The Environmental Law Institute is undertaking a major research effort to locate and create legal and administrative means for encouraging energy conservation at the state and local level. The research, funded for an 18-month period by a $498,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, will employ four Institute attorneys, an economist, and a manager to direct a search for legal materials and structures that mandate or encourage energy conservation, as well as those that presently stand as impediments to efficient energy usage.

Last month's ELR reported on the January 31 decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding strict new standards governing exposure of workers to vinyl chloride gas.¹ The court took the position that once the danger to the workers was proved, a rigid standard could be imposed by the government without a showing that that standard was technologically feasible.

Within a week of each other, two circuit courts of appeals recently handed down contradictory rulings on the question of whether the EPA Administrator must consider the technological feasibility and economic impact of state air quality implementation plans in the process of approving or disapproving them under §110 of the Clean Air Act.

On January 24, the state of Louisiana formally petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its 1972 order cancelling the use of DDT on cotton. Cancellation of the pesticide, one of William Ruckelshaus' last acts as EPA Administrator, was upheld in December 1973, by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.¹ That decision was the culmination of 10 years of legal action by environmentalists, particularly the Environmental Defense Fund, to convince the government that a ban on the chemical was necessary to protect both the environment and human health.

A suit brought by the Sierra Club against the Department of the Interior and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)¹ raises for the first time the question where NEPA's requirement for environmental impact statements applies to the annual general appropriations process of the federal government.

The recent passage of two bills by the United States House of Representatives¹ is forcing environmentalists to reassess the importance of requiring that environmental impact statements be prepared by the "responsible federal official," rather than by state agencies. Both bills would in effect permit state officials to prepare NEPA impact statements, so long as federal officials involve themselves in the process in a supervisory capacity.

Energy conservation, especially as derives from improved efficiency of conversion and end use, has become perhaps the only widely agreed upon part of our national policy for dealing with the current projected shortfalls between domestic fuel supplies and the nation's appetite for energy.

Several environmental organizations recently filed suit seeking to require an environmental analysis of the Agency for International Development's (AID) use of pesticides in foreign countries.¹ The basis for the suit is AID's financial and technical assistance in the use of pesticides, including several banned in the United States, by foreign governments. Resolution of this narrow issue hinges on the answer to an important legal question—the applicability of NEPA to activities outside the United States.

The public interest suffered a major judicial setback on May 12, when the Supreme Court announced its decision in Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. v. Wilderness Society,¹ declaring erroneous a line of decisions awarding attorneys' fees to environmental and other public interest plaintiffs.² The five-Justice majority held that only Congress, not the courts, can authorize an exception to the "American rule" that attorneys' fees cannot ordinarily be recovered by a prevailing party from a losing party.

A recent court ruling has brought one step closer to resolution the long-simmering dispute between the Army Corps of Engineers on the one hand and EPA, the Department of Justice, and numerous environmental groups on the other, concerning the proper scope of federal regulatory jurisdiction over dredge and fill activities throughout the nation.