I
104TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 820
To amend the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act of 1980 to clarify liability under that Act for certain
recycling transactions.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY 3, 1995
Mrs. LINCOLN (for herself, Mr. UPTON, Mr. SCHAEFER, Mr. BOUCHER, Mr.
MANTON, Mr. GILLMOR, and Mr. TAUZIN) introduced the following bill;
which was referred to the Committee on Commerce and, in addition, to
the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, for a period to be
subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration
of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee con-
cerned
A BILL
To amend the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Com-
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 1995’’.
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 level the playing field between the use of
virgin materials and recycled materials; and
(3) to remove the disincentives and impedi-
ments to recycling because of potential Superfund li-
ability.
SEC. 3. CLARIFICATION OF LIABILITY UNDER CERCLA FOR
RECYCLING TRANSACTIONS.
(a) CLARIFICATION OF LIABILITY.—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 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 a 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