Pennsylvania’s Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act (Land Recycling Act) of 1995, or Act 2, established Pennsylvania’s program for the voluntary cleanup of contaminated sites. Act 2 requires the Environmental Quality Board (established to, among other things, formulate, adopt and promulgate rules and regulations) to establish uniform statewide health-based standards so that any voluntary cleanup conducted under the act eliminates any substantial present or probable risk to human health and the environment.

Although those standards were originally promulgated in 1997 and codified in Chapter 250, Act 2 recognizes that standards must be updated over time as more and better science became available. In 2011, the Environmental Quality Board amended Chapter 250 to add 25 Pa. Code 250.11, which provides that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection will review scientific information relating to constituents of concern as that information becomes available and propose changes to the Environmental Quality Board no more than 36 months after the most recently promulgated MSCs are established.