Editors' Summary: Agriculture has always been one of the engines that drive U.S. economics and society. The concept of sustainable agriculture is becoming a central issue in the development of U.S. agricultural policy. It involves a difficult balance among production, profitability, and conservation.

A long-standing and often heated debate within the Carter Administration over the application of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)¹ to federal actions abroad culminated on January 4 in the issuance by the President of Executive Order No. 12114.² Though the Order appears somewhat loosely linked with NEPA, it does direct federal agencies involved in international activities to promulgate regulations requiring environmental evaluations of those activities consistent with the terms of the Order.

The war on litter caused by disposable packaging received a boost recently when the United States Supreme Court overturned a decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court¹ that had invalidated the state's prohibition against the sale of milk products in nonreturnable plastic containers. In Minnesota v.

The Articles & Notes section of this issue of ELR is devoted to publication of the papers and proceedings of the May 1982 Airlie House Conference, "The New Federalism in Environmental Law: Taking Stock," sponsored by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Environmental Law. In pursuit of the Reagan Administration's goals to reduce federal spending and to shift regulatory responsibilities to the states, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is redefining its relationship with state agencies in the implementation of national pollution control laws.

Editors' Summary: EPA recently proposed for public comment a draft guidance document that discusses voluntary federal recommendations for hundreds of thousands of nonhazardous industrial waste sites that currently escape RCRA regulation. In this Dialogue, a member of the chartered advisory group that assisted the Agency in the development of the document discusses its attributes and shortcomings. The Dialogue describes the history of EPA's use of RCRA Subtitle D and the statutory and programmatic obstacles to meaningful federal regulation.

This Article discusses the original goals of Agenda 21¹ related to achieving "environmentally sound" solid waste management and reviews U.S. activities and policies with regard to solid waste over the last decade. Of greatest interest to the public and the media has been municipal solid waste (MSW)—ordinary household, commercial and institutional garbage or trash. Overall, the record of the United States in achieving sustainable solid waste management, including steady state or decreasing levels of waste generation and disposal, is mixed.

The regulatory takings jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court has become an ungainly body, awkward for citizens and judges to apply and challenging as well, one might guess, for the Court itself, as it continues to reshape the law to better serve its aims. One cause of this predicament: leading decisions have arisen from peculiar facts and messy procedural contexts, yielding rulings that are hard to apply elsewhere. Another cause: the divergent views of Court members on the deference properly due the work of land use regulators.

There has been a great deal of federal-state conflict, termed the "Seaweed Rebellion," regarding the development of outer continental shelf (OCS) oil and gas resources. The crux of the conflict is that the benefits of OCS energy development are national, while the impacts are regional. One of the main issues of contention is the distribution and control of the revenues derived from OCS energy development. Presently, most of the revenues are deposited into the U.S. Treasury and utilized to pay for federal programs and deficit reduction.

Over the past 50 years, all 50 States and over 500 municipalities have enacted laws to encourage or require the preservation of buildings and areas with historic or aesthetic importance. These nationwide legislative efforts have been precipitated by two concerns. The first is recognition that, in recent years, large numbers of historic structures, landmarks, and areas have been destroyed without adequate consideration of either the values represented therein or the possibility of preserving the destroyed properties for use in economically productive ways.

The economic success of the United States over the past century has prompted observers around the world to look to it for lessons on stimulating growth. Compared with many countries, the United States is plainly doing something right in terms of fostering the energies of its people. One cause of U.S. success has been the fertile land of central North America, and no study can overlook that unearned natural blessing. Still, American culture and its many institutions have played chief roles in the nation's cornucopia.