(Adds background to case, comments from opinions by Justices
Roberts and Gorsuch)
By Andrew Chung
April 20 - The U.S. Supreme Court handed BP Plc unit
Atlantic Richfield Co a victory on Monday, making it harder for
Montana landowners to seek a more extensive cleanup of a
hazardous waste site than the federal government had ordered.
In a case involving the Environmental Protection Agency's
Superfund program responsible for cleaning up certain toxic
waste sites, the justices threw out a state court decision that
had allowed the claims for restoration damages by the private
landowners at Atlantic Richfield's former Anaconda copper
smelter in western Montana to proceed to trial.
In the 7-2 ruling authored by conservative Chief Justice
John Roberts, the court decided that under the law governing
Superfund sites the property owners needed the EPA's approval
before undertaking restoration of their own contaminated land.
That system ensures the "careful development of a single
EPA-led cleanup effort rather than tens of thousands of
competing individual ones," Roberts wrote.
In dissent, Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by fellow
conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, denounced the implication
that property owners "cannot be trusted to clean up their lands
without causing trouble."
The case hinged on the scope of the Superfund law. The
Superfund program, started in 1980, is intended to identify
contaminated sites and ensure that those responsible for the
pollution pay for the hazardous waste cleanup. It has been
criticized over the years for slow cleanup efforts.
The decision represented a victory for companies like
Atlantic Richfield and business groups that said the lower
court's decision could have led to thousands more lawsuits
against companies nationwide, further complicating federally
mandated improvements to contaminated land.
The Anaconda smelter operated between 1884 and 1980 near the
small community of Opportunity, Montana, providing much of the
world's copper supply. The area is filled with creeks and
streams that cross forests and farmland. It was designated as a
Superfund site in 1983 to reduce arsenic contamination in
residential yards, pastures and ground water.
The landowners sued in 2008 in state court to restore their
properties to pre-smelter conditions. Atlantic Richfield said
such state law claims were barred by the EPA's actions under the
Superfund law.
The Montana Supreme Court ruled against Atlantic Richfield
in 2017.
President Donald Trump's administration and industry lobby
groups backed Atlantic Richfield, which has spent $450 million
on EPA-ordered soil and ground water restoration at the site.
Monday's ruling included a sharp exchange between Roberts
and Gorsuch. Roberts sought to allay landowner concerns because
the law does not apply to minor actions such as planting a
garden, installing a lawn sprinkler or digging a sandbox.
That is fine, Gorsuch replied, "provided, of course, they
don't scoop out too much arsenic in the process."
Gorsuch said the court should have allowed restoration
efforts under state law and compared requiring EPA approval to
"paternalistic central planning." Roberts said it was instead
the "spirit of cooperative federalism."
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)