On April 26, 2019, the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) voided two amendments to a prospective purchaser agreement (PPA) for the Bishop Tube Site entered into in 2007 and 2010.
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Superfund
Can a State Provide Oversight Under a Federal CERCLA Order or Decree?
Section 400(h) of the National Contingency Plan (NCP) contains an unremarked, yet problematic, last sentence. The NCP, of course, governs response actions under the federal Comprehensive Environmental, Response, Compensation and…
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What You Need to Know About the Superfund Task Force’s Recommendations
There are over 1,300 sites listed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List of contaminated sites that require cleanup, over a hundred of which are located in Pennsylvania. In…
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Government Access to Contaminated Sites
Regulators need access to environmentally contaminated sites. They have to study them to determine whether the contamination requires a cleanup, they have to choose a cleanup, they have to conduct…
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CERCLA Preemption of State Law Contribution Claims under Pennsylvania HSCA
The federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) allows private parties that incur cleanup costs to reallocate those costs to others through a cost recovery claim under section …
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Insurance Recoveries and Superfund Contribution Claims
If you have a Superfund cleanup obligation, you may want to collect on insurance (if you have any) and also to seek contribution from others responsible for the Site. What…
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Institutional Controls and Pre-enforcment Review in Cleanup Cases
My October Environmental Practice Column in the Pennsylvania Law Weekly considers issues presented by the intersection of the bar on pre-enforcement review and reliance on “institutional controls.” These issues…
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Defenses to CERCLA Claims Not Listed in Section 107(b)
Section 107(a) of CERCLA says that section 107(b) lists the only defenses to a cost recovery claim, but it turns out there are many more. David Mandelbaum’s monthly column in Pa. Law Weekly explores what this means.
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Declaratory Judgments Under Superfund
When is a declaratory judgment required, permitted, or inappropriate under the federal Superfund statute? My December column in the Legal Intelligencer / Pennsylvania Law Weekly explores these issues.
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