National Chamber Litigation Center -- a law firm representing the chamber -- filed a brief Feb. 24 in a federal court in Kansas asking the court to order the federal government to pay its "fair share" of environmental cleanup costs.

The friend of the court brief was filed in the case of Raytheon Aircraft Co. v. the United States. In the case, the Environmental Protection Agency issued an administrative order requiring Raytheon to clean up toxic pollutants at a Kansas airport owned and operated by the U.S. military during World War II.

From 1948 to the present, the site has been used by a number of companies for various purposes, according to the EPA. From 1950 to the early 1960s, Beech Aircraft leased all four hangars and several other buildings at the site, according to the EPA. In 1980, the Raytheon Aircraft Co. acquired Beech.

The EPA said Beech used trichlorethylene and 1,2-dichloroethene on the property. Those chemicals have been found in nearby groundwater. However, the Chamber of Commerce contends that the U.S. government is at least partly responsible for the contamination and should share in the cleanup costs.

"Private parties will be forced to pay for the cleanup of environmental damage caused by the federal government unless the courts step in," said Robin Conrad, NCLC´s senior vice president.

The NCLC argued that a lack of meaningful judicial review should render the EPA´s administrative order against Raytheon void as a violation of due process.