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524US1

Unit: $U74

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56

UNITED STATES v. BESTFOODS

Opinion of the Court

sons [may be tagged with] the cost of their actions,” S. Rep.
No. 96–848, p. 13 (1980).1 The term “person” is deﬁned in
CERCLA to include corporations and other business organi-
zations, see 42 U. S. C. § 9601(21), and the term “facility” en-
joys a broad and detailed deﬁnition as well, see § 9601(9).2
The phrase “owner or operator” is deﬁned only by tautology,
however, as “any person owning or operating” a facility,
§ 9601(20)(A)(ii), and it is this bit of circularity that prompts
our review. Cf. Exxon Corp. v. Hunt, supra, at 363
(CERCLA, “unfortunately,
legislative
draftsmanship”).

is not a model of

II

In 1957, Ott Chemical Co. (Ott I) began manufacturing
chemicals at a plant near Muskegon, Michigan, and its inten-
tional and unintentional dumping of hazardous substances
signiﬁcantly polluted the soil and ground water at the site.
In 1965, respondent CPC International Inc.3 incorporated a
wholly owned subsidiary to buy Ott I’s assets in exchange
for CPC stock. The new company, also dubbed Ott Chemi-
cal Co. (Ott II), continued chemical manufacturing at the site,
and continued to pollute its surroundings. CPC kept the

1 “CERCLA . . . imposes the costs of the cleanup on those responsible
for the contamination.” Pennsylvania v. Union Gas Co., 491 U. S. 1, 7
(1989).
“The remedy that Congress felt it needed in CERCLA is sweep-
ing: everyone who is potentially responsible for hazardous-waste contami-
nation may be forced to contribute to the costs of cleanup.”
Id., at 21
(plurality opinion of Brennan, J.).

2 “The term ‘facility’ means (A) any building, structure, installation,
equipment, pipe or pipeline (including any pipe into a sewer or publicly
owned treatment works), well, pit, pond, lagoon, impoundment, ditch, land-
ﬁll, storage container, motor vehicle, rolling stock, or aircraft, or (B) any
site or area where a hazardous substance has been deposited, stored, dis-
posed of, or placed, or otherwise come to be located; but does not include
any consumer product in consumer use or any vessel.”

3 CPC has recently changed its name to Bestfoods. Consistently with

the briefs and the opinions below, we use the name CPC herein.