Over the last several years, public attention has focused increasingly on the risks associated with hazardous wastes and other toxic substances. Incidents of environmental contamination at locales such as Love Canal, New York, Toone, Tennessee, and Gray, Maine, have fueled the controversy and have led to claims that releases of toxic substances and hazardous wastes constitute a serious threat to public health and the environment. Indeed, as reports of such incidents have mounted,¹ so have the estimated costs of addressing the problem. The Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), for example, has suggested that cleanup costs alone for abandoned hazardous waste sites could run well into the billions of dollars.² Moreover, the cleanup costs resulting from the improper disposal of hazardous substances represent only one facet of the larger and more general problem of environmental pollution and damages to private citizens caused by toxic chemicals.

During the last decade, Congress sought to reduce or prevent the risks associated with environmental contamination by enacting a variety of statutes regulating the manufacture, use, and disposal of toxic chemicals. These include the Toxic Substances Control Act,³ the Clean Water Act,⁴ the Occupational Safety and Health Act,⁵ the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act,⁶ the Safe Drinking Water Act,⁷ and the Consumer Product Safety Act.⁸