Editors' Summary: The contamination of sediments in aquatic environments poses a direct threat to water quality, bottom-dwelling organisms, and animals feeding on those organisms. In recognition of the pervasive nature of this problem, several state and federal agencies are attempting to fashion guidelines for identifying, regulating, and cleaning up polluted sediments. This Article summarizes those efforts in light of the key regulatory and scientific dilemmas faced by agencies attempting to manage such sediments.

Editors' Summary: EPA's rules for determining what substances must be regulated as hazardous waste under RCRA are, to put it mildly, complicated. Understanding these rules, however, is vital, since hazardous wastes are subject to much more complex and costly requirements than nonhazardous solid wastes. Two of EPA's most important rules for determining whether a material will be classified as a hazardous waste are the "mixture" and "derived-from" rules.

Editors' Summary: The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, raises the threshold requirements that an environmental plaintiff must meet to establish its standing to sue. Although the decision will not fundamentally alter who brings environmental issues before the courts, the decision may herald an era in which pleading formalism and proof of each standing element are required. Proof offered to support standing will have to satisfy the Court's interpretation in Defenders of the standing requirements.

Editors' Summary: Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife (Defenders), the Supreme Court's June 1992, decision limiting environmentalists' standing to challenge agency programs, envisions judges' roles in environmental law strikingly different than the roles judges have often played before. Justice Scalia's plurality opinion articulates a limited role for the judiciary, anchored in the belief that government's programmatic decisions and rules of general application are normally inappropriate for judicial review.

Editors' Summary: CERCLA § 107(e) recognizes that private parties may agree to limit or to insure against their CERCLA liability by using common law contract tools, including indemnification and hold harmless agreements. But what role did Congress intend such private party agreements to play in allocating CERCLA liability? The plainly contradictory language of CERCLA § 107(e) does not give a final answer to this question, because the first sentence of CERCLA § 107(e) appears to invalidate indemnities and the like, and the second sentence appears to save them.

Editors' Summary: The Atomic Energy Act does not regulate a variety of substances that occur routinely in nature or that may become radioactively enhanced through human activity. These substances, known as naturally occurring radioactive material or NORM, may exist in waste produced by key industrial activities involving petroleum, natural gas, geothermal energy, water treatment, and mining. The NRC, EPA, and some states are now attempting to regulate some of the hazards that they perceive are caused by NORM.