SCOTUSblog by Amy Howe 12/3/2019
Argument analysis: Justices leaning toward a (possibly narrow) ruling for business in CERCLA suit
For decades, the Anaconda Smelter refined copper ore in southwestern Montana. The smelter provided copper for use in phone wires and power lines, but it was also a major polluter, spewing tons of arsenic and lead into the surrounding area. Atlantic Richfield Co., which owned the smelter when it shut down in 1980, has spent nearly a half-billion dollars cleaning up the hazardous waste created by the smelter, following a plan created by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Landowners in the area want the company to go further and restore their property to its original condition, but Atlantic Richfield argues that their claims are trumped by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, the federal law that Congress enacted nearly 40 years ago to manage and clean up hazardous-waste sites. The Montana Supreme Court allowed the landowners’ claims to go forward, and this morning the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in the dispute.
Arguing on behalf of Atlantic Richfield, lawyer Lisa Blatt framed the question before the Supreme Court as whether “hundreds of thousands of landowners†would be able to implement their “own piecemeal hazardous-waste cleanups.†It is “profoundly wrong,†Blatt told the justices, to assume that it is always better to remove hazardous waste than to leave it in place, and the EPA – rather than “jurors on an ad hoc basis†– should be responsible for evaluating the risks of leaving such waste where it is.
Blatt faced a flurry of questions from the court’s more liberal justices. Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked whether CERCLA would allow a state court to order a remedial plan that supplements, rather than conflicts with, the remedy that EPA had ordered.
More:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/12/argument-analysis-justices-leaning-toward-a-possibly-narrow-ruling-for-business-in-cercla-suit/#more-290586
