## Facts

- CERCLA authorizes the EPA to respond to hazardous substance releases and to compel potentially responsible parties (PRPs) to perform cleanup through unilateral administrative orders (UAOs) issued upon a determination of a possible “imminent and substantial endangerment.”
- Noncompliance with a UAO can later expose a PRP to civil penalties and treble damages in an enforcement or cost-recovery action.
- General Electric Company (GE) alleged it had received at least 68 UAOs and was participating at numerous active CERCLA sites where UAOs could issue.
- GE claimed UAOs effectively coerced compliance because refusing to comply risked large statutory sanctions and negative market effects (e.g., stock-price decline, reputational harm, and increased financing costs).
- GE argued the UAO scheme deprived it of due process by imposing substantial economic pressure without a pre-deprivation hearing before a neutral decisionmaker; GE asserted a PRP must either comply (incurring immediate costs) or refuse and await later litigation with potential enhanced liability.

## Issues

1. Whether CERCLA’s UAO provisions facially violate the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause by authorizing coercive cleanup orders without pre-deprivation review by a neutral adjudicator.
2. Whether EPA’s administration of the UAO program renders the scheme unconstitutional as applied to GE.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the government.
- The court held CERCLA’s UAO scheme is constitutional on its face because it provides adequate opportunities for meaningful judicial review in later proceedings.
- The court held GE failed to show EPA’s actual administration of UAOs is unconstitutional as applied, rejecting reliance on assertedly high compliance rates as proof of unlawful coercion.

## Legal Principles

- Due process does not categorically require pre-deprivation judicial review; post-deprivation review can be sufficient when it provides a meaningful opportunity to be heard before a neutral tribunal.
- A statutory scheme that channels review into subsequent enforcement, cost-recovery, or related litigation can satisfy due process if regulated parties can raise defenses and contest liability and sanctions in that later forum.
- The existence of severe potential penalties does not alone establish a due process violation where the statutory framework allows defenses (including “sufficient cause” to avoid sanctions) and eventual judicial adjudication.
- Market or reputational consequences attributed to third-party reactions, rather than direct legal effects imposed by the government order, generally do not create an independent property interest requiring additional procedural protections.
- Under the Mathews v. Eldridge framework, courts weigh the private interests affected, the risk of erroneous deprivation and the value of added procedures, and the government’s interest; CERCLA’s interest in prompt hazardous-waste cleanup can justify streamlined, unilateral administrative action without prior hearings.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit upheld CERCLA’s unilateral administrative order regime against facial and as-applied due process challenges, concluding that delayed but meaningful judicial review and available defenses provide constitutionally adequate process given the government’s strong interest in prompt environmental remediation.


Gen. Elec. Co. v. Jackson, 610 F.3d 110 (D.C. Cir. 2010)