Page 98 - Akerman | 2016 Guide to Doing Business in Florida

CHAPTER 10. ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

Federal and Florida State Environmental Compliance
Robyn D. Neely, Esq. | (407) 419-8549 | robyn.neely@akerman.com

10.1 Federal Environmental Laws Considerations

10.1.1 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”)
42 U.S.C. § 6901, et seq. RCRA gives the United States Environmental Protection Agency
(“EPA”) the authority to control hazardous waste from the “cradle-to-grave.” This includes the
generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. RCRA also set
forth a framework for the management of non-hazardous solid wastes. The 1986 amendments
to RCRA enabled EPA to address environmental problems that could result from underground
tanks storing petroleum and other hazardous substances. The administration of RCRA has
been delegated to a number of states by statute (including to Florida through the Hazardous
Waste Management Act) and, therefore, the states regulate most aspects of hazardous waste
management within their borders.

RCRA Subtitle C authorizes EPA to regulate the treatment, storage, transportation, and disposal
of hazardous wastes, which are wastes that may cause, or significantly contribute to, an
increase in mortality or an increase in serious irreversible, or incapacitating reversible, illness; or
pose a substantial present or potential hazard to human health or environment when improperly
treated, stored, transported, or disposed of, or otherwise managed. This RCRA program is
implemented through regulatory requirements and/or federally or state issued permits.

RCRA Subtitle D also provides for the promulgation of guidelines for nonhazardous solid waste
collection, transport, separation, recovery, and disposal practices and systems. “Solid waste”
is defined as any garbage, refuse, or sludge from a waste treatment plant, water supply
treatment plant, or air pollution control facility, and other discarded material, including solid,
liquid, semisolid, or contained gaseous material resulting from industrial, commercial, mining,
and agricultural operations, and from community activities. It does not include solid or
dissolved material in domestic sewage, or solid or dissolved materials in irrigation return flows or
industrial discharges that are point sources under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act
(“FWPCA”), or source, special nuclear or byproduct material as defined by the Atomic Energy
Act. Perhaps the most significant impact of RCRA, as amended, is the authority to impose a
total ban on land disposal of untreated hazardous wastes.

Finally, to address the growing environmental threat posed by leaking underground storage
tanks (“USTs”), in November 1986, Congress amended RCRA to add Subtitle I which provides
EPA with the authority to regulate USTs containing petroleum and other hazardous substances.
10.1.2 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and
Liability Act (“CERCLA” or “Superfund”)

42 U.S.C. § 9601, et seq. CERCLA, or Superfund as it is commonly called, was enacted in
1980 to provide for the clean-up of abandoned disposal sites. It also provides a vehicle for the
EPA to recover for damage to natural resources caused by hazardous substance releases.
This statute has possibly generated more litigation and controversy in the past 25 years than
any other federal legislation.

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