Abstract
The Comprehensive Environmental Responses, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980, or CERCLA, also known as the Superfund Act, is a landmark piece of environmental legislation [1]. Its notably bold design, discussed in detail below, fits the daunting work it was established to perform, the remediation of the worst and most dangerous releases of hazardous materials in the history of the USA. CERCLA also plays a role in the prevention of threatened releases. While it is subject to criticism and may not function perfectly, or even quite as intended, CERCLA remains an essential safeguard of environmental and public health in the USA.
This chapter was originally published as part of the Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology edited by Robert A. Meyers. DOI:10.1007/978-1-4419-0851-3
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Abbreviations
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One of the most useful ways to begin a study of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) is to engage the intriguing lexicon the act provides. As is demonstrated by the definitions below, terms are often defined under CERCLA in ways that are remarkably broad, granting a great deal of elbow room and flexibility for the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to go about the work of protecting the public from hazardous materials, no matter when or how they have come to present a threat.
- Environment:
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Under CERCLA, the term “environment” is defined broadly in a manner that is distinctly multimedia. An environment is anywhere or anything that can become contaminated with a hazardous substance, including all surface and ground waters, land surfaces or subsurface strata, or the ambient atmosphere. Any release of a hazardous material into any sort of environment is potentially covered under CERCLA.
- Facility:
-
The term “facility” usually brings to mind an image of a building or series of buildings, but CERCLA defines the term more broadly. A “facility” under CERLCA includes any site or area where a hazardous material has been deposited, placed, stored, disposed of, or has somehow come to be located. It is just as likely to refer to a faulty storage tank or a leaking pipe as to a building or similar structure.
- Hazardous substance:
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In defining hazardous substances, CERCLA makes use of all other definitions and lists of such substances in previous US environmental legislation. However, there is one important exception: petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas and synthetic gas used for fuel. This is the so-called Petroleum Exception. Interestingly, the definition of a hazardous substance does not refer to any particular or minimum amount of a material that must be present for it to become hazardous. In theory, there is no lower limit of materials that must be present or must have been released before a remedial action is authorized, or liability is imposed.
- Contaminant or pollutant:
-
CERCLA also authorizes cleanups of categories of substances that are broader than materials judged to be hazardous according to the standards of earlier federal regulations. Contaminants or pollutants, under CERCLA, are materials that may cause adverse health effects. While CERCLA allows the EPA to respond to sites polluted by these lesser threats, it authorizes recovery of cleanup costs from responsible parties only in cases of contamination by a documented hazardous substance.
- Release:
-
Again, a release of a hazardous substance is broadly defined. CERCLA authorizes response to any sort of a release, including all manner of spills, leaks, and discharges into the air, as well as leaching, dumping, injecting, emitting, or disposing. Certain exceptions are made, generally for releases that are covered under other federal laws. As an example, motor vehicle emissions are excluded from CERCLA but are covered by federal emission standards and other regulations.
- Removal:
-
Removal is also broadly defined, creating more potential opportunities to assess liability. Removal may refer to certain actions directly involved in cleanup of a site, such as removing the hazardous material from the area, or transporting waste to an authorized disposal facility. However, it may also refer to actions such as monitoring, assessing, and evaluating releases or potential releases. This allows the EPA to take preventive action to prevent a potential release.
- Remedy or remedial action:
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As in the case of removal, the construction of the terms “remedy” or “remedial action” in CERCLA allows for response to both actual or potential or threatened releases. The terms are also broadly construed to allow for a wide range of response actions, including public health or environmental monitoring, transportation of hazardous materials, implementation of an alternative water supply, and even removal or relocation of communities to safe locations.
- Potentially responsible party or PRP:
-
Remedial actions that occur through CERCLA are often conducted not by the EPA directly, but by parties that are judged to be in some way accounle for the release. These parties, known as Potentially Responsible Parties, or PRPs, fall into four categories: owners, operators, arrangers or generators, and transporters. For more information on these categories and their responsibilities and liabilities under CERCLA, see section “Liability Scheme” below.
- CERCLA:
-
Is also a distinctly creative act, which has also introduced new entities and terms into the knowledge base of environmentally conscious people, those affected by CERCLA actions and even CERCLA’s critics.
- The Superfund:
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The Superfund has become a common name for all of CERCLA, but it also refers to the Hazardous Substance Superfund, established to provide financial resources to clean up hazardous sites. The Superfund was established by taxes imposed upon the chemical and petroleum industries and an environmental tax on corporations. It has since been supported by allocations from the federal general fund and through additional legislation, such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
- The National Priority List or NPL:
-
The NPL was added to an existing resource, the National Contingency Plan (NCP), which was brought into being under the Clean Water Act to address the containment and removal of spilled oil and other hazardous substances. Under CERCLA, the NCP was revised to include direct provisions for responding to releases of hazardous substances, pollutants, and contaminants, including those released on land or in the air. CERCLA also revised the NCP to include a list of sites that were considered to be top priorities for response. This is the National Priority List, or NPL. Criteria for placement on the NPL are discussed in section “NCP, NPL, and Site Procedures” below.
- Finally, CERLA brought into being a new federal agency:
-
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry or ATSDR. ATSDR is charged under CERCLA with assessing the presence and nature of health hazards at specific Superfund sites, as well as working to prevent or reduce further exposure and the illnesses that result from exposures. It compiles and maintains a prioritized list of hazardous materials at Superfund sites, the CERCLA Priority List of Hazardous Substances. ATSDR also has a range of other duties, including health surveillance and the development and distribution of information on toxic substances. For more information, see section “ATSDR and the CERCLA List” below.
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Jewett, R.D., Wascom, M.W. (2013). CERCLA, Sustainability and Public and Environmental Health. In: Laws, E. (eds) Environmental Toxicology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5764-0_7
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