Posted on April 14, 2016 by David Van Slyke
In the CERCLA world, the low hanging fruit has largely been picked. Long gone are the days of the run-of-the-mill $3M RI/FS leading up to a $30M RD/RA. We are getting to the tough stuff now – the megasites – and all the difficult issues related to PRP involvement in RD/RA (whether via consent decree settlement or compliance with a UAO) are on steroids.
One of those more difficult issues in the context of multi-party megasites relates to financial assurance (“FA”) requirements in RD/RA UAOs and consent decrees. The 29-page April 2015 EPA FA Guidance, while helpful on some levels, is remarkably thin (2 paragraphs) when it comes to dealing with multi-party sites. And in a breathtaking understatement, especially with regard to big-ticket sites, EPA notes in the guidance that “FA matters can get complicated with multi-PRP-led cleanups….”
Recently, added pressure has been placed on the Agency in this area as a result of a March 31, 2016 EPA Inspector General report stating that “[d]ata quality deficiencies and a lack of internal controls prevent the EPA from properly overseeing and managing its financial assurance program for RCRA and CERCLA.” In particular, EPA’s OIG analysis indicates (among other things) that there are 128 CERCLA sites with no (or expired) financial assurance in place and the estimated cleanup costs for those sites is over $3.7B.
As Proposed Plans and RODs continue to roll out from the Agency with billion-dollar-plus price tags – typically related to multi-party contaminated sediment sites – the difficulty of up-front funding of these hugely expensive remedies becomes obvious. PRPs at multi-party sites will have varying abilities and business desires to up-front fund liquid FA mechanisms, and while some entities will prefer (and be able) to provide assurance by a financial test or corporate guarantee, many will not.
And EPA’s willingness to deal with multiple mechanisms (either different mechanisms from multiple parties or multiple mechanisms from a PRP group) is limited. In fact, the use of multiple financial assurance mechanisms is discouraged under the 2015 FA Guidance. Further, the September 2014 Model Remedial Design / Remedial Action Consent Decree along with the September 2015 Model Unilateral Order for Remedial Design / Remedial Action specifically state that while PRPs may use multiple mechanisms, this can only occur with liquid mechanisms – trust funds, surety bonds guaranteeing payment or letters of credit. Interestingly, the 2014 Model CD also allows the use of insurance policies, indicating that the Agency’s thinking about the liquidity of insurance policies has evolved.
The viability of financial assurances is not simply an EPA-driven issue. Given the multi-decade cleanup process and huge stakes involved at CERCLA megasites, and with the overlay of joint and several liability, PRPs need to be thinking carefully about the financial viability of their co-PRPs when entering into CDs or PRP agreements to perform under a UAO. And regardless of how EPA ultimately decides to deal with this issue at megasites, PRPs no doubt will be pushing each other to ensure long-term equitable responsibility for meeting their FA obligations at this new breed of Superfund sites.
Tags: CERCLA, financial assurance, megasites