Over the past few years, regulated industry's criticism of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) approach to enforcing environmental requirements has increased. Perhaps emboldened by shifts in Congress' composition, the Agency's industrial critics have argued that EPA's arm's-length approach to enforcement, with an emphasis on sanctioning violators and deterring other parties from committing violations, is now anachronistic and unneeded.

In June 1992, delegates from nearly every nation in the world, including 107 heads of state or government, participated in the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), or Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro. Their most important work was Agenda 21, a comprehensive plan of action for sustainable development.¹ The United States, led by President George Bush, endorsed Agenda 21. Agenda 21 was premised on the simple and appealing idea that the real work of the conference would occur afterwards, in a variety of contexts, all over the world.

Editors' Summary: In 1993, Congress passed the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), which requires federal agencies to prepare strategic plans containing mission statements and statements of their goals and objectives. The plans must explain how the agencies will achieve these goals and must describe the resources they need to do so. The statute also requires agencies to begin preparing annual performance reports in March 2000 that compare their goals and performance indicators with their actual program performance.

Editors' Summary: Every year since the advent of modern environmental law, the U.S. Supreme Court has been called on to resolve controversies surrounding a variety of subjects, such as hazardous waste cleanup, water pollution, air pollution, water rights, mining claims, and land use. And every year, the Court seems to decide one or more environmental or environmentally related cases that significantly affect the field of environmental law. The Court's 1997-1998 Term was no different.

Editors' Summary: The ESA is simultaneously the most popular and most hated of environmental statutes. Conservationists fervently support the ESA's mission of preventing the extinction of our country's fish, wildlife, and plants, but private landowners subject to ESA restrictions claim that the Act unfairly and illogically restricts the use of their valuable property. As the agency with primary responsibility for the ESA's administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is caught between both sides.

Editors' Summary: Although there were several distractions for the U.S. Supreme Court to handle this Term, the Court managed to stay focused and perform its role as the highest power of the Judicial Branch. The Court's environmental docket for the 1998-1999 Term was slower than some previous Terms, but the Court still played an integral role in shaping environmental law. This Term, the Court issued opinions in 6 environmental or environmentally related cases, and denied review in over 40 such cases.