In Blasland, Bouck & Lee, Inc. v. City of North Miami, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit addressed two significant issues involving the interrelationship between Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) cost recovery actions and contract law. These issues, and the way the court addressed them, highlight problems for drafters of both commercial contracts and partial settlement releases, which if not carefully done can frustrate the intentions of the parties and cause significant economic loss to at least one of them.

Editors' Summary: CERCLA §113(h), with some exceptions, prohibits legal challenges to response actions until the cleanup at a Superfund site is completed. While the section's sponsors hoped to prevent potentially responsible parties (PRPs) from using such challenges to delay their financial responsibilities, several federal courts have held that §113(h) also bars citizen suits brought to enforce the FWPCA, RCRA, and other environmental laws at Superfund sites.

Editors' Summary: In 1986, in an effort to expedite cleanups at Superfund sites, Congress enacted SARA, which among other things added §113(h) to CERCLA. Section §113(h) bars "preenforcement" challenges to response actions under §104 and cleanup orders issued under §106. SARA also amended CERCLA by adding §120, which provides for cleanup at federal facilities. Although §113(h) does not explicitly apply to §120 cleanups, the question has arisen whether it nevertheless does apply to them.

Editors' Summary: The Municipal Settlement Policy, an EPA guidance that addresses CERCLA settlements with municipalities that owned co-disposal landfills or were generators or transporters of waste disposed of at such sites, has been the subject of considerable opposition from industry groups. Although a federal district court rejected a facial challenge to the policy based on EPA's statements that it did not intend to apply it inflexibly, in the first decision examining the policy "as applied" a district court recently rejected the proposed settlement.

Editors' Summary: For over three years, Congress has been trying to reauthorize and revise CERCLA. Reauthorization bills introduced in the 103d, 104th, and 105th Congresses have proposed extensive changes intended to "fix" a program that many people consider to be "broken." In this Article, an Assistant Attorney General for Natural Resources in the New Mexico Office of the Attorney General suggests that the Superfund program is not as flawed as its critics charge. He argues that the statute only needs some fine-tuning.

The Sad State of the Policy Debate

Since its creation in 1980, the Superfund program has overcome a number of obstacles. It survived embarrassing political scandals in its first few years. It endured a failure to reauthorize the underlying statute in 1985, a lapse that led to widespread disruptions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and set the program back significantly. It has persevered in the face of attacks from many sides.

By the beginning of the 106th Congress, comprehensive legislative reform of the Superfund statute had consumed six fruitless years of effort. Adopting a new approach, the Administration decided to seek narrow, targeted legislation. In testimony that would be repeated several times in 1999, the U.S.

The 1990s mark the end of an era when pitched legislative battles can lead to either sound or timely public policy. Rather, the formulation of consensus by a critical mass of private-sector stakeholders is the only way to achieve the timely reauthorization of Superfund and may be the best (if not the only) way to break the gridlock that paralyzes other legislative debates.

New rules are emerging to change the way the government makes decisions about cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund). These changes have altered Superfund decisionmaking fundamentally and irrevocably, requiring the government to reach for new levels of accountability, rationality, and consistency. Central to the government's ability to meet this challenge is the way in which it makes and explains decisions about acceptable risks and required levels of cleanup.