From cookware to dental floss to stain-resistant fabrics, PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, pervade modern life. PFAS are a family of thousands of synthetic chemicals that have a variety of unique qualities that make them useful in industrial and consumer product applications. Unfortunately, there is a growing scientific recognition that many PFAS come with a cost to public health and the environment. While federal and state action is just beginning for PFAS and the regulatory landscape is changing quickly, the toxicity of many PFAS has been well-established.

The Oak Ridge Reservation is one of the largest U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facilities in the country, with areas that are highly contaminated by chemicals, metals, and radionuclides. DOE is in the middle of a multi-decade, multi-billion-dollar cleanup there, and a recent Superfund decision for one portion of the site raises a number of significant legal issues. This Article addresses some related questions: Should radionuclides get less stringent cleanup than other equally harmful pollutants like mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls?

Superfund practitioners are waiting to see whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will designate perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctane sulfonate, two chemicals in the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) group, as CERCLA hazardous substances. Such a designation may lead to selected remedies being modified and further work being required at Superfund sites where remedies were believed to be complete. This Article explores potential future liability by reviewing provisions of the 2021 Remedial Design/Remedial Action (RD/RA) Model Consent Decree.

Editors' Summary: TSCA provides EPA with broad authority to address potential hazards posed by the manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, and disposal of chemical substances and mixtures. In this first of a three-part series, the authors begin a detailed examination of the statute and regulatory program. They review the origins, objectives, and key components of TSCA, and then analyze TSCA's scope -- focusing particularly on definitional issues and exclusions.

In two major Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) opinions, United States v. Atlantic Research, Inc. and Burlington Northern & Santa Fe R.R. v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court provided long-sought guidance for parties litigating hazardous waste cleanup issues under CERCLA.

On May 4, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. United States. The decision is of major significance with respect to two areas of Superfund jurisprudence--"arranger" liability, and divisibility or apportionment of harm. This Article is concerned only with the latter issue and, moreover, only with one specific element of that issue.

This past May, the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time addressed two issues that the U.S. Congress left open in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). These issues are: (1) the scope of "generator" or "arranger" liability under the language of CERCLA §107(a)(3); and (2) the circumstances under which a liable party under §1073 may be held jointly and severally liable. Rejecting the position of the U.S.

Editors' Summary: The recently completed 105th Congress provided the nation with a legacy of unparalleled legislative inactivity. Few, if any, of the legislative initiatives earmarked as priorities passed as bitter partisan debate ruled on Capitol Hill. This Comment analyzes how such partisanship and subsequent congressional lethargy created the environmental successes, controversies, and failures of the 105th Congress.

Over the past several years, considerable public and private efforts in this country have been directed at reducing the risk of cancer that human exposure to high levels of radon gas poses. These efforts appear to have succeeded in raising public awareness of radon and in increasing testing for radon. For the most part, however, these efforts have been directed toward homeowners and have not addressed the problem of radon in residential rental properties. Yet, in 1989, nearly 34 million homes—over one-third of all housing units in the country—were rental units.