Editors' Summary: When Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA), many in the press announced that this law effectively repealed the Delaney Clause, which they claimed had banned all traces of cancer-causing pesticides in processed foods. This Article analyzes what the FQPA actually did. It begins by describing the history of the Delaney Clause. The clause appears in three statutes, most famously in the food-additive provisions of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA).

On June 7, 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reached an agreement with the basic manufacturers of chlorpyrifos to reduce potential risks from exposure to residues from pesticide products containing chlorpyrifos. More commonly known by the trade names Dursban and Lorsban, chlorpyrifos is the most commonly used pesticide in and around homes in the United States.

Editors' Summary: CERCLA and the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) create causes of action for damages to natural resources—for damages "resulting from" a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance, in the case of CERCLA, and for damages that "result from" a discharge or threatened discharge of oil in the case of the OPA. Thus, natural resource damages actions under these acts require a causal link between the release or discharge and the natural resource damage at issue.

On December 14, 2001, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a press release establishing an "interim" human testing policy for pesticides that suspended EPA's long-established policy of using human testing data to establish pesticide tolerances or to determine other human health-protective limits on chemical exposures. The policy was restricted to the results of studies using human subjects sponsored by private companies (so-called third-party studies).

The last 18 months have produced particularly interesting juridical and administrative pronouncements in the areas of Clean Water Act (CWA or Act) jurisdiction, permits, standards, citizen suits, and other enforcement. On the jurisdictional front, we learned that "deep ripping" constitutes an "addition" of a pollutant by a "point source." We also learned that 25-year-old cases from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.

Since the enactment of the Clean Water Act (CWA or Act) 28 years ago, the federal courts have been called upon to sort out the respective roles of the federal and state governments in connection with numerous aspects of the statute's implementation and enforcement. Congress has superimposed an additional layer of complexity on the CWA experiment in creative federalism—the citizen suit provision.

Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc. may prove to be the most important environmental decision since Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Laidlaw's primary significance lies in its discussion of the injury component of the U.S. Supreme Court's now familiar three-part standing test.

In its first week of business during the new millennium, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., and provided important clarifications about the law of standing in environmental citizen suits. Specifically, the Court rejected the narrow view of environmental injury-in-fact advocated by Justice Scalia and instead adhered to the broader view of injury-in-fact established in a nonenvironmental context by the Court's decision in Federal Elections Commission v. Akins.

As law students frequently discover during exams, the law of standing is easy to state but hard to apply. The basic rules are simple and well-settled. Under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, in order to invoke federal jurisdiction, the plaintiff must demonstrate the existence of an "injury-in-fact" that is "legally cognizable," "fairly traceable" to the defendant, and capable of being "redressed" by the court. Each of the terms in quotation marks seems clear enough on the surface but has proved remarkably tricky in practice.

adapted from Layla (by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon)

What do we do when we get sued now

If the Supremes aren't on our side?

If we can't rely on standing constraints

Do they expect us to comply?