Editors' Summary: It has become regular practice for federal legislators to insert into annual appropriations bills riders having little to do with the appropriations process. Last year, under…

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…

Editors' Summary: During congressional debate on CERCLA reauthorization, attention has focused on the role of states in executing the Act. Some observers of these debates have questioned the…

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"…

Conventional wisdom says that the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) is an impediment to the reuse of brownfields. Examination of a decade of experience, however, reveals that…

Editors' Summary: With their often substantial assets, parent corporations make attractive targets for parties seeking to remedy environmental harm. However, by challenging a court's…

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…

The Sad State of the Policy Debate

Over the last decade and a half, the Superfund policy debate has assumed all the characteristics of what sociologists might call a…

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…

One of the more daunting tasks facing environmental practitioners over the past decade or two has been the recovery of cleanup costs and related relief at sites contaminated with petroleum…