Opinion ID: 1992368
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Federal Environmental Legislation.

Text: Before proceeding to the merits, we think it would be instructive to trace the development of federal environmental legislation. Congress took the first step in modern federal environmental regulation with the passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970. Pub.L. No. 91-604, 84 Stat. 1676, now codified as amended at 42 U.S.C. §§ 7401 et seq. Two years later Congress took the second step with the passage of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. Pub.L. No. 92-500, 86 Stat. 816, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251-1376. It soon became clear to Congress that there was no existing federal law to regulate the disposal of environmental pollutants, including solid wastes and hazardous wastes, on land. To close this loophole in federal environmental law, Congress enacted RCRA in 1976. See United States v. Shell Oil Co., 605 F.Supp. 1064, 1070 (D.Colo.1985). At the time RCRA was passed it was characterized as a prospective cradle-to-grave regulatory regime governing the movement of hazardous waste in our society. United States v. Price, 577 F.Supp. 1103, 1109 (D.N.J.1983) (citing Goldfarb, The Hazards of Our Hazardous Waste Policy, 19 Nat. Resources J. 249, 253 (1979)). RCRA authorizes the EPA to promulgate regulations applicable to generators of hazardous waste, transporters of hazardous waste, and owners and operators of hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facilities. The Act regulates record keeping practices, labeling practices, use of appropriate containers, use of a manifest system, and the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of facilities. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 6921-34; 40 C.F.R. Parts 260-67 and 270 (1990); see also Shell Oil Co., 605 F.Supp. at 1070. Congress soon discovered that RCRA was not the complete answer to environmental waste control. One court saw the problem this way: Land pollution presented a problem not encountered with air and water pollution. Air and navigable waters are, generally speaking, self-cleansing through time. Carbon monoxide in air and phosphates in water can thus be abated by limiting or eliminating present sources of pollution. But hazardous wastes deposited on land do not simply disperse into harmless concentrations. They can percolate through the soil and infiltrate ground water; and they can persist over long periods of time. Congress, faced with sites such as Love Canal, clearly understood that the mere regulation of current land disposal would not adequately protect the public health and welfare or the environment. Shell Oil Co., 605 F.Supp. at 1070-71. The deficiencies in RCRA were officially noted in a congressional report: Deficiencies in RCRA have left important regulatory gaps. The Act is prospective and applies to past sites only to the extent that they are posing an imminent hazard. Even there the Act is of no help if a financially responsible owner of the site cannot be located. H.R.Rep. No. 1016, 96th Cong.2d Sess. 22, reprinted in 1980 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 6119, 6125. In short, legislation was needed to clean up inactive sites where wastes had been dumped in the past. In addition such legislation would need to insure that those responsible for the environmental damage would bear the costs of this activity. In response to these deficiencies Congress enacted CERCLA. As one writer describes it, CERCLA was designed to bring order to the array of partly redundant, partly inadequate federal hazardous substances cleanup and compensation laws. F. Anderson, D. Mandelker & A. Tarlock, Environmental Protection: Law and Policy 568, 568 (1984). CERCLA's objectives include the following: to encourage maximum care and responsibility in the handling of hazardous waste; to provide for rapid response to environmental emergencies; to encourage voluntary clean-up of hazardous waste spills; to encourage early reporting of violations of the statute; and to ensure that parties responsible for release of hazardous substances bear the costs of response and costs of damage to natural resources. Chemical Waste Management, Inc. v. Armstrong World Indus., Inc., 669 F.Supp. 1285, 1290 n. 6 (E.D.Pa.1987). CERCLA gives the federal government broad authority to combat contamination of the environment and to protect the health and welfare of the public. The Act imposes liability on parties responsible for the incurrence of response costs resulting from a release, or a threatened release, of a hazardous substance. 42 U.S.C. § 9607(a). The responsible parties include (1) current owners and operators of hazardous waste facilities; (2) any person who formerly owned or operated a facility at the time of the disposal of any hazardous substance; and (3) waste generators, disposers, and transporters. Id. Responsible parties can be liable for (A) all costs of removal or remedial action incurred by the United States Government or a State or an Indian tribe not inconsistent with the national contingency plan; (B) any other necessary costs of response incurred by any other person consistent with the national contingency plan; (C) damages for injury to, destruction of, or loss of natural resources, including the reasonable costs of assessing such injury, destruction, or loss resulting from such a release; and (D) the costs of any health assessment or health effects study carried out under section 9604(i) of [the Act]. Id. The Act defines release as any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing into the environment. 42 U.S.C. § 9601(22). There are four exceptions to the definition, and none are relevant here. Environment is defined to include surface water, ground water, ... land surface or subsurface strata, or ambient air within the United States or under the jurisdiction of the United States. 42 U.S.C. § 9601(8). A hazardous substance includes any element, compound, mixture, solution, or substance covered under certain federal environment statutes, including hazardous waste under RCRA and substances designated by the EPA under 42 U.S.C. § 9602. 42 U.S.C. § 9601(14). Lead, the offending element here, is designated as a hazardous substance. See 40 C.F.R. § 302.4, at 178. CERCLA was designed to deal with every conceivable area where hazardous substances come to be located. New York v. General Elec. Co., 592 F.Supp. 291, 296 (N.D.N.Y.1984). It provides two different responses: removal efforts and remedial actions. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601(23), 9601(24). The removal efforts response involves typically short-term cleanup arrangements. See 42 U.S.C. § 9601(23). [2] Remedial actions response is generally long-term or permanent containment. Such a response may also involve disposal programs. See 42 U.S.C. § 9601(24). [3] The terms respond or response mean remove, removal, remedy, and remedial action. 42 U.S.C. § 9601(25). All of these terms also include enforcement activities relating to them. See id. Costs in connection with these responses are commonly referred to in the cases and literature as response costs or cleanup costs. Here the design and construction of the clay cap, the expansion of the groundwater monitoring system, and the development and implementation of a postclosure plan for a period of thirty years constituted a remedial action response covered by 42 U.S.C. § 9601(24). In responding to a hazardous waste problem, CERCLA gives the EPA three alternatives. Using Superfund money, [4] the EPA may clean up the site and seek reimbursement from the responsible parties for the costs incurred. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 9604(a)(1), 9607. Or the EPA may seek injunctive relief to require the responsible parties to clean up the site. See 42 U.S.C. § 9606(a). In addition section 9606(a) provides a third alternative. The EPA may issue an administrative order requiring the responsible parties to clean up the site. A violation of, or a failure or refusal to comply with, this order carries a fine of not more than $25,000 for each day in which such violation occurs or such failure to comply continues. 42 U.S.C. § 9606(b)(1). In addition, the responsible parties may be liable to the United States for punitive damages if they fail to comply with the order. 42 U.S.C. § 9607(c)(3). The EPA may enter into an agreement with the responsible parties to perform any necessary response action. See 42 U.S.C. § 9622(a). The agreement must be entered in the appropriate United States district court as a consent decree. 42 U.S.C. § 9622(d)(1)(A). Apparently this is the route the EPA took with A.Y. McDonald.