James DeLong

About the author: James DeLong is an attorney specializing in environmental issues.

The federal Superfund program has been embroiled in controversy ever since it was established as part of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980. Although it has achieved some successes, the program has been largely ineffective in its goal of cleaning up the nation's worst toxic waste dumps. As James DeLong explains in a 1997 article written for Regulation, a journal published by a Washingon, D.C.-based think tank known as the Cato Institute, Superfund mandates joint responsibility among all those even remotely identified as contributing to each toxic site. The result has been a vast tangle of lawsuits and litigation that has put large fees in the pockets of lawyers but paralyzed the cleanup and remediation of poisoned...