Natural Resource Damages & Environmental Justice
Environmental Agencies, Superfund Cleanups, and Managing Enforcement Actions
What are PFAS and Why Should We Care?
Volatile Times in Vapor Intrusion Regulation: A Legal and Technical Update
On 17 March 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the addition of twelve sites to the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL). The EPA has determined that releases of contamination at these sites...more
Liability for clean-up of hazardous substances pursuant to the Comprehensive Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 ("CERCLA," "Act" or "Superfund") can be extremely costly, amounting to hundreds of millions of...more
On 1 September 2020, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the addition of six sites to the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL). EPA has determined that releases of contamination at these...more
Deferring to the US Environmental Protection Agency, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit rejected a challenge to the first-ever listing of a site on the Superfund National Priorities List under recent regulatory...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Under the Trump Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has fully or partially deleted 22 sites from the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act...more
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C.A. § 9601, known as CERCLA or the Superfund law, was enacted in 1980 during the final days of the Carter administration. It was intended to...more
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) added five sites to the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (“Superfund”) National Priority List (“NPL”). See 83 Fed. Reg. 46408. ...more
Last week, EPA added two sites to the National Priorities List (NPL), a list of sites of national priority for known or threatened releases of hazardous substances, solely for the risks posed by vapor intrusion. ...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (“Court”) overturned a determination by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”). See Genuine Parts Co. v. EPA, No. 16-1416, 2018 WL 2271086...more
The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 includes, at pages 1768-1786 of the bill, the “Brownfields Utilization, Investment, and Local Development Act of 2018,” also known as the “BUILD Act.” This is a bi-partisan bill...more
EPA has proposed to add the Rockwell International Wheel & Trim Site in Grenada, Mississippi to the National Priorities List, the first site added based solely on the risk to human health from vapor intrusion from subsurface...more
The National Priorities List is designed to identify the contaminated sites that pose the highest risk to human health or the environment so that U.S. EPA can focus its efforts on these sites. For the first time, on January...more
For the first time, EPA has proposed to add a property to the National Priorities List (“NPL”), otherwise known as the Superfund list, based solely on the risk of vapor intrusion. The NPL contains the worst contaminated,...more
• The Trump Administration released an ambitious $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan on Feb. 12, 2018 – a plan that includes many provisions focused upon encouraging the reuse of contaminated brownfields and Superfund sites. ...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Businesses and industries across the country which own or have interests in facilities and properties that may come under the broad scope of these new Superfund “Recommendations” will need to stay attuned...more
On May 22, 2017, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt announced the formation of the Superfund Task Force. During his short time at EPA, Administrator Pruitt has emphasized the need to “streamline...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: With the EPA adding the consideration of vapor intrusion in its Superfund site investigations, hundreds of sites that previously would not rank high enough to qualify for listing on the National Priorities...more