Editors' Summary: In recent years, a number of coastal states have resisted the Department of the Interior's stepped-up efforts to issue oil and gas leases in the outer continental shelf (OCS) because of the potential adverse environmental and other impacts on their coastal zones. Legal challenges based on the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Endangered Species Act, and NEPA have been largely unsuccessful, but the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) has proved a more effective weapon. The Ninth Circuit and several federal district courts have ruled that OCS lease sales "directly affect" the coastal zone and therefore are subject to the consistency requirement in §307(c)(1) of the CZMA. The Interior Department has, in response, recently completed consistency determinations for several OCS lease sales. But the question is far from resolved as the Supreme Court has agreed to review the Ninth Circuit's decision in the 1983-84 Term. The Court's ruling could go far in settling the controversy over the balance between federal and state control over the development of OCS resources.