The federal public lands—national forests, parks, and rangelands—are widely known for their vast natural resources: timber; range; minerals; watersheds; wildlife; and sweeping vistas of incredible beauty and diversity. No less notable are the cultural resources found on the public lands. Some of the earliest withdrawals of public lands from homesteading or other disposition occurred because of their cultural and historic importance.

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.

Editors' Summary: The recently completed 105th Congress provided the nation with a legacy of unparalleled legislative inactivity. Few, if any, of the legislative initiatives earmarked as priorities passed as bitter partisan debate ruled on Capitol Hill. This Comment analyzes how such partisanship and subsequent congressional lethargy created the environmental successes, controversies, and failures of the 105th Congress.

Over the past several years, considerable public and private efforts in this country have been directed at reducing the risk of cancer that human exposure to high levels of radon gas poses. These efforts appear to have succeeded in raising public awareness of radon and in increasing testing for radon. For the most part, however, these efforts have been directed toward homeowners and have not addressed the problem of radon in residential rental properties. Yet, in 1989, nearly 34 million homes—over one-third of all housing units in the country—were rental units.

Although the 104th Congress did not begin officially until January 4, 1995, its significance was apparent as soon as the polls closed on November 8, 1994. When the votes were tallied, Republicans had acquired majorities in both the Senate and the House for the first time in 40 years. And they were quick to proclaim the beginning of a revolution in congressional lawmaking.

Editors' Summary: It has become regular practice for federal legislators to insert into annual appropriations bills riders having little to do with the appropriations process. Last year, under the sponsorship of the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, a bill that would have exempted recyclers from CERCLA "arranger" and "transporter" liability was almost enacted as a rider to the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 1999. This Dialogue examines that rider and the changes it would have wrought to CERCLA.

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