Supreme Court will hear Guam cleanup liability dispute

摘要

The Supreme Court said last week that it would get involved in Guam's efforts to get the United States to helpfoot the bill for a $160 million cleanup of a landfill that originated as a Navy waste disposal site.In an order issued late Friday, the nation's highest bench agreed to consider whether the U.S. governmentshould be held liable for the cleanup under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or Superfund law."Guam is left on the hook for all of the costs - more than $160 million - of cleaning up a waste site that theUnited States Navy itself created and then used to dump toxic wastes for decades going back to World War II,"attorneys for the territory wrote in their Sept. 16 petition in the case, titled Guam v. United States. "That figure isa staggering sum for the people of Guam, alone comprising nearly a fifth of its total annual budget.