Over the past three years, the courts have had many opportunities to interpret NEPA. The Act has been involved in 149 separate litigations, some of which have produced several opinions. Yet, Chapters IV, V, and VI abundantly confirm that the bulk of these interpretations focuses on the one short action-forcing provision set out in §102(2) (C). As important as that section is, its role is nevertheless an essentially subservient one. An archive of disregarded assessments that bring about no real improvement in federal decisionmaking might satisfy §102(2) (C), but would fail NEPA as a whole.

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969¹ (NEPA) was intended to bring about fundamental reform on all levels of the federal decisionmaking process where the environment was concerned. On its fourth anniversary (the law was signed on New Year's Day, 1970), the Act still has far to go in achieving its ambitious goals. Yet, the progress that it has made has revitalized many of the bureaucratic processes that slight environmental values.

To citizens who perceive the government's regulatory agencies as invariably bent on aggrandizing their power, it may come as a surprise to learn that these agencies have sometimes opposed efforts to make them assume new authority. The Federal Power Commission is one of these; for more than half a century, it has resisted attempts to expand its jurisdiction.

One of Aesop's fables tells of a wolf and a lamb who were drinking from the same stream. The wolf snarled at the lamb that it was muddying his drinking water, and that as punishment it would be eaten. "But," the lamb protested, "I can't be muddying your water, I'm downstream from you." The lamb was promptly eaten as a punishment for insolence.

Although DDT was immensely beneficial when first developed during the Second World War, its dangers, ably documented by Rachel Carson in Silent Spring, soon became apparent. One of the principal disadvantages of DDT is its persistence in the environment. But the persistence of the chemical proved to be as nothing compared with that of its manufacturers. On December 13, however, environmentalists won what appears to be the final round in a 10-year battle, first in state and then in federal forums, with the pesticide lobby and its friends in the government.

Section 9 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972¹ requires that the president, acting through the Attorney General, report to the Congress on the feasibility of establishing a separate court, or court system, with jurisdiction over environmental matters.

The past few years, and the last year in particular, have seen dramatic shifts in one of the most hotly contested, and crucially important, areas of public interest law: the award of attorneys fees to public interest litigants. This process of development has had to overcome two major barriers, the traditional "American rule" under which winning parties normally do not receive counsel fees,¹ and the federal statutory prohibition against awards of counsel fees against the government.

On December 17, 1973, President Nixon issued Executive Order 11752¹ concerning the prevention, control, and abatement of environmental pollution at federal facilities. The Order supersedes Executive Order No. 11507,² which was issued February 4, 1970, and dealt only with standards adopted pursuant to the Clean Air Act and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. Executive Order No.

Although possible for many years, recovery of oil from shale has only recently become economical. Rising prices of crude oil on the world market and concern over the foreign policy implications of the United States' increased reliance of foreign sources has heightened interest in oil shale.

In recent years, the class action has become a favorite tool of public interest lawyers and of small plaintiffs attacking large corporate defendants. It has, however, fallen into disfavor in many federal courts because of its potential for abuse. In December 1973, the Supreme Court dealt a not unexpected blow to the Rule 23(b)(3) class action, ruling in Zahn v. International Paper Co.¹ that all members of the class, not merely the named plaintiffs, must satisfy the $10,000 jurisdictional amount for diversity suits in federal courts.