CERCLA is a federal environmental law that comes up in discussions here from time to time.  It also impacts many more discussions here without note.  Can we come up with any viable reforms to this law?

 

In a nutshell, CERCLA shifts the burden for environmental cleanup from original polluters to redevelopers.  It simply assigns responsibility to whoever currently owns the land in question.  As such, urban brownfields become an Old Maid card that nobody wants, because the cleanup costs make redevelopment impossible. 

 

The rationale behind this system is that the damage took place long ago, so it's impossible to definitively prove who was responsible.  And even if you could, they're dead.  In many cases the companies they worked for have long since folded or merged or whatever.  And we wouldn't want to burden the paper assets of big corporations.  That would slow down the economy!  Besides, assigning responsibility to the current owner is simple and clean, from a legal standpoint.

 

Obviously CERCLA's approach slows down the economy too, disproportionately so in older industrial cities.  So what's the alternative?  Sometimes local governments will agree to absorb these costs to spur development, as with Steelyard in Cleveland or City View in Garfield Heights.  But that solution doesn't seem ideal to me because those revenue streams are already thin, having already been screwed by CERCLA.  It really just doubles down on the problem. 

 

To me, there's no way to fix this without a massive federal investment.  And I think it's notable that the areas most affected by CERCLA tend to be union strongholds.  It has literally driven population and investment away from those communities, kept them poor, kept minorities trapped in them.  I mention this because it's certain to underlie any national discussion to broaden the cost burden.

Um ... legally, I don't think you've necessarily described CERCLA accurately ... but it would be almost impossible for me to go into specifics without starting to touch on issues central to some of the largest cases in my firm right now, so I don't think I can go much beyond that.

That's a shame, because expert opinions are exactly what I was hoping to hear!  I understand where you're coming from though.  Better not to risk disclosing client info.  If my understanding is inaccurate, I would appreciate any general analysis you could provide.