In November 1995, five federal agencies—the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration—issued joint guidance concerning wetland mitigation banking. The guidance's chief virtue is its detailed explanation of the approval process for the establishment and operation of mitigation banks. Its chief flaw, however, flows from the complexity of this approval process.

Talk about wetlands preservation today and you may soon be talking about private property and takings. The reason is simple enough: while the need for wetlands preservation is widely conceded, many are privately owned—in the case of the federal wetlands permitting program, almost 75% of the covered acreage in the lower 48 states. When a wetland owner is denied a permit to develop property (or offered a permit with very burdensome conditions), its value may drop substantially.

All companies today, whether large or small, need to be aware of the types and amounts of their air emissions. Based on the types and amounts of emissions, these sources may be required to obtain operating permits under the Clean Air Act's (CAA's) Title V program. This Article provides a detailed discussion of the Title V operating permit program and a review of the contents required in a Title V permit.

I. Introduction

Environmental enforcement officials in the United States stand on the frontiers of law and science. As the federal agency that stands guard over the environment, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must draw the line of enforcement at the boundaries of current knowledge about the ecosystem and use its enforcement authority to encourage compliance and bring violators to book.

Editors' Summary: Estimates of hazardous waste cleanup costs now reach $500 billion nationwide, or $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. And historically, estimates of cleanup costs have nearly always gone up. As the magnitude of the problem has become clearer, governments and private plaintiffs have searched for more deep pockets to pay for cleanups.

Editors' Summary: In June, the Supreme Court handed the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Act enforcement program a significant victory. The Court held that EPA is not required to act on a proposed SIP revision within four months and is not barred from enforcing the existing SIP if it does not act on the proposal within a reasonable time. This Comment describes the "four-month rule" for revisions and the enforcement bar that created the split in the circuits, and it analyzes the opinion.

My subject is the corporate compliance system. It is hard to think of this as separable fromgovernment and the public, but I will focus on the corporate end, highlighting what is working, what isn't working, and why.

PATRICK PARENTEAU: I would like to organize this discussion a little differently, by opening the floor to questins for the panel, and then permitting panelists to make longer follow-up remarks.

Editors' Summary: More than most areas of law, Congress looms large over environmental law. Federal environmental statutes, and the appropriations that fund them, serve as the central vein from which most areas of environmental law branch out. The 101st Congress in 1989 and 1990 was one of the most environmentally active congresses in two decades. From the Clean Air Act to the Oil Pollution Act to more criminal investigators at EPA, Congress strengthened environmental laws in a host of areas.