The Department of the Interior (Interior) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are the two principal federal trustees for natural resources. The agencies estimate that 60 sites may eventually have claims for damages to natural resources that will equal or exceed $5 million and that up to 20 of these sites may have claims exceeding $50 million. Through July 1995, about 40 percent of the moneys for the five settlements had been collected from the responsible parties. Of these collections, about 11 percent had been disbursed either to reimburse trustees for completed damage assessments or to pay for planning natural resource restorations. Table 2 summarizes the amounts collected and disbursed for the five largest settlements as of July 1995. Procedures in Regulations to Assess Natural Resource Damages Seldom Fully Implemented

CERCLA does not require the trustees to use a particular standard or method for assessing natural resource damages. Because one procedure is limited in scope and the other procedure can be costly and time-consuming to implement, the trustees seldom fully implement either one. Instead, according to Interior and NOAA officials, the trustees most often use an abbreviated procedure that employs readily available site-specific information and scientific literature to quantify damages. The third issue involves the procedures used by the trustees to develop natural resource damage claims. For the case that has been settled for $12 million, $8.1 million has been collected, $1.4 million of which has been disbursed. New Bedford Harbor, Massachusetts

The New Bedford Harbor case was one of the first natural resource damage cases filed under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed natural resource damage provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), focusing on: (1) the prospect for future claims by the federal government against polluters for natural resources damage; (2) the amount and use of settlements that federal agencies have already collected from polluters; and (3) the guidelines used by federal agencies to determine an appropriate amount of compensation for natural resources damage.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) the Department of the Interior and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimate that 60 sites may eventually have claims for damages to natural resources that will equal or exceed $5 million and that up to 20 of these sites may have claims exceeding $50 million; (2) of the $83.8 million owed to the federal government for the five largest natural resource damage settlements, only about 40 percent has been collected, and 11 percent of these funds has been spent; (3) the collected money has been used to reimburse trustees for completed damage assessments and to pay for natural resource restoration plans; (4) while CERCLA did not require standards or methods to determine damages, it directed Interior to develop consistent procedures that trustees should consider when assessing damages to natural resources; (5) trustees rarely use either of the procedures, since one is limited in scope and the other is costly and time-consuming; and (6) the 95 settlements reached as of April 1995 used abbreviated procedures that use readily available site-specific information and scientific literature to quantify damages.