Throughout the history of the Superfurnd program,¹ potentially responsible parties (PRPs) have searched for ways to distribute the costs of cleanup as broadly as possible. PRPs look high and low for deep pockets in their attempts to spread the pain, and the ensuing litigation makes no one but Superfund lawyers happy. Until recently, PRPs focused their efforts on other industrial PRPs and their insurance companies. In the last two years, however, PRPs have begun to focus on spreading Superfund costs to the deepest pocket of all: the nation's taxpayers.

Wetlands mitigation banking, a concept endorsed by former President Bush as a means to achieve the goal of no net loss of wetlands, is a valuable resource management tool that deserves the support of the Clinton Administration. Wetlands mitigation banking, which provides for the advance compensation of wetlands losses due to development activities, offers an opportunity to show that environmental protection and economic development are not necessarily incompatible.

Editors' Summary: Serious environmental problems, rising environmental activism, and growing European Community (EC) power have produced important and ambitious environmental initiatives from the EC, as well as increased attention on the effective application of existing Community environmental law. The 1990 EC Commission report on the application of Community environmental law highlighted the inadequate and erratic implementation by member states of Community environmental law.

Are municipalities justified in calling for special relief from the broad scheme of Superfund liability? This Dialogue asserts that such special treatment both overlooks the nature of municipal solid waste (MSW) and distorts the purposes of the Superfund program.¹

Editors' Summary: Regulation of hazardous materials (HAZMAT) transportation has developed in a piecemeal fashion over the past century. In response, Congress passed the Hazardous Materials Transportation Act in 1975 and the Hazardous Materials Transportation Uniform Safety Act in 1990, delegating authority to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to improve effectiveness, consistency, and uniformity in HAZMAT regulation. The U.S. EPA also participates in HAZMAT regulation under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

On April 29, 1992, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final rule¹ that attempts to define the parameters of the security interest exemption set forth in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).² Acting in the wake of the Eleventh Circuit's decision in United States v. Fleet Factors Corp.,³ EPA proposed and promulgated the rule in response to increasing concerns of secured creditors.⁴

Editors' Summary: CERCLA § 107 is perhaps best known as creating a cause of action for the recovery of costs incurred in responding to releases of hazardous substances. Recently, however, federal and state governments have used it increasingly in suits to recover natural resource damages. This Article describes the elements of a CERCLA cause of action for the recovery of natural resource damages and compares them to the elements of a CERCLA cause of action for the recovery of response costs.

Editors' Summary: The Superfund law already acts like a dragnet to sweep corporations into the net of liability. Now more and more individual officers, directors, employees, and shareholders find themselves caught up in the liability net as well, and such corporate individuals across the country wonder about the contours of Superfund liability and how to stay out of it.

Editors' Summary: To promote prompt cost recovery and equitable allocation of liability for remediation costs assessed under CERCLA, Congress granted liable parties the right to sue other potentially responsible parties (PRPs) for contribution. The exercise of this right, however, has resulted in inequity and undue complexity. In trying to determine what constitutes a fair allocation of remediation costs, courts have applied allocation techniques that ignore basic economic principles.

The twentieth-century equivalent of the Holy Grail — at least in U.S. environmental law — is the status of "innocent landowner" under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act¹ (CERCLA or Superfund). Intent on preserving the fear of God, as it were, among the flock, the government argues that this exalted status is unreachable: if one finds contamination, one is no longer innocent; if one misses it, one did not look hard enough.