Legal Authority for BP 20bl Fund-Ronald Ragan?

Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), a United States federal law designed to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites.[1] Superfund created the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and it provides broad federal authority to clean up releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment. The law authorized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify parties responsible for contamination of sites and compel the parties to clean up the sites. Where responsible parties cannot be found, the Agency is authorized to clean up sites itself, using a special trust fund

TexSuperfund was enacted by Congress in response to the Love Canal disaster in New York[2], dioxin exposure in Times Beach, Missouri[citation needed] and the environmental contamination at the Valley of the Drums in Kentucky.

After its initial passage, the Reagan administration appointed Rita Lavelle, a former hazardous waste-producing-company employee, as Superfund's administrator. Due to a shortage of funds, very little was accomplished in hazardous waste regulation until her resignation, the resignation of EPA administrator Anne Burford, and the passage of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA). These amendments increased the funding of Superfund to $9.3 billion and provided for studies and the use of new technologies.

Superfund

On October 17, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA). This act amended the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), commonly known as "Superfund

Right To Know-Ragan

For example, a citizen can sue a corporation under the Clean Water Act (CWA) for illegally polluting a waterway. Second, a private citizen can bring a lawsuit against a government body for failing to perform a non-discretionary duty.

Citizens Can Take Action on the Fed and BP

Legaly it looks like Obama must dump this money into the Super Fund only. They may have to leave it set there and pay for cleanup only untill an amendment is made to allow disbursment to citizen claims. But at any rate they do have authority to demand BP to deposit into the superfund.