By Jeffrey Karp, Senior Counsel, and Edward Mahaffey, Law Clerk
The CLEAN Future Act (Act), introduced in its current form on March 2, 2021 by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, is designed primarily to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Reflecting the environmental policy goals of the new administration, which Democrats in Congress are seeking to effectuate, the bill addresses a broad range of topics, including clean electricity standards, funding for electric vehicle infrastructure, building code changes, climate risk disclosure requirements, Superfund program reforms, and environmental justice initiatives.
The most recent of the Congressional hearings on the legislation was held on May 13, 2021, to address proposed reforms of the Superfund program, including backlog problems, decreased public funding for cleanups, and a heightened risk of additional releases of hazardous substances from contaminated sites due to more frequent occurrences of natural disasters. Thus, for example, the Act would require that potentially responsible parties at sites in the Superfund program provide financial assurance of their capability to cleanup such facilities, to a degree consistent with exposure to risk of additional releases of hazardous substances. The bill also would impose a 10-year deadline on the remediation of such sites with a higher risk of additional releases due to climate-related concerns.