The §301(e) Report recommends some fundamental changes to the basic law, despite its conclusion in the first chapter that roughly states, "Well, we do not know if there is a problem or not. We know that there are hazardous waste sites out there. We know that they may be dangerous.We know that people may be living near some of these sites. We have a feeling that there may well be a problem, so we recommend that Congress enact this major new scheme right now." We noticed, however, §104(i) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act,¹ in which Congress required scientific research and analysis into the questions of whether and to what extent there may be relationships between waste sites and diseases. We think that such an effort is an essential first step to devising any kind of remedy to the perceived problem of hazardous waste-caused injury.

CERCLA called for the establishment of a new agency, within the Public Health Service, by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). That agency was to be called the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). The statute required that agency to perform five basic functions, the most important being to conduct a program to determine relationships between exposure to toxic substances and illness.