Obama Nominates Superfund Polluter Lawyer To Run DOJ Environment Division

HNBA Supports Nomination of Seasoned Environmental Law Attorney, Ignacia S. Moreno, for Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice

The Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) applauds President Obama's decision to nominate Ignacia S. Moreno as Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division ("Division") of the U.S. Department of Justice. Ms. Moreno has stellar academic and professional credentials, a proven commitment to the environment, and a long record of public and community service. When nominated and confirmed, she will be the first Hispanic woman to serve as an Assistant Attorney General in recent history.

"I have known Ms. Moreno for about fifteen years," said Ramona E. Romero, President of the HNBA, "and can personally attest to her brilliance, integrity, commitment to environmental enforcement, and record of service to the Hispanic community. President Obama could not have made a better choice." Ms. Moreno is a leading practitioner in the field of environmental and natural resources law. During the Clinton Administration, she served with distinction in the Division for over six years. As Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Division, she participated in the management of the Division, led significant domestic and international environmental enforcement initiatives, expanded and managed the Division's international program, handled litigation, and provided advice and counsel to the Assistant Attorney General on a wide variety of matters. Her prior experience with the Division will allow her to be an informed and integral part of the Department of Justice from day one.

Ms. Moreno's professional record also includes two achievements often denied to women of color -- partnership at an important law firm and service as a senior environmental lawyer at a Fortune 50 company. Alejandra Y. Castillo, Co-Chair of the HNBA's Executive Endorsements Committee, noted that Ms. Moreno is "not only a leading expert in the field of environmental law, but she is also one of a small number of attorneys of color in this substantive area that impacts the Latino community and all Americans."

The HNBA is an incorporated, not-for-profit, national membership organization that represents the interests of the more than 100,000 attorneys, judges, law professors, legal assistants, and law students of Hispanic descent in the United States, its territories and Puerto Rico. Through its Presidential Appointments Project, the HNBA has gathered and provided the White House with numerous resumes of Latino lawyers interested in serving in the Administration. For more information about the HNBA and its Appointments Project, please visit www.hnba.com.

....the way Superfund works. Superfund, passed in 1980, imposes retroactive liability upon companies and their corporate successors for acts of contamination that occurred prior to passage of the law, in some cases 100 years ago. Basically, hazardous waste disposal was unregulated or lightly regulated prior to 1976, when the companion federal law, the Resource Conservation Recovery Act, was enacted.

That means that most Superfund sites were created many years ago as a result of the customary waste disposal habits of all of industry and households. About twenty percent of the sites on the Superfund list are, in fact, landfills to which everyone's industrial and household wastes were sent at the time. If those sites need to be cleaned up today because everyone was dumb back then, well, fine. But being identified as a potentially responsible party at a large number of sites doesn't really mean one is an evil polluter. To a large degree, it's merely a reflection of the age or size of a company, and the number of corporate acqusitions it has engaged in over the years. Indeed, the United States government probably deserves the title of world's biggest polluter, because of DOD and DOE sites. G.E. is on a lot of Superfund lists because it is an old and big company that inherited a lot of Superfund liability, not because it is doing any intentional polluting today. Most Superfund sites are just fights about how cleanup costs get distributed among a roomful of large companies.

Finally, G.E.'s attack on parts of the law itself have been directed at a legal provision that EPA sometimes invokes unfairly and/or to shield its fellow federal agencies from liability. To make a long story short, EPA has authority to order cleanups. Those who contest such orders risk daily penalties and treble damages if they refuse. There's no pre-enforcement judicial review, so the due process rights are limited. Further, EPA sometimes issues these orders at sites where the government itself is a lage contributor, and the orders don't go to the federal agency polluter. That's the unfairness G.E. has complained about, and rightly so.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/15/ignacia-moreno-superfund/