October 3, 1983, began another Supreme Court Term, the third since the retirement of Justice Stewart and the addition of Justice O'Connor. This Court has heard few major environmental cases. It has usually denied certiorari in cases requiring interpretation of the complex pollution control statutes, accepting cases primarily where there is a split among the circuits, as in the currently pending case of United States v. Stauffer Chemical Co.¹ When the Court breaks this pattern, as it has with the D.C. Circuit's decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (Chevron, U.S.A.)² it invites speculation that the "conservative" Court will reverse the arguably more liberal and pro-environment decision below. But the Court cannot be so easily typed, and the issues before it this year may confound prognosticators. For example, Watt v. California³ is attracting intense interest because it pits two objectives of conservative members of the Court, protection of states' powers and narrow construction of environmental statutes, against each other. In addition to hearing these cases, the Court must sift through its docket, which inevitably will include several other major envoronmental cases. A review of the Court's decisions on review and its rulings in cases in the last two Terms sheds some light on how it may handle environmental cases in the new Term.