On behalf of a bipartisan coalition consisting of the CNMI and 24 states plus the District of Columbia, the Office of the Attorney General has filed an amicus brief supporting the government of Guam in its closely-watched U.S. Supreme Court litigation against the U.S. government concerning cleanup efforts at a contaminated site that was developed, used, and maintained for decades by the U.S. Navy. <\/p>\n
Years after the U.S. Navy abandoned the site, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued Guam under the Clean Water Act, alleging that the site had polluted U.S. territorial waters. Guam entered into a consent decree with EPA in 2004, and the resulting remediation project for the site is estimated to cost $160 million\u2014a staggering figure by any measure, but especially for a small jurisdiction like Guam. <\/p>\n
The Guam government then sued United States, seeking to recover costs associated with the site\u2019s remediation under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, which allows for the recovery of remediation costs from responsible parties. A U.S. District Court allowed the cost recovery claim to proceed; however, in February 2020, the D.C. Circuit held that the lawsuit presented a contribution claim that was time-barred by CERCLA\u2019s statute of limitations. Guam sought a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court, which was granted in early January 2021. <\/p>\n
The amicus brief advocates for Guam\u2019s position in the matter, from the perspective of the interests of states and territories. In particular, the brief argues that the D.C. Circuit\u2019s decision is at odds with states\u2019 interests because (1) it discourages cooperation and settlement with federal and state environmental regulators; (2) it allows the United States to evade liability for contamination it is responsible for, leaving individual states and their residents with a disproportionate financial burden; and (3) it undermines principles of federalism by threatening to override state-law policy choices regarding how to address environmental cleanup and division of financial responsibility. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur office sees the issues in this case as significant to all states and territories and was excited for the opportunity to take the lead in coordinating this effort to support the government of Guam,\u201d said Attorney General Edward Manibusan.<\/p>\n
A ruling in the case is expected by the end of the Supreme Court\u2019s current term in summer 2021. <\/p>\n
The law firm of Husch Blackwell LLP prepared the brief with assistance from the Office of the Attorney General team, which included deputy attorney general Lillian Tenorio, Chief Solicitor J. Robert Glass, Jr., and assistant attorneys general Alison Nelson, John Lowrey, Keisha Blaise, and Keith Chambers II. (PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On behalf of a bipartisan coalition consisting of the CNMI and 24 states plus the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":331088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[86,320],"class_list":["post-339625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-oag","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}