Editors' Summary: As environmental regulations and litigation grow in complexity, the debate surrounding pollution control issues becomes more technical and specialized. As a result, the fundamental questions and assumptions that underlie pollution control problems sometimes go unarticulated.
Editors' Summary: Wetlands protection is at once one of the most important environmental needs as well as one in which the workings of federal environmental law are most intricate. Wetlands are fragile ecosystems that serve important roles in bringing together water, groundwater, soil, and the life that lives in and depends on this unique combination.
Editors" Summary: Congress is a body often at conflict with itself, and disputes between its authorizing committees and its appropriating committees are among the most pervasive and antagonistic. To administer their programs, executive branch agencies need both authorizing legislation from the authorizing committees and appropriated funds from the appropriating committees. Often, political realities are such that the two sets of committees disagree about the proper way to run the executive agencies.
Editors' Summary: The 100th Congress closed out its term with a flurry of activity, enacting several environmental bills and introducing a number of bills that will set the stage for the 101st Congress. A FIFRA reauthorization bill passed, and the Endangered Species Act was reauthorized after three years' delay with few significant changes. Yet, in many respects the session that just ended was disappointing, and resulted in more form than substance.
In September of last year the Fourth Circuit handed down its decision in United States v. Monsanto Co.1 The court affirmed the imposition of joint and several liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act2 (CERCLA) on site owners and waste generators for governmental response costs incurred at the Bluff Road site in South Carolina.
The long national debate on the acid rain problem may be approaching a turning point. President Bush and his EPA Administrator, William Reilly, have stated their belief that the time has come to take action. The new Senate majority leader, George Mitchell of Maine, is one of the leading advocates in Congress for acid rain control. The ten-year National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) is nearing its conclusion. These developments may shift the focus of the national debate from whether there should be a new acid rain control program to how that program should be designed.
Keynote Address
Laying the Groundwork: The Techniques and Applications of Recombinant DNA Technology
Federal, State, and Local Regulation of Biotechnology
Current Models of Risk Assessment Used in Biotechnology Regulation
USDA's Regulation of Genetically Engineered Plants, Microorganisms, and Veterinary Biological Products
Current Litigation Issues Associated With Biotechnology
Panel Discussion: Enforcement of Regulations
International Aspects of Biotechnology and Its Use in the Environment
Editors' Summary: Criminal prosecution is becoming an increasingly important component of the federal government's environmental enforcement strategy. The recent issuance of the federal Sentencing Guidelines has dramatically increased the role of criminal enforcement in environmental law. The guidelines require judges to impose specific sentences within certain ranges for various categories of environment crimes. Defendants are unlikely to escape with probation, as was often the case in preguideline prosecutions. This Article analyzes the impacts and mechanics of the guidelines.
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.