Posted on January 25, 2018 by David Rosenblatt
As lawyers, many of us enjoy the “rush” of starting a new case. A new matter can be a welcome fresh tablet, providing us with the opportunity to use our skills and experience in creative and interesting ways to further our client’s interests.
But — for those of us who have fought for clients on the front lines of EPA’s Superfund program over the years — maybe not so much. As Superfund practioners, we must deal with a cumbersome, almost 40-year-old law and an agency whose approach is dictated by a raft of standard operating procedures within an entrenched bureaucracy, decades-old guidance documents and forms, and a seemingly endless review and comment process.
To add to the challenge, clients have changed over the past 40 years, even if the Superfund law and its implementation have not. Today’s clients demand quicker, more practical, and cost-effective solutions in resolving their legal problems, without years of negotiations and endless administrative boxes to check off along the way in assessing and cleaning up sites.
There are other paradigms. Many states have operated as laboratories of innovation in site cleanup through privatization and reduction of bureaucratic obstacles. In July 2017, EPA issued a Superfund Task Force report recommending numerous reforms to streamline the Superfund process and expedite cleanup.
Yet despite these advances on the state level — and a supposedly business-friendly administration now in Washington and at EPA — Superfund, well, remains Superfund.
So here I embark on yet another Superfund Special Notice negotiation in early 2018. I am armed with fresh ideas to bring to the table and an EPA Task Force report in my pocket, just hoping I will discover that a few of these new approaches will somehow have resonance with my EPA counterparts and that Superfund 2018 is somehow different from Superfund 1998.
Anyone want to take any bets on what I will find?