CA1: CERCLA settlement fun

City of Bangor v. Citizens Communications Company,  Nos. 07-2193, 07-2255, 07-2759, 07-2777.  This is a CERCLA case under 42 U.S.C. §§ 9607 and 9613.  The District Court approved a consent decree amongst the state and private parties.  The appellants are non-settling third and fourth parties who are said to be potentially responsible parties.  The US actually was not a party.  Like most multi-party environmental litigation, the procedure is rather convoluted.   However, the First points out that there is constitutional of a party to challenge the approval of a settlement by the District Court.  The First says that most of the time in CERCLA suits the EPA should be shown some deference, because they care about the environement and are experts (which seems to contradict the with the practice of having Cheney’s office review their Congressional testimony, but a token member of the Federalist Society tells me that Cheney cares about the environment.)  Anyway, the First decides that a state agency gets some deference (but not as much deference as the EPA) in its decision as to whether to settle or not because they are not really charged with enforcing the federal statute.  Eventually the First says that the District Court did a good enough job, and there was no requirement that it resolve every possible legal issue (such as assignability of claims) inherent in a consent decree.  Also, the First rejects the idea that there was some procedural unfairness in approval of the settlement because the state (as a party to the lawsuit) reached a conclusion that it didn’t like.