RCRA's New Causation Question: Llinking Ubiquitous Wastes to Specific Defendants

Abstract

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) imposes liability on defendants whose handling of solid waste may present an imminent and substantial danger to the environment. For most of RCRA’s history, there was no need to prove a link between waste that was harming the environment and the waste handled by the defendant, because the highly specific materials litigated under RCRA only could have come from the defendant. However, now that plaintiffs have sued defendants over the handling of naturally occurring wastes, courts must decide what level of proof is required to demonstrate the link between the defendant’s waste and the waste causing the harm. This Note argues that courts should use the same low standard of proof of causation that applies throughout the rest of the statute.