Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/17-1498_8mjp.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

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

3 

Syllabus 

under” the Act—just as it says—while §113(h) deprives federal courts 
of  jurisdiction  over  certain  “challenges”  to  Superfund  remedial  ac-
tions—just as it says.  Pp. 8–13.

3. The Montana Supreme Court erred by holding that the landown-
ers were not potentially responsible parties under the Act and thus did 
not need EPA approval to take remedial action.  To determine who is 
a potentially responsible party, the Court looks to the list of “covered
persons” in §107, the Act’s liability section, which includes any “owner” 
of “a facility.”  “Facility” in turn is defined to include “any site or area 
where a hazardous substance has been deposited, stored, disposed of,
or  placed,  or  otherwise  come  to  be  located.”    42  U. S. C. §9601(9)(B). 
Because arsenic and lead are hazardous substances that have “come 
to  be  located”  on  the  landowners’  properties,  the  landowners  are  po-
tentially responsible parties.

The  landowners  argue  they  are  no  longer  potentially  responsible 
parties because the Act’s six-year limitations period for recovery of re-
medial costs has run, and thus they could not be held liable in a hypo-
thetical lawsuit.  But even “ ‘innocent’ . . . landowner[s] whose land has 
been contaminated by another,” and who are thus shielded from liabil-
ity by §107(b)(3)’s so-called “innocent landowner” or “third party” de-
fense, “may fall within the broad definitions of PRPs in §§107(a)(1)–
(4).”  United States v. Atlantic Research Corp., 551 U. S. 128, 136.  The 
same principle holds true for parties facing 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 a “Comprehen-
sive Environmental Response” to hazardous waste pollution.  Section 
122(e)(6) is one of several tools in the Act that ensure the careful de-
velopment of a single EPA-led cleanup effort rather than tens of thou-
sands of competing individual ones.

Yet under the landowners’ interpretation, property owners would be 
free to dig up arsenic-infected soil and build trenches to redirect lead-
contaminated  groundwater  without  even  notifying  EPA,  so  long  as 
they  have  not  been  sued  within  six  years  of  commencement  of  the 
cleanup.    Congress  did  not  provide  such  a  fragile  remedy  for  such  a 
serious problem.

The landowners alternatively argue that they are not potentially re-
sponsible parties because they did not receive the notice of settlement 
negotiations required by §122(e)(1).  EPA has a policy of not suing in-
nocent homeowners for pollution they did not cause, so it did not in-
clude  the  landowners  in  settlement  negotiations.    But  EPA’s  nonen-
forcement policy does not alter the landowners’ status as potentially 
responsible parties.  Section 107(a) unambiguously defines potentially