The need to protect the public from the serious adverse health effects of motor vehicle emissions has been recognized as an important public health goal since the 1960s. Evidence of adverse health effects associated with vehicle emissions of carbon monoxide (CO), benzene, ozone, and lead was the primary driving force behind the enactment of the Air Quality Act of 1967, which set in motion the federal regulation of tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles.

Editors' Summary: The CAA's PSD program is extraordinarily complex. This Article, written in two parts, focuses on the root of the PSD implementation process--baselines, increments, and ceilings. After exploring the essential features of baselines, increments, and ceilings, Prof. John-Mark Stensvaag delves into the complications that clutter up the theoretical simplicity of these features--complications flowing from statutory drafting, regulatory drafting, and interpretative choices made during the first 30 years of the program.

Editors' Summary: Science plays a central role in ensuring that our environmental, health, and safety laws and regulations are protective of human health and the environment. The author presents several instances where scientists were allegedly fired or otherwise attacked because employers or others were disturbed by the results of their scientific research. Kuehn surveys the legal protections available to scientists and the legal tools available to their detractors when disputes over scientific speech arise.

Editors' Summary: Earlier this year, the U.S. House of Representatives Resources Committee launched a Task Force on Improving the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), organizing a number of hearings across the country. While industry representatives complained of interference and delays in project approvals, environmentalists asserted that the statute works and praised its venue for public participation. The aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita added more fuel to the controversy.

Editors' Summary: The CAA's PSD program is extraordinarily complex. This Article, written in two parts, focuses on the root of the PSD implementation process--baselines, increments, and ceilings. After exploring the essential features of baselines, increments, and ceilings, Prof. John-Mark Stensvaag delves into to the complications that clutter up the theoretical simplicity of these features--complications flowing from statutory drafting, regulatory drafting, and interpretative choices made during the first 30 years of the program.

This Article provides a relatively short summary of the most important environmental case law developments of the past year.¹ The treatment of cases is divided into two categories: first, extended consideration of the most significant developments; second, a somewhat briefer summary of several other significant decisions, organized by statute or subject matter.

In a recent case involving environmental policies, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit continued on its course of remanding administrative agency actions while neither reversing nor vacating them, in order to allow bureaucrats to explain decisions that otherwise cannot be sustained. This practice is unfortunate. It contravenes due process requirements that agency choices be evaluated on the actual record generated below instead of post-hoc litigation rationalizations and is based on a dubious extrapolation of precedent.

Claims for punitive damages in environmental tort cases raise a number of interesting state-law and constitutional issues. Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit had the occasion to address some of these issues in Johansen v. Combustion Engineering, Inc.¹ This Dialogue discusses the aspects of the Johansen decision that have particular relevance in environmental cases and seeks to provide practitioners with some guidance as to how to approach these issues in future cases.²

Military historians observe that the losing armies were the ones that were only prepared to fight the last war, failing to change their tactics and strategies to deal with current warfare. Today, environmental groups and U.S. industries continue to war over the public dissemination of process details and chemical formulations regarding the environmental consequences of industrial facilities. Information confidentiality disputes relating to the environment present a classic political science, economic, and philosophical conflict among competing values.

Editors' Summary: Can the complex process of allocating cleanup costs at Superfund sites be distilled into a set of practical and common-sense rules? This Dialogue, written by a co-author of an Article on Superfund allocation published in the February 1998 issue of ELR, submits that there are indeed eight fundamental rules to guide potentially responsible parties and regulators in moving from "Superfund soup" to allocations that are rational and equitable. The rules are derived from the statute, judicial interpretations, and EPA policies.