6. My Own Argument: Burlington N. & S. F. R. Co. v. United States

Being that my profession is not one of a lawyer, providing a concise decision on this case is tough. Much of what I read made some sense to me, while other parts completely went over my head. The Supreme Court's final decision on this case was eight-to-one, and while I do agree with the ultimate decision of the case, I'm a bit surprised of its lopsidedness. My personal views of our environment is a green one, and I agree with many of the environmental acts and laws that are in place. A person only has to look at what China is doing to their land and water sources. With that being said, the final decision of this case makes sense to me because of the lack of clarity within the guidelines of CERCLA. CERCLA only focuses on the deliberate dumping of hazardous, and mentions nothing about the transfer of hazardous chemicals from one facility to another. Moreover, Shell Oil Corp. did everything in their power to prevent spills and leakage from occurring, including selling their product at a discounted rate to companies that proactively prevented chemical spills. This is the reason I agree with the eight justices on this case. The classic example we have used in class has been the "lets use the lawnmower as a hedge trimmer by lifting it up while its running." Dumb? Yes, but there was no clear warning on the lawnmower to warn its users. The only difference between the lawnmower example and this case, is that one person loses ten fingers, while thousands potentially could be harmed by the toxic chemicals that could be released into the environment. This is a prime case for The Supreme Court. Being a child of two railroaders, I have heard many stories of freight trains derailing and all of their contents being ejected onto the landscape. Many of the accidents have been with harmless cargo, however, there have been other accidents that have had much more dangerous cargo. Many times during the seventies and eighties, gigantic holes were dug up and all of the waste was simply bulldozed into the hole and covered up. So it is very important the government be very clear in its guideline expectations in regards to environmental protection so that companies clearly understand what is expected of them. My final thought is that the chemical/oil companies get together with the transportation companies and standardize the coupling systems and holding tank valves so that buckets aren't used to catch the overspill from the transfer process. It is hard to believe that, even in the sixties and seventies, chemical handling was preformed this way, but clearly it was.