While there are undoubtedly fascinating stories of the dynamics that shaped the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA) waiting to be written, interpretation of SARA as a statute must be governed by its language, by relevant legislative history in the committee reports, and to some extent by the legislative debates. The volume of this material is daunting.

It is the goal of this annotated legislative history to produce a comprehensive guide to understanding the development of the new law and interpreting the significance of its provisions. The first basic tool to understanding is the composite text of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) as amended, 1 which includes both the new language accomplished by the SARA amendments and the text of deleted CERCLA provisions. This annotated text of CERCLA is cross-referenced both to SARA and to detailed comments on over 40 topics. The reader will next find three sections (i) summarizing the principal new features that will affect the Superfund practitioner;² (ii) setting out the steps in the enactment of SARA that are important to understanding its legislative history; 3 and (iii) offering tentative conclusions as to what are the main changes wronght by SARA. 4 The guide then provides separate detailed discussions for more than 40 of the principal topics dealt with in SARA. 5 For each topic, there is a developmental history, relating the topic to existing CERCLA provisions, outlining the role of the Administration and the seven congressional committees involved in the reenactment process, and listing all the relevant legislative history sources.