In the June 1988 issue of the Environmental Law Reporter,¹ Laura Kosloff concludes that the Supreme Court decision in Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Mississippi² "can be interpreted as adding to the ammunition for wetlands protection the Supreme Court's seal of approval."³ No doubt an effect of the decision will be to strengthen the states' position in coastal wetlands regulation,⁴ but it is not clear that the Supreme Court has endorsed the notion that states can regulate all of the nation's wetlands without having regard for rights of private landowners. Indeed, the Court's opinion in Phillips Petroleum offers considerable promise to riparian landowners of nontidal waters, many of whom have felt besieged by state courts intent on finding all manner of public rights under the increasingly enigmatic public trust doctrine.

Because the trend in state court public trust decisions has been expansive,⁵ as the title of Kosloff's piece suggests,⁶ it is not surprising that the Phillips Petroleum decision would be viewed as part of that trend, particularly in light of dissenting votes by conservatives O'Connor and Scalia. But there are sound reasons to view the decision as a victory for some private property owners and a caution to state courts who would merge the public trust doctrine with the police power.⁷