Editors' Summary: One of the most important legal tools in the effort to remediate the nation's contaminated sites is state law that applies to such cleanups. In 1989, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) conducted a study of this law, and last year, it completed its most recent update of that study. In this Article, two ELI Senior Attorneys discuss the results of that update as it concerns two key aspects of site remediation—voluntary and brownfield cleanup programs.

In the past few years, owners of contaminated land, seeking to supplement possible causes of action under the Comprehensive Environmental, Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and under state common law and state statutes, increasingly have looked to §7002(a)(1)(B) of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to shift responsibility for remediation costs to former owners or operators.

If we want to think about changes in local sustainability over the last 10 years, perhaps the best place to start is with Al Gore. In 1992, just before the Rio Earth Summit and before he was to be tapped as a vice presidential candidate, then-Senator Gore published a treatise on the environment called Earth in the Balance.

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers but as fountains of life.

—John Muir (1898)

A walk in the park is one of our finest cultural opportunities, a value that people expect to find available in their community.

—National Association of State Park Directors

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.

A more substantive precautionary principle of international law is evolving as new treaties articulate new measures of precaution in different contexts. Although there is considerable controversy over how to articulate or define a precautionary "principle" of law, the goal is to ensure that the mere lack of scientific knowledge about risks cannot justify a failure to take appropriate precautions. Where we have sufficient evidence of risk, we often take precautions, despite a lack of certainty about those risks.

In a recent article reviewing the U.S. Supreme Court's environmental decisions over the last 30 years (1969-1999), Professor Richard Lazarus argues that "the Justices have never fully appreciated environmental law as a distinct area of law."¹

A recent headline on the front page of the Wall Street Journal hailed the opening of the nation's first "butterfly bank." The "deposits" in this unusual bank are conservation credits earned by preserving an important area of habitat for the Quino checkerspot butterfly, an endangered species restricted to California. The bank's intended customers are other landowners who hope to develop other sites where the butterfly occurs. In order to do so, they can buy credits from the private entrepreneur who established the butterfly bank.

The 1999 National Nuclear Security Administration Act (NNSA Act) threatens to reverse 20 years of reforms and court decisions intended to bring the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) into compliance with environmental laws and regulations. The NNSA Act, enacted in the wake of allegations of spying at Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory in New Mexico, established a semi-autonomous agency within DOE—the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The NNSA operates nine laboratories and facilities within the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

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.