Unusual Alliance Urges Justices To Preserve States' Claims Under Superfund

摘要

Democratic state attorneys general and free-market legal groups, two interests that rarely agree, are urging the Supreme Court to allow Montana landowners to pursue state common law damages claims over a Superfund site, warning that EPA and industry arguments seeking to preempt such claims would disrupt the federal-state balance. A coalition of 15 Democratic attorneys general (AG), including those from New York, California and other states, filed an Oct. 22 amicus brief expressing fears that Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), the petitioner in ARCO v. Gregory Christian, et al, is seeking "broad preemptive relief that could interfere with the constitutionally-established federal-state balance and undercut states' pursuit of natural resource damages suits. "While the specific facts of this case concern a dispute between private parties, petitioner's arguments seek broad preemptive relief that could interfere with the delicate 'constitutional balance between the States and the Federal Government,'" the states say.