Editors' Summary: Risk assessment is one tool of legal and policy decisionmaking, and one that may play a large role in establishing nanotechnology policy and regulations. In this Article, Jonathan Gilligan analyzes different methods of risk assessment and applies these methods to nanotechnology. Gilligan challenges the notion that people perceive and react to risk in a logical way, postulating that both experts and laypeople are susceptible to irrationality when it comes to risk perception.

Editor's Summary: The rapid growth of the nanotechnology industry that challenges traditional governance structures also calls for new approaches to accountability. Accountability mechanisms would help avoid adverse effects of the evolving technologies, foster public confidence in nanotechnology, and encourage the development of new, beneficial technologies. In this Article, Prof. Lee Paddock illustrates some of the tools of environmental accountability that may be employed in the context of nanotechnology.

Editor's Summary: Toxic torts are among the most complex legal cases, often requiring extensive discovery and the use of expert witnesses. In this Article, authors Gary Mason, Nicholas Migliaccio, Dennis Reich, and Michael Howell provide a comprehensive overview of the toxic tort property damage litigation process. They begin with case evaluation, explaining how to identify potential plaintiffs, defendants, and causes of action. They cover class certification, discovery, and expert witnesses, concluding with sections on damages and settlement.

Editors' Summary: An array of regulatory and planning tools for protecting biodiversity is available to federal, state, and local governments. In this Article, Robert McKinstry Jr., James McElfish, Michael Jacobson, and Derald Hay examine these tools along with their strengths and limitations. The authors provide examples by way of several case studies of state laws and programs, exposing gaps that these state regulations leave in biodiversity protection.

Editor's Summary: The United States saw a phenomenal period of wind installation in 2006, with over 3, megawatts of installed capacity added. Is this just another upswing in the boom-bust cycle of wind power in the United States? Alex Bandza offers an answer based on the histories of wind power and energy policy in three different countries. In this Article, he compares wind policies in Denmark, Germany, and the United States. Pulling from lessons learned from successes in the European countries, he suggests how future U.S.

Editors' Summary: On May 25, 2006, the Environmental Law Institute hosted the first seminar in a series exploring critical developments in toxic torts.

Editors' Summary: The OMB mandate for peer review of "information products" across the federal government, the Klamath Falls, Oregon, saga, and the legislative attempts to bind the regulatory arms of the ESA through peer review have sparked vigorous debate about the use of peer review in regulatory settings. In this Article, the first empirical treatment of the subject, J.B.

Editor's Summary: Creating law and policy for protection of the atmosphere is a complicated and contentious process. There are a great many stakeholders with different perspectives, and the federal government has taken a measured approach to responding to the evolving economic, technological, and scientific data on the state of the air in the United States and worldwide. Therefore, the states and the judiciary have taken on increasingly central roles as national policymakers in the areas of air pollution and climate change. In this Article, E. Donald Elliott, Bret C. Cohen, Ari G.

Editor's Summary: The federal courts of appeal are currently engaged in debate over the increase in probability of future harm that must be demonstrated by petitioners to establish a cognizable injury for Article III standing purposes. Two recent decisions in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C.) Circuit--one withdrawn and replaced by the other--may herald a new, quantitative approach to standing analysis with great implications for environmental law. In this Article, Cassandra Sturkie and Nathan Seltzer review these D.C.

Editors' Summary: Justice Antonin Scalia and others have described the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers'(the Corps') administration of the CWA §404 permitting process as burdensome and inefficient. Empirical data gathered from the Corps, however, do not bear out this assessment. In this Article, Kim Diana Connolly evaluates data collected from Corps Customer Service Surveys as well as the apparent disconnect between applicant experiences and the public's negative perception of the permitting process.