A district court dismissed a city's RCRA and the California Hazardous Substances Account Act against the United States in a dispute concerning the environmental remediation of Old Hammer Field in Fresno, California. The site, presently occupied by an airport, was used by the United States as an Army...
A court partially grants the U.S. motion to collaterally estop defendants from denying their liability as owners and operators of the Armour Road Superfund site in North Kansas City, Missouri. Except for one of the defendants, prior actions against the defendants were final, or sufficiently final, t...
A court dismisses an individual's claim for $2.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages against a potentially responsible party (PRP) of the Omaha, Nebraska, Superfund site. The individual lived on the site from the date of his birth until his 18th birthday. He claims that he was exposed to le...
The court upholds a lower court decision that the United States has no obligation to reimburse a Florida county for the costs it incurred treating soil and groundwater contamination at the Miami International Air Depot. From 1943 to 1966, the U.S. government maintained and repaired U.S. Air Force ai...
The court upheld a lower court decision dismissing an environmental service company's patent infringement suit against a hazardous waste remediation contractor. The contractor was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clean up a lead-contaminated parcel of land near Colonie, New York. The com...
The court holds that Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) §107 cost recovery actions are not available to potentially responsible parties (PRPs) and that divisibility of harm is not a defense to §113 contribution claims. The court first holds that CERCLA d...
The court holds that material questions of fact preclude finding a timber company immune from Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) liability for the past and future cleanup costs of a chemical storage site allegedly contaminated, in part, by releases from th...
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.