In 1980, the Congress passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund) to clean up hazardous waste sites. Since that time, the federal government has made some progress in cleaning up sites that have been labeled as the worst in the nation, and the states have identified and cleaned up additional hazardous waste sites. However, thousands more sites have not yet been addressed at either the federal or the state level. To manage these sites, states began to develop new voluntary cleanup programs that would leverage private funds to pay for cleanups and return the sites to productive use. Under Superfund, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established a process for assessing hazardous waste sites, selecting appropriate techniques for cleaning them up, constructing cleanup methods or remedies, and maintaining the remedies. The law requires EPA to develop and maintain a list of hazardous sites it considers to be the most seriously contaminated, known as the National Priorities List (NPL). If EPA, a state, or any other party identifies a contaminated site, the site can be referred to EPA, which in turn includes it in the agency’s inventory of potential sites. Once in the inventory, the site is assessed to determine whether it is contaminated seriously enough to be placed on the NPL. The law makes parties responsible for the contamination—including current and former site owners and site operators, waste generators, and waste transporters—liable for cleanup costs. The federal government may take action to compel a responsible party to perform or pay for a cleanup. Under Superfund, any party that contributed to the contamination, even if this action was legal at the time, is liable and under certain circumstances may be held responsible for the entire cost of the cleanup. EPA may also use the Superfund trust fund, supported primarily by a tax on crude oil and certain chemicals, to pay for the cleanup and then seek reimbursement from responsible parties. Under EPA’s regulations, the fund may be used to finance long-term cleanups only at sites on the NPL. EPA may also use the fund to take short-term actions that address contamination at any site posing an imminent and substantial threat to human health and the environment, regardless of whether the site is included on the NPL. Over the past 16 years, the Congress has authorized a total of $15.2 billion to be appropriated from the Superfund. The NPL currently consists of about 1,300 sites. At the time of our review, remedies had been completed at 412 of these sites. EPA has also taken about 4,000 short-term cleanup actions. Approximately 70 percent of the cleanups at NPL sites are now funded by responsible parties, and EPA funds the remaining cleanups from the trust fund. EPA also has a list of about 12,000 sites in various stages of assessment to determine whether they meet NPL criteria, and it expects more sites to be identified and referred for its consideration. Forty-one states have followed the federal government’s lead and established their own version of the Superfund law in order to identify and address sites not covered by the federal program. As a result, most states now have departments and staff dedicated to managing hazardous waste cleanups. The states generally address the thousands of sites that do not meet the risk criteria for placement on the NPL. In addition, a state may choose to forgo having EPA assess a site for placement on the NPL and, instead, handle it under the state’s cleanup program. Some states have adopted liability provisions similar to Superfund’s and have developed lists of sites in their state requiring cleanup. These states have relied primarily on enforcement actions against responsible parties to clean up sites, using state funds only to clean sites where responsible parties are recalcitrant or cannot be found. After over a decade of federal and state efforts, significant numbers of sites remain to be cleaned up. Because of limited resources, EPA and the states have targeted their enforcement and cleanup efforts to the worst sites on their lists. Furthermore, cities, lenders, developers, and others with an interest in returning contaminated sites to productive use have been reluctant to begin cleanups on their own because, under Superfund’s or the state’s liability provisions, they could then be held liable for entire cleanups. In addition, they might later be held liable for further cleanup actions at the sites if new or more contamination were discovered or stricter environmental standards were established. To encourage redevelopment and help clean up sites that have not yet been addressed, most states, in the last few years, have created voluntary cleanup programs. In contrast to the state cleanup programs that rely on enforcement to compel cleanups by responsible parties, these programs allow volunteers, such as site owners or developers, to approach the state and initiate cleanups on their own. As a result, volunteers can avoid the delays and costs associated with the enforcement process and conduct cleanups within the time frames needed for redevelopment or sale. Once a volunteer has completed a cleanup, a state typically certifies that the cleanup meets the state’s requirements and standards, giving the volunteer some assurance that the state is unlikely to require further cleanup in the future. Voluntary programs were a natural outgrowth of property transfer laws that many states already had in place. These laws require property owners to disclose whether their property is contaminated with hazardous wastes, either by including this information in the deed or by notifying the potential purchaser directly. However, disclosing the existence of contamination sometimes prevented property sales because of the uncertainty surrounding the cost of cleanup. Voluntary cleanup programs provided owners or buyers with a method for assessing the existing contamination and cleaning it up on their own while affording some assurance that the state would be unlikely to impose additional cleanup requirements at a later date. This arrangement allowed property transactions to move forward. Because voluntary programs are likely to produce more cleanups than the states can compel under their enforcement programs alone, the states can also benefit from these programs. However, sites with low development potential—such as those in areas with inadequate infrastructure, high taxes, crime, congestion, or other problems— are unlikely candidates for voluntary cleanups. The states will have to continue handling these types of sites, as well as any others they exclude from their voluntary programs, through traditional enforcement cleanup programs. EPA saw state voluntary cleanup programs as a way to leverage the limited state and federal resources available for hazardous waste cleanups. The agency is currently drafting guidance for establishing agreements with states that would specify, for programs meeting EPA’s criteria, that generally EPA will plan to take further action at sites in a state’s voluntary program only in limited circumstances. By reducing the threat of federal Superfund liability, these agreements could increase potential volunteers’ interest in the programs. In addition, EPA has allowed states to use funds from their fiscal year 1995 and 1996 Superfund cooperative agreements with the agency to develop voluntary programs. The Congress has also taken actions to encourage voluntary cleanups of hazardous waste sites. Lenders had feared being named as a responsible party if they foreclosed on a contaminated property. In 1996, the Congress passed legislation limiting lenders’ liability at contaminated sites. As a result, lenders may be more willing to finance projects to redevelop or clean up contaminated sites. At the same time states began developing voluntary programs, the federal government’s interest in redeveloping brownfields began to grow. Brownfields are abandoned or underused facilities, usually in industrial or commercial areas, where redevelopment has been hampered by real or perceived environmental contamination. Voluntary cleanup programs are viewed as an important tool for facilitating the redevelopment of brownfields because they allow owners and developers to identify potentially valuable sites and clean them up independently. EPA took several initiatives to encourage the redevelopment of these sites. For example, the agency funded 78 pilot brownfields projects around the country to promote creativity in addressing these types of sites. In addition, to reduce the stigma of association with the Superfund program, EPA classified approximately 29,000 sites from its inventory of potential NPL sites as needing no further action. To focus national attention on brownfields, EPA convened a series of conferences about them and created an interagency working group to draft a coordinated federal brownfield policy. The Chairmen of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and its Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Control, and Risk Assessment asked us to review state voluntary cleanup programs. We agreed to (1) identify voluntary cleanup programs’ accomplishments; (2) describe these programs’ organization, funding, and major characteristics; and (3) determine the effects of federal hazardous waste policies on voluntary cleanups and the types of federal assistance that could further support voluntary programs. To identify examples of voluntary cleanup programs’ accomplishments, we surveyed the administrators of 17 of these programs in 15 states, concentrating first on 5 well-established programs in the Midwest and then choosing additional programs in each of EPA’s regional offices to obtain geographic diversity and a mix of program models. These 15 states constitute over 40 percent of the 35 states that we found had created voluntary programs nationwide. The 15 states were California, Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. Massachusetts and Washington each administer two different voluntary cleanup programs, which we included in our research, for a total of 17 programs in 15 states. We conducted a telephone survey with the managers of the 17 programs and asked them for information on their program’s success in achieving cleanups. We also reviewed materials on the programs that they provided. To evaluate these programs’ organization, funding, and major characteristics, we surveyed officials in the 17 programs and asked them to compare the procedural and cleanup requirements of their state’s voluntary cleanup program with those of their state’s enforcement program. We also interviewed national representatives of lenders; developers; and environmental, state, and community development organizations about their experiences with voluntary programs. We reviewed studies on voluntary cleanups conducted by other organizations.