THE POLLUTION DOESN’T DISAPPEAR WHEN THE FACTORY CLOSES.

JUSTICE · ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Published by Langhorne P. Breedlove

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2026 · 1:13 AM ET

Tags: Superfund · Brownfields · Toxic Waste · Abandoned Mines · Environmental Remediation · Polluter Liability

Dear fellow American proletariat: A company can close a plant, sell the property, retire the executives and leave behind a lovely little surprise in the groundwater. Decades later, the people who never owned a share of the business may still be paying for laboratory tests, bottled water and the privilege of wondering whether the playground is safe. The profit got a forwarding address. The contamination did not.

American Proletariat proposes a coordinated national effort to discover, assess, prioritize and clean contaminated sites, with enforceable responsibility for parties legally liable for the damage. This means protecting people first, distinguishing emergency hazards from long-term risks, building public inventories that can be trusted, and financing work that the private parties cannot or will not undertake. It does not mean calling every unused industrial lot a toxic catastrophe or promising the same remedy at every site.

THE MANDATE

Require a public, interoperable inventory of suspected and confirmed contamination across eligible federal, state, Tribal and local programs, with appropriate protections for private addresses, sensitive cultural sites and active enforcement investigations. Establish uniform minimums for risk screening and transparent priority decisions while allowing site-specific cleanup goals, lawful land-use choices, community consultation and independent review.

Use existing cleanup and liability authorities first. Expand response capacity for urgent exposure, address backlogs in site assessment and remediation, and negotiate or enforce recoveries from potentially responsible parties where law supports them. Offer qualified communities technical assistance and cleanup support when liability is unresolved or available responsible parties lack resources. A national strategy cannot mean a blank federal check for polluters who can afford to pay.

ROOTS & HISTORY

On December 11, 1980, Congress enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, commonly called CERCLA or Superfund. It created federal response powers, a hazardous-site cleanup trust fund and legal mechanisms to make responsible parties bear costs (Source 01). The law responded to a national problem exposed by places such as Love Canal in New York: contamination could persist long after the transactions and industrial decisions that created it (Source 01).

Superfund is not simply a taxpayer-funded cleanup company. The law can impose strict, retroactive and, in certain circumstances, joint-and-several liability on potentially responsible parties, including owners, operators, arrangers and transporters. It also provides defenses and tailored protections for certain categories (Source 02). The legal question is who is actually liable under a statute, not who is unpopular in a photograph of the factory opening.

CERCLA distinguishes short-term removal actions for urgent threats from longer-term remedial work, which generally relies on the National Priorities List for federally financed remedial actions (Source 01). Brownfields, underground storage tanks, certain state-led cleanups, abandoned mines and federal facility remediation can involve different laws and responsible agencies. Those categories are related, but treating them as legally identical would be a spectacular way to lose an expensive lawsuit.

TODAY & BY THE NUMBERS

At the end of federal fiscal year 2025, EPA reported 1,343 final sites, 38 proposed sites and 459 deleted sites on its National Priorities List (Source 03). A listing is an administrative designation, not a count of every contaminated parcel in America; a deletion or completed construction phase is not necessarily evidence that every environmental risk has vanished. EPA also reported 195 removal actions addressing imminent and substantial threats in FY2025 (Source 03).

In June 2026, EPA announced a Superfund Solutions initiative directed at more than 1,340 listed sites, emphasizing faster decisions and modernization (Source 04). The existence of a current federal initiative must be acknowledged; AP's proposal should evaluate whether it improves health protections, accountability and speed rather than pretending that no one is conducting cleanup until we invent a better slogan.

EPA selected 190 communities for 193 FY2026 Brownfields grants worth more than $248 million and announced $22.5 million in supplemental revolving-loan funding for 31 existing recipients—more than $270 million across the two announced streams (Source 05). Selection is not identical to immediate expenditure or proof that all proposed cleanups are complete. Brownfields grants help communities assess, plan, clean and reuse qualifying properties, often involving different rules than Superfund remedial actions.

Abandoned hardrock mines add another substantial challenge. The Government Accountability Office reported that the Forest Service revised its estimate of exposure from abandoned hardrock mines from roughly $6 billion to $12 billion, and continued to call for better total cost information and performance measures (Source 06). A fiscal-exposure estimate is not an enacted appropriation, and it should not be added casually to the cost of every other environmental program.

Federal nuclear-waste remediation is another distinct obligation. In July 2026, GAO reported that the Department of Energy estimated more than half a trillion dollars, measured as of FY2025, to finish cleanup from decades of weapons production and energy research (Source 07). That portfolio belongs in any honest national inventory, but it must be modeled separately to avoid disguising extraordinarily expensive federal-facility liabilities as an ordinary municipal brownfield grant.

THE LEGAL PATH

Congress can amend CERCLA, fund agency operations and state or Tribal partnerships, specify public reporting and establish lawful additional remedies. EPA already possesses Superfund response and enforcement authority under CERCLA (Sources 01, 02). State and Tribal programs, federal land managers and the Department of Energy hold separate responsibilities; new law must define coordination without erasing existing authorities or sovereign jurisdiction.

Polluter liability requires investigation, notice, sound evidence, procedural protections and access to review. Brownfield redevelopers and innocent purchasers can have statutory defenses or protections where requirements are met; an indiscriminate liability expansion could discourage safe reuse. The proposal must also address ownership, long-term monitoring, institutional controls, water rights, environmental review and the legal treatment of contamination crossing jurisdictional boundaries.

THE PLAN

PHASE ONE · FIND IT, MAP IT, TELL THE TRUTH

Combine existing EPA, state, Tribal, federal-land and local information into a public discovery and screening portal, preserving precise legal status for each location. Record suspected contaminants, sampling results, pathways to people and ecosystems, responsible agencies, enforcement actions, cleanup decisions and information gaps. Give affected communities access to clear explanations and testing opportunities. Do not color every untested parcel red and then call the map scientific.

PHASE TWO · RANK RISKS, NOT POLITICAL CONNECTIONS

Use transparent, scientifically defensible criteria for current and potential exposure through drinking water, air, soil, food and occupational contact; severity; vulnerable populations; ecological effects; and urgency. Prioritize immediate protective action where needed while developing durable remedies. Distinguish exposure under control, remedy selected, construction complete, and safe long-term stewardship: those are not synonyms.

PHASE THREE · MAKE LIABLE PARTIES PAY

Strengthen investigations, enforce applicable liability, pursue cost recovery and use negotiated cleanup agreements where they protect the public and produce timely outcomes. Ensure financial assurance and cleanup plans are realistic, with performance milestones and independent oversight. When a responsible party is insolvent or cannot be identified, assess the lawful use of Superfund resources, state programs and targeted grants. Do not let litigation become an excuse to leave residents drinking polluted water in the meantime.

PHASE FOUR · REUSE LAND WITHOUT RECREATING HARM

Support qualified brownfield assessments, cleanup, training and reuse plans with community participation. The November 2026 federal brownfield cleanup competition permits eligible applicants to seek up to $500,000 and ordinarily requires a 20% cost share, subject to published conditions (Source 08). Work from the rules of each funding round, not imaginary universal eligibility. Cleaned property might become housing, workplaces, habitat or a public park—but the end use should be tested against the remedy and the community's priorities.

THE ONE-YEAR & TEN-YEAR LEDGER

The baseline includes existing EPA Superfund and Brownfields spending, responsible-party-financed work, state and Tribal programs, abandoned-mine liabilities and Department of Energy cleanup obligations. An October 2026 Congressional Research Service assessment explains that the Superfund Trust Fund receives revenue from petroleum and chemical excise taxes, annual appropriations, recoveries, penalties and interest; the chemical tax authorization runs through December 31, 2031 under current law (Source 09). The existence of a revenue stream does not mean that every site is fully financed.

Here is explicitly illustrative arithmetic, NOT a national cost estimate: suppose Congress appropriated an additional $300 million for year-one discovery, sampling and emergency protection, plus $200 million for selected cleanup design and work. First-year incremental gross obligations would be $500 million. If the following nine years averaged $450 million in further program obligations, the undiscounted ten-year sum would be $4.55 billion. Those assumed amounts have not been supported by a site-level needs assessment and do not purport to cover the existing Superfund portfolio, the Forest Service's estimated exposure or DOE's much larger obligations.

The real ledger must forecast ten fiscal years individually, with site counts and complexity, assessment labor and laboratory costs, removal and remediation, water treatment, hazardous-material handling, long-term monitoring, grants, procurement, community assistance, legal expenses, federal staffing, inflation, state matching, private-party contributions, recoveries, trust-fund revenues and uncertainty. Do not double-count recoveries as both project funding and separate savings. Expected insurance or settlement recoveries should be risk-adjusted rather than treated as cash already received.

Finance decisions should keep legally enforceable polluter payments, federal appropriations, earmarked tax receipts, and benefits such as avoided exposure or increased property value in distinct columns. Public-health improvements are major outcomes, but a hypothetical decrease in illness is not automatically a Treasury receipt. The ten-year model should publish ranges, a baseline, and an explicit financing gap where data remain incomplete.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

A national inventory could generate alarm where evidence is uncertain, stigmatize properties or disclose sensitive information. Poorly chosen remedies can move contaminants rather than neutralize them. A rush to declare sites complete can neglect groundwater monitoring and future land-use risks. Communities may distrust assessments when the companies paying for them also supply the data. And a cleanup program can become a subsidy for profitable landowners unless responsibility and benefit sharing are examined.

There are legitimate debates over risk thresholds, cleanup speed, technical remedies, land reuse, federal versus state authority and how much priority should go to sites with concentrated exposure rather than high redevelopment potential. Critics of stronger requirements may warn about compliance costs and litigation; supporters may emphasize prevention, health and long-neglected communities. The test is not whose rhetoric is greener. It is whether the chosen remedy reliably reduces documented risk at a defensible cost.

MEASURING SUCCESS

Report sites discovered and assessed, verified exposure pathways, urgent protective actions, human exposure controlled, remedies selected, cleanups completed, long-term monitoring compliance, acres safely returned to use, enforceable cost recovery, average time to milestone, Tribal and community participation, dollars spent by source and administrative or litigation delays. Count risk reductions and durable outcomes—not merely press conferences at newly installed fences.

The people living beside a contaminated site should not have to become chemists, lawyers and unpaid historians just to learn what is under their feet. We cannot reverse every industrial decision of the last two centuries. We can identify the damage, make responsible parties answer for it, protect the living and stop passing the cleanup bill to generations who never got a share of the profits.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

01 · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Superfund: CERCLA Overview; CERCLA enacted December 11, 1980.

https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-cercla-overview

02 · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Superfund Liability; potentially responsible parties and legal defenses.

https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/superfund-liability

03 · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Superfund Remedial Annual Accomplishments Metrics, FY2025; site inventory and response actions.

https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-remedial-annual-accomplishments-metrics-fiscal-year-2025

04 · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Superfund Solutions Initiative; announced June 2026.

https://www.epa.gov/superfund/superfund-solutions-initiative

05 · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Applications Selected for FY2026 Brownfields Multipurpose, Assessment, Cleanup Grants and Revolving Loan Fund Supplemental Funding; June 24, 2026.

https://www.epa.gov/brownfields/applications-selected-fy-2026-brownfields-multipurpose-assessment-cleanup-grants-and

06 · U.S. Government Accountability Office — Abandoned Hardrock Mines: Land Management Agencies Should Improve Reporting of Total Cleanup Costs, GAO-23-105408; with subsequent agency updates.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105408

07 · U.S. Government Accountability Office — Nuclear Waste Cleanup: Changes Needed to Ensure DOE Is Not Prematurely Excluding Less Expensive Options for Large Projects, GAO-26-108193; July 2, 2026.

https://files.gao.gov/reports/GAO-26-108193/index.html

08 · U.S. Environmental Protection Agency / Grants.gov — FY2027 Brownfield Cleanup Grants; posted November 2, 2026.

https://www.grants.gov/search-results-detail/364202

09 · Congressional Research Service — CERCLA and Superfund Financing, R49479; October 7, 2026.

https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/2026-10-07_R49479_278dfe433da49413a7f4a4c19f0935e64db0e969.html

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