Subjects Of Legal Responsibility In United States Brownfield Treatment And Its Inspiration To China

In recent years, as China’s urbanization process is accelerating, many cities redevelop the old plant and other industrial wasteland to fulfill the requirement of urban structure regulation. However, many soil pollution accidents occurred, such as causing human poisoning, the inhabitable commercial residential building, etc. when these industrial waste lands were redeveloped. It is because these sites are contaminated in the industrial uses before, and the sites hadn’t been cleaned and remedied.Contaminated land in a foreign country is also known as "Brownfield." United States has made remarkable achievements in the development and use of brownfield. Its legislation and policy have formed a series of sound governance system, which is worthy for us to study and refer. Redevelopment and reuse of contaminated land in China is still in its infancy, and there are many deficiencies in its legislation and practice. It is necessary for China to learn the experience abroad. This article discusses the subjects of legal responsibility in United States brownfields treatment. Moreover, it explore the main responsibility of the accreditation system for establishing realistic background and significance. In the end, it discusses the idea of establishing a legal land pollution control system in China, to provide a useful reference to the contaminated sites’ redevelopment in China.This paper is divided into a total of four parts:The first part is an overview of contaminated sites. Firstly, it discusses the concept of the relevant contaminated sites, including the definition and meaning of soil and contaminated sites. After analyzing the concepts of contaminated sites, the article describes the current situation and significance of the United States brownfields redevelopment. United States brownfields originated in the second half of the last century. After decades on brownfields management which has made remarkable achievements, United States’ successful experience on brownfields legislation deserves our study and learn.The second part discusses the governance in the United States brownfields responsible subjects’ identification system. United States legislation on brownfields governance is mainly reflected in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act(“CERCLA”) which made a detailed regulation on the responsible subjects for brownfield governance. But there are also many deficiencies in CERCLA. After a series of amendments to the legislation, the United States eventually formed a relatively complete system to identify the responsible subjects on brownfield governance.The third part is the status of China’s land pollution liability today. This section introduces the status of land’s severe pollution, and the serious harm caused firstly. Secondly, it analyzed the difficulties of China’s land pollution management from the legal respects, like the relevant laws are sporadic; the legislation of remedial responsibility is rare; the legislation is behind the times; the rules are too general to practice, etc. Finally, it discusses the significance of establishing the responsible subjects recognized system on land pollution, which is conducive to reduce the land users’ pollution of land, to encourage the work of fixing and redeveloping the existing contaminated land, and to promote the land pollution management law.The fourth part is the idea of contaminated sites management system. This article mainly discuss the suggestions and idea of pollution control system from two aspects. The first aspect is from the responsible subjects recognized system on land pollution, specifically including the implementation of the “polluter should be responsible” principle; a moderate expansion of the responsible subjects; and enhancing the government’s supervising and management. The second aspect is from other regimes which support the responsible subjects recognized system, specifically including the active introduction of funds and insurance system; and improving public participation system, in order to promote the reclamation work of China’s polluted lands.