The Justice Department is presently investigating the feasibility of establishing a separate court system having exclusive jurisdiction over environmental issues.Section 9 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 authorized the study that will culminate in a report to Congress by October 1973. As the keynote address of a two-day conference of the Special Committee on Environmental Law of the ABA, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Walter Kiechel Jr. of the Justice Department gave a progress report on the feasibility study.¹ Although the study is not yet half over, it appears that Justice will probably recommend strongly against establishing an environmental court.

In his address, Mr. Kiechel described the three proposed models for an environmental court. The first model is patterned after the Court of Claims and would have jurisdiction to hear environmental cases generally. Trial judges would hear trial matters, and a panel of such judges would constitute a reviewing court. Jurisdiction would be exclusive. The second model would establish a panel of judges with exclusive jurisdiction to review federal administrative decisions affecting the environment. This would be the sole function of the court. The third model would also have a panel of judges, but the review would only encompass decisions of designated agencies or of specified matters of such agencies.