I would like to welcome everyone to the Twelfth Annual Airlie House Conference on the Environment. Our topic this year—"Recovery for Exposure to Hazardous Substances"—is one of particular timeliness or, as many would indeed say, urgency. It is a topic that cuts across many traditional lines and affects many constituentcies. It is at the same time extremely important to the judiciary, both federal and state, because judges will be called upon to resolve complex legal issues and guide juries in making factual determinations in areas of extraordinary ambiguity and uncertainty. Almost every area of the lawyer's activity will be touched in some way by the subject that we will discuss over the course of this weekend.

I would like to begin by recalling a discussion that took place some years ago when I was a junior member of our law firm's hiring committee. We interviewed a third-year law student, who informed us that he wanted to practice something called environmental law. I thought this was an intriguing perspective for a young lawyer, and quite different from the interests of the usual applicant who typically expressed an interest in antitrust, or securities, or communications, or another of the more traditional areas of Washington practice. One of the senior partners on our hiring committee remarked that there was no such thing as environmental law and there was not likely to be; it was part of administrative law and tort law. Needless to say, this young law student was vindicated in his judgment. I recall this anecdote only to remind us how far we have come in the 12 years since the beginning of this tradition at Airlie House.