| 英文摘要 |
“Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Act”(hereunder referred to as “the Act”) was promulgated on 2, 2000 and had an overall revision on February 3, 2010. All pertinent regulations and administrative rules were issued continuously thereafter, so that the authorities at all levels may have enough legal ground and basis in the performance of land contamination remediation services. However, for the government agencies, the remediation works on soil and groundwater pollution are actually very tough, not only because these works involve the particular situations of respective contamination site and the plurality and variety in available techniques, but also due to the lengthy duration and huge costs for remediation. The local authorities, in requesting for the supporting payment of remediation costs from the Soil and Groundwater Pollution Remediation Fund, shall face various legal issues and complicated administrative disputes, such as the search and identification of responsible persons, preservation of evidence, administrative procedures, cost recovery litigation, administrative execution etc. The objective of this project was aimed to provide a comprehensive legal consulting service, including litigation and non-litigation matters, and to assist competent authorities at all levels to resolve the legal ambiguities and discrepancies concerning the Act. In this Project, our team has completed the main results of work as follows: (1) to respond to 7 legal questions presented by the environmental agencies, and to provide 43 legal opinions in addition; (2) to represent EPA and/or local government agencies in dealing with 9 administrative appeals and 31 litigation cases, and obtaining satisfactory results in almost all of these cases; (3) to draft 5 planning reports on the recovery for remediation costs incurred in contaminated sites, in order to facilitate the enforcement of the Act; (4) to provide 17 suggestions concerning the amendment to the Act and relevant regulations; (5) to sort out 105 administrative appeal decisions and court judgments, and 1 resolution made by the Joint Meeting of all Justices of the Administrative Supreme Court in past years concerning the Act, and to analyze some of those worthy of reference, so as to describe more complete outlines on the practice operation; (6) to arrange a two-day legal education conference for the personnel in environmental agencies, so that the environmental officers may have a better understanding of the Act and may solve the encountered problems in enforcing the Act; (7) to participate in 15 meetings about pollution investigation reports, and providing suggestions in oral or written; (8) to research on the measures taken for the encouragement of joining in the pollution remediation and the PRPs liability apportionment or allocation in the United States and the United Kingdom, and providing middle-term and long-term suggestions, (9) to translate laws and regulations concerning Windfall Lien in the United States, peruse relevant materials in the enforcement of Windfall Lien made by the competent authorities, provide long-term suggestions on the amendment of law, draft an administrative agreement in this connection for EPA’s reference, (10) to provide two substantial suggestions for replacing the long-term subsidy to fish farmers, (11) to translate the PRP data base CERCLIS-List of US EPA and research on US Superfund Site Information Inquiry System. Finally, in connection with the afore-mentioned researching results and the outcome of assisting process, the team has provided some suggestions from both legal and practical aspects.
|