Law Commons^™

Cercla In A Global Context, Robert V. Percival, Katherine H. Cooper, Matthew M. Gravens

Faculty Scholarship

The article first reviews the essential features of CERCLA and how they have evolved over time through legislative amendments and judicial interpretation. The article then compares CERCLA's approach to that embodied in the European Union's 2004 Directive on Environmental Liability with Regard to the Prevention and Remedying of Environmental Damage ("ELD:). It then reviews the laws adopted by various countries, including EU members, to respond to releases of hazardous substances. The article then discusses several case studies of how different countries handled incidents of environmental contamination. It concludes by summarizing the comparative law of environmental remediation and its implications for …

The Effect Of Nepa Outside The Courtroom, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The central purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is not to produce gorgeous or perfect documents; that’s a means to an end. The ultimate purpose is to improve governmental decisionmaking by making relevant information available to officials and by ensuring that everyone affected by the decisions is given a voice. I would like to focus on the effect of NEPA on decisions.

I will discuss three issues.

First, I will talk about the effect that NEPA has had on internal decisionmaking by agencies.

Second, since NEPA attempts to focus decisionmakers on predictions of future environmental conditions with or …

Global Climate Change Offers Hot Career Opportunities, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Michael Gerrard, editor of Global Climate Change and U.S. Law, is passionate about global warming and the role lawyers can play in improving the environment. Student Lawyer's Donna Gerson talks to Gerrard about his career path and how law students can make a difference combating climate change.

Amended And Restated Gila River Indian Community Water Rights Settlement Agreement Oct. 21, 2005, Amendment No. 2, 2007, Gila River Indian Community, Et Al

Native American Water Rights Settlement Project

Amended and Restated Gila River Indian Community Water Rights Settlement Agreement Oct. 21, 2005, Amendment No. 2, 2007. Amendment 2 replaces 3 exhibits with documents filed in or by the courts: 1) Attachment 1 - replacing Exhibit 25.18.A1 - “Stipulation of the Parties to the Amended and Restated Gila River Indian Community Water Rights Settlement Agreement Setting forth the Terms of the Settlement (as filed with the Gila Adjudication Court on May 23, 2006”; 2) Attachement 2 - replacing Exhibit 25.18.A2 – “Judgment and Decree”; and 3) Attachement 3 - Exhibit 25.18.B “Order Pursuant to Stipulation issued by the Globe …

The Illegality Of Contingency-Fee Arrangements When Prosecuting Public Natural Resource Damage Claims And The Need For Legislative Reform, Julie E. Steiner

Faculty Scholarship

Private attorneys are entering into contingency-fee based special counsel agreements with states, territories and tribes, to bring public natural resource damage (NRD) claims. Under this agreement, special counsel brings a NRD action on behalf of the public and fronts the litigation costs, but deducts a percentage of the public's damage recovery to pay the attorney's contingency fee; the remainder goes into a fund to be allocated by the government's NRD trustee. Because NRD claims implicate gargantuan damage awards, the legality of depleting such a damage award by a substantial percentage to pay an attorney's fee is a significant issue that …

Should State Corporate Law Define Successor Liability - The Demise Of Cercla's Federal Common Law, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

During the 1980s and early 1990s, a series of decisions broadly interpreting the liability provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCIA) appeared destined to transform corporate law practice. CERCIA does not directly address successor liability, but the statute's complex and contradictory legislative history arguably implies that Congress wanted federal courts to apply broad liability principles to achieve the statute's fundamental remedial goal of making polluters and their successors pay for cleaning up hazardous substances.

Notably, a number of courts rejected state corporate law principles that usually limit the liability of successor corporations and instead …

The Legislation Of Unintended Consequences, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

New York State's Brownfields Programs: More And Less Than Meets The Eye, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

New York, as the nation's second most populous state, and one of its oldest and most urban, has an abundance of brownfields-slightly contaminated properties that were formerly used for industrial purposes, but that are now unused or underused, and ripe for redevelopment if they can be cleaned up. Thus, it may be surprising that New York is one of the few states without a comprehensive statute or regulation for the voluntary cleanup of brownfields.

There is, however, more here than meets the eye. New York has three important programs and several smaller ones that provide procedures, money, or incentives for …

Governmental Liability Under Cercla, Steven A.G. Davison

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Medical Monitoring And The Future Of Cercla: Reinvigorating The Superfund Law's Consequential Purpose, Colin Crawford

Publications

The Article advances in three main parts. Part II gives a brief overview of the reasons why most of the legal and transactional time, attention, and money spent during CERCLA's first fifteen years focused on who should pay for hazardous waste cleanup, and how much parties should pay once identified. The section briefly examines some of the understandable reasons why this occurred, but then argues that a revised CERCLA will be more effective if it concentrates instead on what costs should be covered. Part II concludes by demonstrating that such a re-focus would reflect CERCLA's original, radically consequentialist design. Part …

The Effectiveness And Fairness Of Superfund's Judicial Review Preclusion Provision, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article examines the effectiveness and fairness of section 113(h) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund). That broadly-worded provision forecloses judicial review of Superfund cleanups prior to enforcement or cleanup completion by requiring that any review action fall within several narrowly-defined exceptions.

After providing an overview of the statute, its enforcement mechanisms, and a context for considering section 113(h), the article summarizes how courts have applied CERCLA's timing of review provision, focusing principally on recent interpretations of the provision. Finally, the article evaluates the effectiveness and fairness of CERCLA review preclusion and concludes by …

Strategies For Environmental Justice: Rethinking Cercla Medical Monitoring Lawsuits, Colin Crawford

Publications

This Article argues that by concentrating largely on expanding the scope of constitutional jurisprudence, lawyers and legal academics have failed to examine possibilities for strategic lawsuits using the elaborate array of existing federal environmental statutes. Specifically, both lawyers and legal academics have needlessly neglected or shied away from the medical monitoring lawsuit available under section 107(a)(4)(B) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), to the disadvantage of potential environmental justice plaintiffs.

Cleaning House: Environmental Hazards Can Undermine A Property's Use And Value, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Numerous horror movies and books depict the woes that befall fictional homeowners who don't know or care that they are living too close to cemeteries or brooding woods or scenes of hauntings.

However, even the vivid imaginations of filmmakers and novelists can't conjure up some of the real-life horrors that environmental hazards can create for property owners. These hazards can destroy the value and salability of property, render it unusable for its intended purpose, and burden owners with clean-up costs, fines and lawsuits.

Fortunately, an alert eye and inexpensive tests can identify most common environmental dangers.

Corporate Successors Under Strict Liability: A General Economic Theory And The Case Of Cercla, Merritt B. Fox

Faculty Scholarship

P undertakes an activity subject to strict liability that creates a risk of harm to others. The activity harms V. Before the harm becomes apparent, however, P sells its assets to S for cash and dissolves. Should V be entitled to compensation from S in P's stead? If the talk of corporate lawyers is to be believed, concern over this seemingly technical question is having a substantial impact on the salability of billions of dollars of productive assets.

With the growth of products liability litigation, state courts have given the issue of successor liability increasing attention over the last decade. …

Limited Liability In Environmental Law, George W. Dent

Faculty Publications

The social importance and immense costs of pollution make environmental law an ideal arena for reconsidering theories of limited liability for tort. This article examines the question in the context of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CER-CLA).1 Part I reviews the text and legislative history of the Act. Part II analyzes the CERCLA case law on the liability of controlling persons, especially those involving parent corporations. Part III discusses the general theory of limited liability and its exceptions. Part IV applies this general theory to CERCLA and finds that its special features call for distinctive approaches. Part …

Agenda: Getting A Handle On Hazardous Waste Control, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Getting a Handle on Hazardous Waste Control (Summer Conference, June 9-10)

The conference chairman was University of Colorado School of Law professor Lawrence J. MacDonnell.

During the past ten years Congress has made the regulation of hazardous waste a priority. This conference focuses on the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, as amended in 1984, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act.

This conference attracted about 100 registrants from 16 states plus the District of Columbia. John G. Welles, Regional Director for EPA Region 8, presented a luncheon address.