ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the Environmental Decade of the 1970s, thoughtful students of the new field of environmental law observed an interesting phenomenon. While a homeowner could enjoin a neighbor from harming his or her land and could recover damages for an injury to it, public natural resources lacked a clear champion. The states possessed limited common-law authority to protect public resources, and the federal government had to rely on explicit legislative mandates before acting. Governments lacked broad power to recover damages for injury to public natural resources. Against this background, in a little-noticed provision of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), known as Superfund, Congress created the first federal and state resources trustees and empowered them to seek damages for injuries to public natural resources caused by toxic wastes. 1 The purpose of this chapter is to probe into the relationship between Superfund and the common law, to show that Congress does not view traditional common-law doctrines as a limitation on the scope of Superfund's remedial and compensatory provisions.
