There can be no sustainable development without sustainable transportation. It is an essential component not only because transportation is a prerequisite to development in general but also because transportation, especially our use of motorized vehicles, contributes substantially to a wide range of environmental problems, including energy waste, global warming, degradation of air and water, noise, ecosystem loss and fragmentation, and desecration of the landscape. Our nation's environmental quality will be sustainable only if we pursue transportation in a sustainable way.

The Defenders of Wildlife Judicial Accountability Project—undertaken with the assistance of the Vermont Law School Clinic for Environmental Law and Policy—seeks to fill a data void on the environmental record of President George W. Bush and his Administration by analyzing all reported environmental cases in which the Bush Administration has presented legal arguments regarding an existing environmental law, regulation, or policy before federal judges, magistrates, or administrative tribunals.

Editors' Summary: Although the Clean Air Act is the primary tool used for controlling air toxics, the dramatic increase in toxic tort cases brought under common-law theories such as nuisance, trespass, negligence, and strict liability for ultrahazardous activities has raised concern in the industrial community that compliance with regulatory requirements may not protect industry from large-scale toxic tort liability. This Article analyzes the implications of common-law liability on the selection of air quality controls.

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), and the Clean Air Act (CAA) represent federal regulatory regimes for protecting the environment. Although each statute initially places administrative responsibility in the hands of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), each encourages states, to varying degrees, to take primary responsibility for implementing the statutory regime.

In Environmental Federalism Part 1: The History of Overfiling Under RCRA, the CWA, and the CAA Prior to Harmon, Smithfield, and CLEAN, the history of judicial and administrative decisions relating to overfiling under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), and the Clean Air Act (CAA) was analyzed. The history showed that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with limited exceptions, generally was understood to have overfiling authority under RCRA, the CWA, and the CAA. The limited exceptions focused on two situations.

In the span of just a few years, the U.S. Supreme Court has brought the venerable constitutional concept of federalism back to life with a vengeance. In the 1999 Term alone, the Rehnquist Court struck down three federal laws for violating basic principles of federalism and narrowly construed a fourth to avoid any conflict with those precepts.

Editors' Summary: In recent years, vindication of private-property rights has been the rallying cry of various citizen groups and politicians who believe that certain regulatory restrictions—especially environmental protection measures—have "gone too far" and that the Fifth Amendment is an insufficient safeguard of private-property rights.

On June 29, 2001, the last day of the October 2000 term, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider "whether the [Ninth Circuit] Court of Appeals properly determined that a temporary moratorium on land development does not constitute a taking of property requiring compensation under the Takings Clause of the [U.S.] Constitution?" The case, Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, provides the Court with an opportunity to clarify its opinions in First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale v.

Editors' Summary: This past summer, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in Ohio Forestry Ass'n v. Sierra Club, 118 S. Ct. 1665, 28 ELR 21119 (1998). The Court held that an environmental group's challenge to a U.S. Forest Service land and resource management plan for the Wayne National Forest in Ohio was not ripe for review. This Article examines how this decision affects the rules for judicial review of national forest plans.

Editors' Summary: Pfiesteria piscicida, a sometimes toxic microorganism, is responsible for the death of millions of fish in Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia. Although the problem of Pfiesteria-related fish kills is associated with the Mid-Atlantic region, other toxic microorganisms have threatened fish and marine wildlife throughout the world. Scientists attribute this "global epidemic" of toxic microbes to excessive nutrient loading from nonpoint sources of pollution.