REPORT: GM gets out from under its polluted sites scot-free

Oh, goody. Gotta love Chapter 11

I suppose CERCLA/SARA will need more funding

 

The Prius gets the blame for Sudbury Ontario, the Volt can get the blame for this, right?

 

As a matter of fact, Superfund will need new funding. It has nothing to do with the GM bankruptcy, but rather with the recent Supreme Court ruling that removes the strict and joint & several liability scheme from many situations. See BURLINGTON NORTHERN & SANTA FE RAILWAY CO. et al. v. UNITED STATES et al.

(Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit) No. 07–1601. Argued February 24, 2009—Decided May 4, 2009. A .pdf is attached.​

What this means is that the responsible parties at a Superfund site still are going to be obligated to fund the cleanup, per each party's share of responsibility for the problem. The change is that those responsible parties are not going to have to pay for the shares of the other parties who cannot be identified or are out of business (bankruptcy or other causes). This rectifies a certain inequity in application of the law, but it makes it clear that the U.S. government is going to be responsible for the "orphan" shares that remain.

 

Great research. I'll file this one away for possible use in my PhD thesis...

 

GM should clean up its messes? Oh no, that was the old GM. This is the new GM, those messes aren't ours anymore.

This is a huge loophole in the whole capitalism scheme. The spoils of success belong to a few, the disasters of failure belong to us all.

 

I should have phrased my comment

[Sarcasm Mode = ON] I suppose CERCLA/SARA will need more funding [Sarcasm Mode = OFF]

There are a lot of messes out there, such as Formerly Used Defense Sites, forgotten/abandoned underground storage tanks, old chemical plants, industrial sites, etc

I honestly don't think anybody went out of their way to purposely try to kill us. It's just that, over 40-50 years ago, nobody thought anything unusual about sticking a single wall, thin gauge, underground storage tank into the ground

Now we're faced with a legacy of heavily contaminated sites, with underground plumes royally screwing up acquifers. I've done some work on site remediation, it's expensive and dangerous

 

I should have posted: [Responding to a shrewd observation = ON]You've got that right![Responding to a shrewd observation = OFF]

I wasn't aiming for a full-blown observation/discussion/opinion piece, but I have a feeling we have some similar appreciation for the situation.

I don't disagree with the sentiment and opinion behind CERCLA/SARA, but I've never believed the public policy portion of the strict liability piece for past acts was correct. On a going-forward basis (meaning 1980 and into the future), I think the policy is correct. Really. We should stick it to the people who ignore CERCLA, RCRA and the other environmental laws for self-aggrandizement. They should pay for avoiding the appropriate actions spelled out in laws on the books at the time they've acted.

As written, Superfund is an ex post facto law. Despite the legal losses on that argument, I think the law speaks for itself: If what you did was legal in 1948, that doesn't mean you can't be prosecuted for the act just because the applicable law wasn't passed until 1980 (or 1986 in parts).

The recent BNSF case rights a bit of the wrong by having the responsible parties pay for only their shares and not for the other shares of persons long since deceased. Still, I believe that if public policy demands fixes for these old harms (and many of them are serious harms!), then public funds should be used. If the acts were illegal, improper, or even outside the norm for the time period, then I'd agree with assessment of costs to the responsible parties. Yes, it would take some work to determine what was appropriate at the time, but it would still cost less than all of the legal challenges that have happened just to get the law to its more reasonable expression.

 

Oh the irony of ironies . . . GM's malibu hybrid, which they no longer build, and the Volt, that they NEVER have built, and the EV1, that they crushed, and the land barges they push, topped with the green commercials that we the tax payer fund. Ya gotta love it.


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You bet. Something tells me that after 5-6 drinks, we'd have a lot of solutions to the problem

Oh, isn't THAT the truth? Oh, nothing heavy drinking won't cure. Oh, my poor enlarged aching liver ....

 

Hmmm, I wonder if BP are reading this?

 

We, the tax payers, are paying to clean up the waste caused by manufacturing of those SUVs?!!! We already paid (cash for clunkers) to dump their SUVs. We are paying again to clean up the mess they created.

 

I don't know how it is modernly, but back in the 1980's creating these kinds of toxic stews wasn't just criminal - private citizens could sue (though a daunting task) under Federal (and many state's) the clean air/water act(s). The real money came from atty fees. But since the Feds now own the toxic sites, that would be quite a can of worms. We the people, would be litigating against we the people. Hmmm ... and they say I'M schizophrenic.

And did I mention how much I love it when I see adds by GM saying how they've paid back the money. Oh the irony.

 

they don't need to, they have a liabilty limit of 75 million thanks to the u.s. congress.

 

Is this really a change from what would have happened if GM retained the responsibility? Possibly, GM would have been quite effective at finding ways to put off spending money recovering the sites. In all likelihood they would have just retained the sites and done nothing with them. Someone know why this would not be the case?

 

:ballchain::angry::frusty:

 

no no no . . . THAT is not GM . . . no . . . THAT's the OLD GM . . . :

New GM Shirks Responsibility for Old Toxic Dumps and Mercury Disposal | Hybrid Cars

See, the NEW and Improved GM is much better . . . nicer . . . truthful . . . and profitable.



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