Report to Congress on the Indemnification of Contractors Performing Environmental Restoration. Appendices
Abstract
Estimates of the costs of cleaning up federal facilities are necessarily imprecise. Federal agencies have not yet identified all contaminated facilities or characterized the extent of contamination. Moreover, remediation costs vary greatly depending on the technology employed and the cleanup standard. If regulatory policies require that destructive technologies are used to meet pristine cleanup levels, remediation costs will be far greater than if containment technologies are used to mitigate gross public health threats. By any estimation, however, the costs of cleaning up contaminated federal facilities will be immense. One major concern of potential participants in federal facility cleanups, however, is their liability for environmental damages arising during the course of work. Traditionally, companies relied on commercial liability insurance to offset contingent liabilities, including environmental harms. Insurance costs, in turn, were typically reimbursed under government contracts. During the 1980's, however, commercial insurance for pollution damage became prohibitively expensive -- where it was available at all. In response to contractor concerns about liability and warnings that qualified, solvent contractors would not bid on contracts that carried the potential for significant uninsured losses, federal agencies and Congress developed several mechanisms to reduce, if not eliminate, the risks faced by government contractors.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 07, 1994
- Accession Number
- ADA275650
Entities
People
- John F. Seymour
- Sherri W. Goodman