What regulation or regulatory authority identifies sites that have hazardous substances, and requires the responsible parties to clean them up?

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund, is the primary federal law governing the cleanup of hazardous substance sites. Enacted in 1980, it grants the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to identify contaminated properties and compel the parties responsible for the contamination to perform the cleanup. If responsible parties cannot be found or are unable to pay, CERCLA provides a trust fund ("Superfund") to finance the remediation efforts. The law establishes a strict liability standard, meaning a party can be held responsible regardless of fault.

B. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) primarily deals with housing policy and fair housing laws, not the broad cleanup of industrial or commercial hazardous waste sites.

C. While a State Department of Environmental Quality often implements and enforces cleanup programs, CERCLA is the foundational federal law that created this national framework and authority.

D. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires federal agencies to assess the environmental impact of proposed actions, not to clean up existing contamination from past activities.

1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "Summary of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund)." This official documentation states, "CERCLA ... provided broad Federal authority to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances... [and] establishes prohibitions and requirements concerning closed and abandoned hazardous waste sites." Retrieved from the official EPA website.

2. University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Course Catalog, LAW 737: Environmental Law. The course description explicitly covers "major federal environmental statutes," including "the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) (governing liability for contaminated property)." This confirms its role as the key legislation in this area.

3. Ando, A. W., & Khanna, M. (2004). "Natural Resource Damage and the Public Trust Doctrine: A Path to Coherence." Journal of Land, Resources, & Environmental Law, 24(1), 1-26. This academic article discusses CERCLA's framework for holding parties liable for cleanup costs and damages to natural resources from hazardous substance releases (see Section II.A. CERCLA).