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The rhetoric of enforcement under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“CERCLA”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601-75, plays well in public. The government seeks “cleanup” and makes “the polluter pay.”
Cf. S. Rep. No. 96-848 at 13 (1980);
Atlantic Richfield Co. v. Christian, 140 S. Ct. 1335, 1345 (2020). Contrast that with mitigating climate change where, in the words of the Pogo Earth Day poster, “we have met the enemy, and he is us.” Four years ago, then-new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt described the Superfund program as the “cornerstone” of EPA’s “core mission” of protecting the environment and human health. Memorandum on Prioritizing the Superfund Program (May 22, 2017). (To be sure, as things turned out, emphasizing Superfund may not really have been what the last administration was about.