The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's decision not to issue financial responsibility requirements for the hard-rock mining industry. Environmental groups argued the decision violated CERCLA by wrongly interpreting the term "risk" in the operative provisions as limited to the risk of taxpayer-funded response...

A district court denied EPA's motions to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two states and a Native American tribe seeking to recover response costs from the 2015 Gold King mine spill that sent millions of gallons of acid mine drainage into the Animas and San Juan Rivers. EPA argued that it retained sover...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court's ruling that a Canadian smelter company that dumped several million tons of industrial waste into the Columbia River was liable for a Native American tribe's response costs. The company argued that CERCLA did not allow the tribe to recover its costs of es...

The Second Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that CERCLA preempts state tort law claims brought by residents living near the Onondaga Lake Superfund site. The owner of the site undertook remedial action pursuant to a federal consent decree. The residents argued, on a state tort law theory, tha...

The D.C. Circuit vacated EPA's placement of the West Vermont Drinking Water Contamination site, a site of groundwater contamination beneath Indianapolis, Indiana, on the NPL. EPA used the hazard ranking system (HRS) to determine whether listing was appropriate. As part of that process, EPA assessed ...

The Ninth Circuit held that a property owner who purchased the site at a tax sale is not entitled to CERCLA's third-party defense to liability for cleanup costs. The purchaser had a "contractual relationship" with the prior owner by virtue of the tax sale. Given the breadth of CERCLA's definition of...