Seek and destroy: designation of potentially responsible parties under CERCLA
Authors
Harris, Richard W.
Issue Date
1994
Type
Thesis
Language
en_US
Keywords
Environmental Protection Agency , Epa , Prp , Potentially Responsible Parties , Cercla , Conservation , Mackay Theses and Dissertations Grant Collection
Alternative Title
Abstract
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA or Superfund) gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) broad powers to clean up hazardous waste sites in the United States. The EPA can designate owners and operators of waste sites and generators and transporters of hazardous substances as potentially responsible parties (PRPs). The PRPs must clean up the site or face substantial fines and penalties. Under the doctrine of “strict, joint, and several liability†, the EPA can require a few PRPs to assume the entire burden of cleaning up a site, even though their contribution to the release has been minimal. To avoid inequitable results, the paper proposes several practical and politically feasible modifications to CERCLA which would (1) require the EPA to justify its designation of PRPs, (2) allow nonculpable and de minimis PRPs to win dismissal from cleanup orders, and (3) allow minor contributors to avoid joint liability and pay only their proportional costs of cleanup.
Description
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Citation
Publisher
University of Nevada, Reno
License
In Copyright(All Rights Reserved)