New rules are emerging to change the way the government makes decisions about cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund). These changes have altered Superfund decisionmaking fundamentally and irrevocably, requiring the government to reach for new levels of accountability, rationality, and consistency. Central to the government's ability to meet this challenge is the way in which it makes and explains decisions about acceptable risks and required levels of cleanup.

Editors' Summary: Redeveloping abandoned urban hazardous waste sites, or brownfields, can significantly benefit developers, local communities, and the environment. Developers can purchase brownfields inexpensively, and subsequent redevelopment brings jobs to local communities and economic growth to inner cities, while allowing virgin land to remain pristine. Yet, barriers to redevelopment, such as the probability of legal liability, uncertainty regarding cleanup standards, and lenders' unwillingness to finance contaminated property, can make redevelopment extremely risky and difficult.

When the 103d Congress convened on January 5, 1993, many observers believed that it would make up for the dismal environmental record of its predecessor. The 102d Congress had tried and failed to reauthorize the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Its attempt to elevate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to a cabinet-level department had been blocked in the House of Representatives, and its attempt to reform the General Mining Law of 1872 had been blocked in both houses.

Environmental regulation of pollution in the United States is often maligned as costly and ineffective. Pollution continues to plague and degrade the natural resources in the United States, and U.S. waters in particular. Nonpoint source pollution is currently the most significant source of water pollution, but it is also the most unregulated. While other discharges into U.S. waters have been dramatically reduced since the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) was enacted, nonpoint source pollution—caused most by runoff from agricultural operations—has increased.

Editors' Summary: Facility owners and operators that have become accustomed to environmental regulatory inspections that focus on a single medium are in for a change. EPA is placing greater emphasis on conducting multimedia inspections. This new focus requires that facilities be better prepared in order to minimize potential penalties. Focusing on potential RCRA, FWPCA, and CAA violations, this Article provides background on multimedia inspections and suggests steps that facility owners and operators can take to enhance their chances of safely surviving a multimedia inspection.

Editors' Summary: Until recently, the regulation of chemical carcinogens and the regulation of radiological carcinogens developed independently. Different governmental agencies operating under different statutory directives were responsible for addressing the dangers from these carcinogens. As a result, different policies and practices were developed. This Article explores these differences and the record on resolving them. It first examines the history of federal regulation of chemical and radiological carcinogens and summarizes EPA's approach to risk assessments for them.

Few commentators doubt the value of clean, unadulterated waters teeming with varied and colorful aquatic life. The debate centers instead on more pragmatic concerns, that is, how to best accomplish the accepted imperative. Some maintain that the primary responsibility should fall on the federal government because of its insularity from regional economic and political pressures. Others suggest that states should take the lead because of their familiarity with and ability to respond to local environmental concerns. Both sides have valid points.

Editors' Summary: This Article addresses the effect of the U.S. Constitution's Takings Clause on the government's authority to protect environmental resources. An earlier Article, published in the May 1994 of ELR, analyzed bases for government regulation provided by limitations inherent in the property right itself. In contrast, this Article focuses on an emerging doctrine of sustainable use, rooted in background principles of nuisance law and the government's complementary police power.

Editors' Summary: Environmental regulation has come under increasing attack from those who argue that governmental limitations on property use violate constitutional restrictions on regulatory takings of property. The author addresses this controversy by focusing on the background limitations on owners' rights that are inherent in property law itself, as opposed to the external controls that government may impose under the doctrines of police power and nuisance.

Is an intentional temporary deprivation of the use of land not a "temporary taking"? This proposition was asserted by a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency. The Ninth Circuit denied en banc review, despite a strong dissent by Judge Alex Kozinski. Perhaps because it had never explicated the meaning of "temporary taking," and perhaps in part because its interest was kindled by the Kozinski dissent, the U.S. Supreme Court recently granted certiorari. The question is limited to: