Understanding and Protecting Natural Resources

Abstract

The enactment of the Comprehensive Environmental Compensation, Response and Liability Act of 1980 (“CERCLA” or “Superfund”) was an attempt by Congress to respond to the massive pollution and contamination of the environment in the United States. However, as the past twenty-five years have demonstrated, CERCLA has not been effective in enabling the recovery of damages for pollution and restoring injured natural resources. In fact, CERCLA has actually enabled polluters to prolong any meaningful cleanup of natural resources by permitting them to engage in years of ineffective and mostly useless remediation and feasibility studies. Moreover, the response time of CERCLA is poor, thus prolonging what is already a tediously slow road to restoration. The pursuit of NRD is the last chance to accomplish what the United States originally wanted to do with Superfund - to cleanup the nation’s natural resources and make the polluters compensate both the government and the public for the injuries that they have suffered and will continue to endure. Because our natural resources are being destroyed and are disappearing at an alarming rate, NRD litigation has become increasingly important to preserve these natural assets for the public and for future generations.