AbstractThe ban on preenforcement review found in CERCLA section 113(h) is one of the most important and staunchly defended tools in the CERCLA enforcement toolbox. Courts have consistently ruled that challenges to CERCLA cleanups cannot be filed prior to enforcement, and that a broad reading of the section 113(h) ban is necessary to ensure that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies exercising CERCLA enforcement authority can clean up sites quickly, without the delay caused when parties unhappy with the cleanup file lawsuits. Until recently, courts agreed that section 113(h) applied equally to private and federal facility cleanups. In Fort Ord Toxics Project v. California Environmental Protection Agency, however, a federal court of appeals reversed the decision of a district court and held, for the first time, that section 113(h) does not apply to federal facility cleanups conducted pursuant to CERCLA section 120. In doing so, however, the court failed to consider legislative history indicating that Congress did not intend to treat private and federal sites differently for purposes of section 113(h). The court also failed to acknowledge that its holding is justified by no compelling policy, and will, in fact, seriously undermine the purposes of CERCLA.