Superfund Rearing Its Head at Recyclers Again?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified three industry sectors targeted for future Superfund-related financial assurance requirements and named several others that will “require further study.”

The chemical manufacturing industry; the petroleum and coal products manufacturing industry (primarily meaning refineries and not coal mines); and the electric power generation, transmission, and distribution industry are the three sectors that it will target first for additional Superfund obligations.

According to the EPA, “Financial assurance requirements help ensure that owners and operators of facilities are able to pay for cleanup of environmental releases and help reduce the number of sites that need to be cleaned up by federal taxpayers through the Superfund program.”

The EPA says identification of these industry sectors is part of EPA’s effort under Section 108(b) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as the Superfund law, to recommend financial assurance requirements. The action announced is not a proposed rule or a final regulation, the EPA says in its news release.

The same news release from the EPA also says the agency “has identified the following additional classes of facilities that require further study in order for the agency to decide whether to develop proposed regulations: waste management and remediation services, wood product manufacturing, fabricated metal product manufacturing, electronics and electrical equipment manufacturing, and facilities engaged in the recycling of materials containing CERCLA hazardous substances.”

Recyclers will be anxious to find out to what extent the Superfund Recycling Equity Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton in November of 1999, will protect them from financial threats and burdens that existed before that bill was enacted.