Comprehensive Environmental Response description

An outline of the major environmental laws in the United States follows. These laws provide a framework for the basic standards used in the governance of environmental matters. The most important laws are the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA—now more often referred to as Superfund, a name derived from the passage of a later supplement to CERCLA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), and the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). A brief description of these acts follows ... 

In addition to releases from the various components or activities that make up the production and distribution system for petroleum products (the oil system), many older waste sites show TPH-related site contamination. Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) site descriptions often mention petroleum, oil and grease, or petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) as present at a former waste disposal site. An example is given below for a waste oil recycling site, where TPH-type chemicals were obviously a common site contaminant. The CERCLA clean-up actions, however, focus on a range of specific hazardous or toxic chemicals. Some of the specific chemicals (e.g., toluene) would show up in a TPH test, but the chlorinated solvents and metals do not. Since a site cannot be prioritized for CERCLA attention if the only problem involves TPH site... 

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