term
‘scrap metal’ means bits and pieces of metal parts
(e.g., bars, turnings, rods, sheets, wire) or metal
pieces that may be combined together with bolts or
soldering (e.g., radiators, scrap automobiles, railroad
box cars), which when worn or superfluous can be
recycled, except for scrap metals that the Adminis-
trator excludes from this definition by regulation
and steel shipping containers of a capacity from 30
liters to and including 3,000 liters, whether intact
or not, having any hazardous substance (but not
metal bits or pieces) contained in or adhering there-
to.
‘‘(e) TRANSACTIONS INVOLVING BATTERIES.—
‘‘(1) Transactions involving spent lead-acid bat-
teries, spent nickel-cadmium batteries, or other
spent batteries shall be deemed to be arranging for
recycling if the person who arranged for the trans-
action (by selling recyclable material or otherwise ar-
ranging for the recycling of recyclable material) can