A COMPENDIUM OF Success Stories in State Involvement

2 On December 11, 1980 the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter, creating the federal gov-ernment's program to clean up the nation's uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. It quickly became clear, however, that the new Superfund program could not address all of the hazardous waste disposal sites being discovered across the country. Instead, it was agreed the Superfund program would focus on the identification, investigation , and cleanup of the nation's worst hazardous waste sites, and the much larger number of remaining sites would have to be addressed by State environmental programs. The Superfund program is different than some other federal environmental programs in that there is no provision for authorization or delegation of program functions to the States. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) retains primary responsibility for implementation of the program. However, CER-CLA and the National Contingency Plan (NCP) provide for significant State involvement throughout the various phases of the program. Subpart F of the NCP requires that US EPA ensure meaningful and substantial State involvement in hazardous substance responses, and further requires that US EPA provide an opportunity for State participation in removal, pre-remedial, remedial, and enforcement response activities. In addition, US EPA is required to consider State acceptance as one of the nine criteria for evaluation of proposed remedies contained in the NCP. The NCP also provides States the opportunity to act as Lead Agency in Super-fund response actions. CERCLA, the NCP, and US EPA policy also place certain obligations on States that require State involvement. For example, in order to conduct fund-lead remedial actions, CERCLA requires the State to contribute 10% of remedial action costs and to assure full implementation and funding of all required operation and maintenance activities. In most cases, as a matter of policy, US EPA requires the concurrence of the State's governor prior to nominating a site for listing on the National Priorities List (NPL). The NCP also requires US EPA to seek State concur-rence on remedy decisions. Meeting these obligations requires a high level of State involvement in all phases of the Superfund program. Of course, there are many other reasons why States stay involved in the Superfund process above and beyond the obligations contained in the NCP and CERCLA. Among these reasons is the responsibility of each State to ensure, to the greatest extent possible, that sites in …