Opinion ID: 1989584
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The application of CERCLA.

Text: Judge Glickman argues, pages 349-50, post, that federal environmental law in fact does address non-industrial air pollution. Therefore, according to our colleague, even if the absolute pollution exclusion was adopted in response to the enactment of CERCLA and other environmental legislation, Nationwide still prevails. In support of this contention, Judge Glickman cites B.F. Goodrich Co. v. Murtha, 958 F.2d 1192, 1199-1200 (2d Cir. 1992), and United States v. Alcan Aluminum Corp., 990 F.2d 711, 725 (2d Cir. 1993). The first of these decisions addressed the question whether CERCLA provides an exemption for municipalities; the second involved the potential liability of Cornell University resulting from the university's disposition of coal waste water and related hazardous waste problems. These decisions do not bear the slightest resemblance to the situation before us. Indeed, in the B.F. Goodrich case, which concerned municipal solid waste, the court stated: In CERCLA[,] Congress enacted a broad remedial statute designed to enhance the authority of the EPA to respond effectively and promptly to toxic pollutant spills that threatened the environment and human health.  958 F.2d at 1197 (emphasis added). [42] That is all a far cry indeed from REO's defective furnace. When the insurance industry, concerned about billions of dollars in liability for retroactive clean-up costs, see discussion at pages 317-18, presented the absolute pollution exclusion to state regulators, it may well have been concerned about a university's coal waste problems or a municipality's solid waste, but there is no indication that a defective furnace in an apartment building appeared within or near the industry's horizon. The B.F. Goodrich and Alcan cases therefore provide scant solace to our dissenting colleague's thesis.