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.

Editors' Summary: On June 29, 1998, EPA published its PCB Mega Rule, a comprehensive revision of TSCA regulations that govern the remediation and disposal of PCB-contaminated material. The PCB Mega Rule affords the regulated community the option of remediating such material under self-implementing provisions or developing risk-based site-specific remedial measures that generally require Agency approval.

Editors' Summary: After TSCA was enacted in 1976, some commentators described it as the most powerful of all the environmental laws. Congress intended it to provide for the comprehensive and direct control of commercial chemicals' potential health or environmental effects in a true cradle-to-grave tracking system. Indeed, it was the single law addressing toxic substances that could cover all areas of environmental regulation, supplementing sections of existing toxic substances laws. In the 17 years since its enactment, however, TSCA has not fulfilled these goals or expectations.

The focus of much dialogue and debate in the public eye over climate change and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) tends to focus on industrial emissions of pollution for manufacturing or the production of electricity. Emissions from transportation sources (like trains, planes, and automobiles) and from the heating, cooling, and lighting of buildings themselves are less readily visible, yet each constitutes roughly a third of America's total greenhouse gas emissions.

This Article considers the extent to which the United States has made progress in the management of chemicals and pesticides in light of the commitments it made in 1992 to promote sustainable development. While pesticides are types of chemicals, they are managed differently and this Article will employ the legal distinctions between the two. The term "chemicals" refers to substances that are manufactured, processed, or used in commerce, other than those marketed as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, or food additives.

In September 1991, 25 people died at the Imperial Food Products plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, when they were trapped in a factory fire. Witnesses to the fire said the employees could not escape because the building doors were locked, apparently to prevent pilferage. The North Carolina assistant labor commissioner subsequently stated that the locked doors constituted "serious violations" of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act). The plant, however, had never been inspected for health or safety violations in its 11 years of operation.

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.