65-3454a. Environmental response fund created; receipts and expenditures; subaccounts. (a) (1) There is hereby created the environmental response fund. All moneys received by the secretary as grants, gifts, bequests or state or federal appropriations to carry out remedial action at sites polluted by hazardous substances shall be deposited in such fund. All expenditures from the environmental response fund shall be made in accordance with appropriations acts and upon warrants of the director of accounts and reports issued pursuant to vouchers approved by the secretary.

(2) The secretary is authorized to receive from the federal government or any of its agencies or from any private or governmental source any funds made available under laws, rules and regulations for site cleanup or other remedial action where environmental pollution is or threatens to create a health or environmental hazard.

(b) The environmental response fund shall be maintained as individual subaccounts, as follows:

(1) State appropriations or funds from other sources designated for remedial activities at specific state-lead sites shall be maintained in a separate account. Disbursement of funds from this account shall be made only for activities related to the sites at which the appropriating or donating person has designated.

(2) State appropriations or funds from other sources designated as state match for remedial activities at federal national priority list sites shall be maintained in a separate account. Disbursement of funds from this account shall be made only for remedial design and remedial action at the national priority list sites for which the appropriating or donating person has designated.

(3) State appropriations or funds from other sources designated for emergency response activities or environmental response at nonspecific sites shall be maintained in a separate account. Disbursement of funds from this account shall be made for activities at any sites polluted by hazardous substances where remedial action is necessary to protect public health or the environment.

(4) State appropriations of funds from other sources designated as state match for federal leaking underground storage tank trust fund resources used to conduct remedial action to reduce or eliminate environmental pollution from leaking underground storage tanks of petroleum or hazardous substances shall be maintained in a separate account. Disbursements of funds from this account shall be made only for remedial action to reduce or eliminate environmental pollution from leaking underground petroleum or hazardous substance storage tanks. Moneys recovered from any responsible person for remediation to reduce or eliminate environmental pollution shall be deposited to the credit of the environmental response fund except that a proportional share may be returned to the federal source from which it came.

(c) Subject to the limitations in subsection (b), the secretary is authorized to use funds from the environmental response fund to pay the cost of:

(1) The design and review of remedial action plans;

(2) contracting for services needed to supplement the department's staff expertise in site investigations;

(3) consultation needed concerning remedial action;

(4) mitigation of adverse environmental impacts;

(5) emergency or long-term remedial activities;

(6) legal costs, including expert witnesses, incurred in recovery of fund expenditures;

(7) state matching costs for remedial action funded with the federal hazardous substance superfund established by section 9507 of the internal revenue code of 1986; and

(8) state matching costs for remedial action funded with the federal leaking underground storage tank trust fund established by section 9508 of the internal revenue code of 1986.

(d) On the effective date of this act, the director of accounts and reports shall transfer all moneys in the pollutant discharge cleanup fund and the hazardous waste cleanup fund to the environmental response fund, and the pollutant discharge cleanup fund and the hazardous waste cleanup fund are hereby abolished.

History: L. 1988, ch. 256, § 2; July 1.