Opinion ID: 199558
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Statutory Fidelity

Text: The purposes of CERCLA include expeditious remediation at waste sites, adequate compensation to the public fisc and the imposition of accountability. [I]t would disserve a principal end of the statute -- achievement of prompt settlement and a concomitant head start on response activities -- to leave matters in limbo until more precise information [is] amassed. Cannons, 899 F.2d at 88; see also DiBiase, 45 F.3d at 545 ([S]ettlements reduce excessive litigation expenses and transaction costs, thereby preserving scarce resources for CERCLA's real goal: the expeditious cleanup of hazardous waste sites.). Additionally, there is a strong public policy in favor of settlements, particularly in very complex and technical regulatory contexts. Comunidades Unidas, 204 F.3d at 280. Importantly, even though it was not obligated to do so, UTC began the process of remedial soil treatment in July 1997, well before the approval of Consent Decree I. This task included: excavation, removal and proper disposal of more than 1,000 drums of waste and 10,000 small jars, containers and vials; removal of more than 750,000 tires; and sampling and chemical analysis of over 65,000 cubic yards of soil. This head-start on repair of a - 34 - hazardous waste site is the sort of good-faith cooperation that CERCLA seeks to encourage via settlement. To find this progress inadequate would frustrate the statute's purpose. In asserting that the consent decrees are not faithful to the purposes of CERCLA, Ashland focuses on the contribution protection afforded the parties to the consent decrees, fearing that a handful of non-settlors (i.e., Ashland and the other appellants), foreclosed from contribution actions because they did not join the consent decrees, could be held liable for a disproportionate share of the $21.7 million in as-yet unrecovered costs if the United States pursued them in cost recovery actions. CERCLA provides that [a] person who has resolved its liability to the United States or a State in an administrative or judicially approved settlement shall not be liable for claims for contribution regarding matters addressed in the settlement. 42 U.S.C. § 9613(f)(2); see also 42 U.S.C § 9622(f)(2). Despite this matters addressed in the settlement language of the statute, Ashland says that the matters addressed language of the decrees here is overreaching because they include, quoting the consent decrees, response costs incurred and to be incurred by any person or entity other than the United States for response actions related to the site or identified in the remedy. Ashland complains that, [a]s written, the 'matters addressed' provision of three partial consent decrees have been expanded to include all costs, whether the costs are incurred by the - 35 - U.S. or by a private party. This is clearly impermissible under CERCLA. Facing exposure to performance of the groundwater remedy, which may represent 40 percent of the total site costs, Ashland worries that parties like itself will bear disproportionate liability because they are unfairly barred from seeking contribution from earliersettling parties. The practice of encouraging early settlements by providing broad contribution protection is provided by statute. 42 U.S.C. § 9613(f)(2); see also Charter, 83 F.3d at 522; UTC v. Browning-Ferris Ind., Inc., 33 F.3d 96, 103 (1st Cir. 1994) (This paradigm is not a scrivener's accident.). CERCLA also seeks to induce settlements at higher amounts by allowing settlors to seek contribution from those who have not yet settled. See 42 U.S.C. § 9613(f)(3)(B); Charter, 83 F.3d at 522. Still, EPA policy encourages the court reviewing a consent decree incorporating contribution protection to seek a demonstration that this result is fair to potential contribution plaintiffs whose rights would be extinguished. DOJ/EPA Memorandum, Defining Matters Addressed in CERCLA Settlements, March 14, 1997. In a case such as this, where UTC assumes an open-ended cost for soil remediation, and takes the lead in coordinating settlements and beginning the cleanup effort, the benefit of contribution protection is appropriate. Also, as UTC points out in its brief, Ashland's preoccupation with the potential of disproportionate liability ignores the fact that UTC, - 36 - which was allocated responsibility for 1.54 percent of the liability by the trial court, will perform the source control remedy, which will amount to over one-fourth of the total costs of remediating the site. UTC draws from this fact an appropriate conclusion: This comparison shows that CERCLA can impose harsh results on PRPs; it also shows that these contribution defendants [Ashland and other non-settlors] may bear a burden roughly comparable to that of UTC. The point we made in an earlier decision remains apt: As to the extinguished contribution claims of non-settlors or later round settlors, protection against those claims was a reasonable benefit [the settlor] acquired in exchange for settling before those others. Charter, 83 F.3d at 522. The result of non-settlors possibly bearing disproportionate liability for the open-ended cost of remediation is therefore consistent with the statute's paradigm, which encourages the finality of early settlement. See Browning-Ferris, 33 F.3d at 103.