Question

Read the following passage carefully.

In 1996, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a sweeping administrative directive regarding the remediation of brownfields—abandoned or underutilized industrial sites complicated by the presence or potential presence of hazardous substances. Prior to this directive, under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), any party purchasing a brownfield could be held strictly liable for the entire cost of environmental cleanup, regardless of whether they had historically contributed to the contamination. This draconian "joint and several liability" doctrine effectively chilled urban redevelopment; prospective developers systematically avoided brownfields, opting instead for pristine "greenfields" in suburban areas. This capital flight accelerated both urban blight and environmentally destructive suburban sprawl.

The 1996 directive sought to mitigate this unintended consequence by introducing Prospective Purchaser Agreements (PPAs). Under the framework of a PPA, a developer who formally agreed to perform a specified level of remediation could receive a covenant not to sue from the EPA, effectively shielding them from unanticipated future liability. Crucially, however, the EPA restricted the availability of PPAs exclusively to sites where the agency had already planned or initiated enforcement action. The rationale for this restriction was rooted in administrative efficiency: the EPA simply lacked the institutional resources to evaluate the environmental risks at thousands of dormant sites where it had no prior regulatory involvement.

Consequently, while PPAs successfully catalyzed the redevelopment of several high-profile, heavily contaminated sites where the EPA was already active, they did little to stimulate the revitalization of the vast majority of brownfields. Most brownfields were characterized by relatively minor contamination that did not meet the threshold to warrant EPA enforcement action, thereby rendering them categorically ineligible for PPAs. It was not until the passage of the Brownfields Revitalization Act of 2002, which established a bona fide prospective purchaser defense independent of direct EPA involvement, that the development of these ubiquitous low-risk urban sites became legally viable.

The passage most strongly supports which of the following inferences regarding an abandoned industrial site that was characterized by only minor environmental contamination in 1998?