On June 7, 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reached an agreement with the basic manufacturers of chlorpyrifos to reduce potential risks from exposure to residues from pesticide products containing chlorpyrifos. More commonly known by the trade names Dursban and Lorsban, chlorpyrifos is the most commonly used pesticide in and around homes in the United States.

Editors' Summary: CERCLA and the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) create causes of action for damages to natural resources—for damages "resulting from" a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance, in the case of CERCLA, and for damages that "result from" a discharge or threatened discharge of oil in the case of the OPA. Thus, natural resource damages actions under these acts require a causal link between the release or discharge and the natural resource damage at issue.

On December 14, 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a press release establishing an "interim" human testing policy for pesticides that suspended EPA's long-established policy of using human testing data to establish pesticide tolerances or to determine other human health-protective limits on chemical exposures. The policy was restricted to the results of studies using human subjects sponsored by private companies (so-called third-party studies).

For the last several years, federal circuit courts have debated the exact jurisdictional scope of §404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA), which authorizes the Secretary of the U.S. Army (the Army), acting through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps), to issue permits "for the discharge of dredged or fill material into the navigable waters at specified disposal sites." The circuit courts have based their debates on the assumption, well-supported by earlier CWA decisions, that Congress intended the term "navigable waters" within the CWA to extend to the limits of the U.S. Commerce Clause.

Environmentalists are no strangers to disappointment in the U.S. Supreme Court, but the recent case of Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (SWANCC) is particularly disappointing. First, it might be said that the impact of the opinion, in circumstances in which legislative amendment is virtually impossible, may be the most devastating judicial opinion affecting the environment ever.

Does the use by migratory birds of isolated, intrastate waters establish enough of a connection to "navigable waters" and interstate commerce to permit federal regulation under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the U.S. Commerce Clause? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers thinks so, but courts and commentators have not been entirely sympathetic to the Corps' so-called migratory bird rule. The Fourth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thomas (in a dissent from denial of certiorari) have rejected such a broad jurisdictional reach in no uncertain terms.