Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1498_8mjp.pdf
Page Number: 19.0

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

15 

Opinion of the Court 

42 U. S. C. §9607(b)(3).  The same principle holds true for
parties that face no liability because of the Act’s limitations
period.

Interpreting  “potentially  responsible  parties”  to  include
owners  of  polluted  property  reflects  the  Act’s  objective  to
develop, as its name suggests, a “Comprehensive Environ-
mental  Response”  to  hazardous  waste  pollution.    Section 
122(e)(6) is one of several tools in the Act that ensure the 
careful development of a single EPA-led cleanup effort ra-
ther than tens of thousands of competing individual ones.

Yet under the landowners’ interpretation, property own-
ers would be free to dig up arsenic-infected soil and build 
trenches to redirect lead-contaminated groundwater with-
out even notifying EPA, so long as they have not been sued
within  six  years  of  commencement  of  the  cleanup.7    We  
doubt Congress provided such a fragile remedy for such a 
serious  problem.    And  we  suspect  most  other  landowners 
would not be too pleased if Congress required EPA to sue 
each  and  every  one  of  them  just  to  ensure  an  orderly 
cleanup  of toxic  waste  in  their  neighborhood.    A  straight-
forward reading of the text avoids such anomalies. 

JUSTICE GORSUCH argues  that  equating  “potentially  re-
sponsible parties” with “covered persons” overlooks the fact 

—————— 

7 EPA  does  have  other  tools  to  address  serious  environmental  harm. 
Under §106, for example, EPA can initiate an injunctive abatement ac-
tion if it finds an “imminent and substantial endangerment to the public 
health or welfare or the environment.”  42 U. S. C. §9606(a).  But EPA 
may have good reasons to preserve the status quo of a cleanup site even 
absent an imminent threat.  More importantly, the landowners’ interpre-
tation  would  require  EPA  to  monitor  tens  of  thousands  of  properties 
across 1,335 Superfund sites nationwide to ensure landowners do not 
derail an EPA cleanup.  EPA, Superfund: National Priorities List (NPL) 
(Apr.  13,  2020),  https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-national-
priorities-list-npl.  Congress provided a far more effective and efficient
solution in §122(e)(6): Landowners at Superfund sites containing hazard-
ous waste must seek EPA approval before initiating their own bespoke 
cleanups.