Editors' Summary: In 1983, the Minnesota Legislature enacted the country's most aggressive and comprehensive state Superfund statute, the Minnesota Environmental Response and Liability Act (MERLA). The statute establishes an extensive private cause of action that includes joint and several liability for economic and personal injury, broadly defined; relaxes standards of proof of causation; and applies this liability retroactively.

Once again, as in the past several years, it appears that Congress will consider amending the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). A coalition of environmental groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, has suggested legion amendments ("The Federal Pesticide Reform Act of 1985") which would largely rewirte the law. Senator Proxmire (D. Wis.) introduced S. 309 to amend FIFRA on January 29, patterned after the environmentalists' proposal.¹

Just as surely as the cropdusters appear on the spring horizon to spray their mist of pesticides on the nation's agricultural lands, helicopters hover over forest lands to drop their mix of insect and weed killers, and lawn care services douse the suburbs with chemical agents, the Agriculture Committees in the United States Congress approach their seasonal task of reauthorizing the federal law intended to control those deadly sprays.

Editors' Summary: In recent years, environmental law has gone underground. The realization that groundwater has been widely contaminated by toxic substances from chemical dumps, pesticide application, and other sources has focused attention on subsurface pollution. Recently, a new culprit has been identified—leaking underground tanks in which oil, gas, chemicals, and wastes are stored. Congress perceived the problem as serious enough to warrant addition of a new program to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) at the end of last year.

The impact of toxic chemicals and waste on the environment and human life is of worldwide concern. The United Nations has been working for over a decade on development of a legal system to protect against toxic effects possible from the vast array of chemicals that now are manufactured and used in the world, and from the abandonment of toxic wastes. For several years, the U.N. quietly has been developing an international information and notification system. Every country in any stage of development is concerned to prevent another Bhopal.

Editors' Summary: A close reading of the broad and convoluted liability provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act suggests that generators who arranged for the disposal of wastes are not liable for cleaning up subsequent hazardous substance releases to the environment, unless they chose the unsafe sites at which the releases occurred. The legal battles that have been waged over the scope of generator liability under the Act have largely bypassed this issue, concentrating instead on joint and several liability and causation.

Editors' Summary: The huge liabilities associated with cleanup of hazardous waste sites have driven some waste generators and disposers into bankruptcy. When this happens, business creditors find themselves fighting with the government and cleanup-related claimants over the bankrupt's assets.These confrontations have become more common: the Supreme Court has already handed down one ruling in a cleanup-bankruptcy case, Kovacs, and has granted certiorari in two more.

Editors' Summary: In this Dialogue, Mr. Want describes the CERCLA amendments passed by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Commerce, Transportation, and Tourism. At press time, the full committee was proceeding with markup, but the committee version was not expected to differ substantially from the subcommittee bill, with one notable exception. On July 18, the Committee approved by voice vote an amendment, sponsored by Rep.

Editors' Summary: Of the major pathways now being followed in the implemetation of hazardous waste cleanups under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), several have been charted at one site, Chem-Dyne Corporation's Hamilton, Ohio facility. Chem-Dyne was the subject of the first multi-party CERCLA negotiation, in which state and federal agencies squared off against hundreds of companies whose wastes allegedly cluttered the site.

Editors' Summary: CERCLA continues to be one of the most complex and convoluted of the federal environmental statutes. Many legal battles have been waged over the scope of liability of potentially responsible parties. Although the courts have agreed on some of the issues concerning liability, most of the cases to date have focused on the liability of generators, owners, and operators.