Editors' Summary: The principles of federalism, state primacy, and tribal sovereignty all impact how federal environmental regulations are implemented and enforced on Indian lands. In recent years, Congress increasingly has crafted environmental protection laws that expressly provide recognized tribes with mechanisms for assuming authority to operate programs under those statutes, similar to provisions for states to obtain such authority. Yet many important federal environmental laws leave uncertain the role of Indian tribes in enforcing federal regulations on Indian lands.

Editors' Summary: CERCLA § 113(h) sets forth limits on the timing for review in federal courts of EPA hazardous waste removal and remedial actions. To prevent delays in cleaning up hazardous waste sites, EPA and the courts have interpreted § 113(h) as shielding any disputes under CERCLA from judicial scrutiny until EPA commences a cleanup action. This Article inquires into the conflict between constitutional due process and interpreting CERCLA § 113(h) as a shield that insulates EPA preenforcement, preimplementation, and post-completion cleanup activities from judicial review.

In the fall of 1993, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in its opinion in In re Bell Petroleum Services, Inc., articulated its standard for determining joint and several liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). In so doing, it joined the ranks of four other circuit courts that have spoken on this issue.

One of the most prominent issues in the Congressional debate over reauthorization of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund) has been how to reduce "transaction costs" while at the same time fairly and expeditiously resolving liability disputes. This Dialogue asks: Would the allocation procedures proposed in last year's Superfund reauthorization bills meet those sometimes conflicting goals?

On February 4, 1994, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) April 1992 lender liability rule, which delineated the scope of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act's (CERCLA's) secured creditor exemption. The court held in Kelley v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the regulation could not stand as a substantive or legislative rule because Congress, through CERCLA, gave courts and not EPA the authority to interpret questions of liability.

In an 8-to-1 decision authored by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit's decision that the South Florida Water Management District's (District's) operation of a pumping station required a national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit because pollutants transferred from a canal to a water conservation area would not have occurred but for the operation of the pump.

One of the most fundamental tenets of toxicology is that "the dose determines the poison." This simple phrase provides the basis for the belief that all agents—chemicals and physical phenomena that are capable of producing some effect—have the potential to cause toxicity. Whether toxicity actually occurs is principally a matter of dose: the greater the exposure to a given agent, the more pronounced or severe the response of a cell or organism.

In recent years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has expanded its programs to assist governments around the world in building their capacity to protect the environment. This effort serves policies embodied in a variety of treaties, appropriations, and other legislative and executive decisions. A small but important part of this work is the effort to help other countries develop an effective legal framework for environmental protection.

Editors' Summary: The adoption by many corporations of environmental auditing is evidence of the maturity of pollution control law. Increasingly, environmental compliance is seen as good business, not a pesky problem that will go away if ignored. Environmental auditing is a means by which corporate leadership can wisely manage environmental assets and liabilities. However, as a result of the relative novelty of environmental auditing, the legal consequences are uncertain, and the confidentiality of environmental audits has become a major concern.

Editors' Summary: On December 11, 1983, the clock will run out for certain natural resource damage recovery actions under CERCLA. Section 107 of the Act allows state and federal agencies to recover natural resource damages from anyone who is a "responsible party" under the Act. However, much of the attention to date in implementing CERCLA has been on the response, enforcement, and cost recovery provisions of §§104, 106, and 107.