Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1498_8mjp.pdf
Page Number: 41

6 

ATLANTIC RICHFIELD CO. v. CHRISTIAN 

Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

sponsible  parties,  subsection  (e)(6)  bars  a  potentially  re-
from  taking  unauthorized  remedial 
sponsible  party 
measures.  See §§922(e)(1)–(3), (h).  This ensures the gov-
ernment can control the shape of any final settlement and 
no private party can unilaterally incur costs that it might 
then foist on others.  At the end of it all, the section does 
just what its title suggests.  It governs the settlement pro-
cess  among  those  who  have  something  to  settle.  It  says
nothing about the rights and duties of individuals who, like 
the  landowners  here,  have  nothing  to  settle  because  they 
face no potential liability.

Then  there’s  what  the  rest  of  the  statute  tells  us.   As 
we’ve seen, CERCLA says again and again that it does not 
impair the rights of individuals under state law.  That in-
struction  makes  perfect  sense  and  does  plenty  of  work  if 
§122  only  requires  those  potentially  liable  to  the  federal 
government  to  secure  permission  before  engaging  in 
cleanup  efforts.  By  contrast,  reading  §122  to  bar  nearly 
everyone from undertaking remedial efforts without federal 
permission  renders  CERCLA’s  many  and  emphatic  prom-
ises  about  protecting  existing  state  law  rights  practically
dead letters.  Sure, the federal government would still have 
to “involv[e]” state officials and comply with state laws—or
at  least  those  laws  federal  agency  employees  deem  “rele-
vant  and  appropriate.”    §§9621(f )(1),  (d)(2)(A)(ii).    But 
CERCLA would promise nothing more than observer status
for state law and those who wish to rely on it.  States and 
private landowners alike who lack any potential federal li-
ability could be barred even from undertaking remedial ef-
forts on their own lands at their own expense, required in-
stead  to  host  toxic  wastes  involuntarily  and  indefinitely.
than  supplementing  state  remedial  efforts, 
Rather 
CERCLA would rule them all. 

Reading CERCLA this way would raise uneasy constitu-
tional questions too.  If CERCLA really did allow the federal
government to order innocent landowners to house another