A Comment in last month's ELR¹ described the decision of the District of Columbia Circuit in New England Power v. Federal Power Commission,² which struck down the FPC's attempt to make itself self-sustaining under the 1952 Act by assessing a proportional share of the agency's costs to every company subject to FPC regulation.

The discussion of the Convention on Nature Protection and Wild Life Preservation in the Western Hemisphere, begun by Thomas Guilbert in an article in the May issue of ELR, is completed this month in an article at 3 ELR 50044. Readers of the first article will recognize the Convention as a broadly phrased treaty including wilderness preservation provisions that Mr. Guilbert marshalled in support of the recent decision in Izaak Walton League v. St. Clair.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHwA) recently promulgated additional regulations for public hearings on highway locations and design and for consideration of social, economic, and environmental effects in the development of federal-aid highway projects.¹ These regulations codify earlier policies and procedures contained in Policy and Procedure Memorandum (PPM) 20-8² and Instructional Memorandums (IM) 20-3-72 and 20-4-72.³ The substance of those earlier documents has been brought over into the codification wit

(See Comment, Litigation Under the Clean Air Act, 3 ELR 10007, and Table, 3 ELR 10022.)

The decision of the Supreme Court last year in Sierra Club v. Morton¹ generated fears that the recent acceptance of broadened standing in environmental cases might be reversed. In its June 18th decision in United States v. SCRAP, the Court resolved some of the ambiguity inherent in Sierra Club v. Morton in favor of the trend toward liberalized standing requirements. The same day, however, the Tenth Circuit handed down a surprising decision in Natural Resources Defense Council v.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has issued another landmark decision under the National Environmental Policy Act. The ruling in Scientists' Institute for Public Information, Inc. v. Atomic Energy Commission, reprinted in full at 3 ELR 20525, goes significantly beyond the court's earlier decisions in Calvert Cliffs¹ and NRDC v.

On October 1, 1972, the Oregon Minimum Deposit Act,¹ popularly known as the "bottle bill," went into effect. The first state act of its kind, the controversial Minimum Deposit Act seeks to reduce roadside litter by requiring refunds to be paid on all beer, malt, and carbonated soft drink containers and by banning pull-top cans.

Last month's ELR reported the decision of the District Court for the District of Columbia in City of New York v. Ruckelshaus,¹ ordering the Administrator of EPA to allot among the states the entire sum authorized by Congress for water quality improvement under the Federal Water Pollution Control Amendments of 1972.

On May 17th, the Atomic Energy Commission, in conjunction with the CER Geonuclear Corporation, exploded three 30- kiloton nuclear devices beneath Rio Blanco County in northwest Colorado in an experiment designed to test the feasibility of releasing natural gas trapped below the earth's surface. Repercussions from the project, both figurative and literal, may extend into the distant future.

On June 12, the Attorney General of California filed suit in federal district court seeking a judgment that the state may impose reasonable conditions on the operation of a federal water project in order to protect environmental interests. The action, California v. Morton,¹ grows out of a conflict between the State Water Resources Control Board and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation regarding the operation of the federal Central Valley Project (CVP).