The central mechanism in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA)1 for limiting discharges from industrial point sources is the national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit program.
In one of two recent decisions1 that promise to streamline administration of the national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES), the United States Supreme Court validated the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) refusal to hold a public hearing in connection with the granting of an extension of an NPDES permit for a California sewage treatment plant. In Costle v.
Any given major industrial facility often must obtain literally dozens of permits under a variety of pollution control laws in order to operate. A common complaint of plant operators has been that this welter of differing permit requirements and procedures is arcanely confusing, full of redundancies and contradictions, time consuming, and unjustifiably costly.
Appropriate use of the enormous tracts of federally owned lands in the western United States has been a subject of constant dispute over the years.
To observe that the field of environmental law is prone to surges of rapid growth is to restate the obvious. Congress and state legislatures, spurred by the public to remedy unanticipated environmental problems, have responded quickly by establishing comprehensive regulatory schemes. As a result, the role of the courts in shaping this area of the law, while hardly lethargic, has been limited largely to fleshing out statutory ambiguities and giving effect to legislative intent.
In an attempt to expedite and achieve consistency in judicial review of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actions taken pursuant to the Clean Air Act, Congress made certain regulatory decisions reviewable exclusively in the courts of appeals. Challenges to all other EPA actions, however, were relegated to the district courts. Not surprisingly, the proper forum for judicial review of particular EPA actions has been a matter of chronic dispute. In Harrison v.
In Agins v. City of Tiburon,1 one of the most intently awaited opinions of the 1979-80 Term, the United States Supreme Court upheld a municipal ordinance placing density restrictions on residential development for the sake of preserving open spaces in the hills surrounding San Francisco Bay.
Two months ago, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under pressure from the courts, Congress, and the public, issued final regulations1 implementing the complex hazardous waste regulatory program of Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).2 These regulations provide for the identification of wastes that are subject to regulation, establish a "manifest system" to track the waste from generation to final disposal, and establish standards for storage, treatment, and disposal facilities.
In 1970, Congress amended the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) to establish an innovative and comprehensive statutory framework designed to prevent and remedy spills of oil and hazardous substances into the nation's waters.1 For the first time, the owner or operator of a discharging facility was required to notify the government of any inadvertent discharge2 and automatically became subject to a monetary penalty.3 The validity of this scheme has been challenged almost constantly since its inception.
A series of recent judicial decisions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)1 sheds light on an issue that has evaded serious scrutiny for the better part of the statute's existence: can the representations made within an environmental impact statement (EIS) be enforced? Stated differently, when a federal agency fails either to construct a project as "promised" within the EIS or to contain adverse environmental impacts within the prescribed levels, may injured parties obtain relief in federal court?