Editors' Summary: A close reading of the broad and convoluted liability provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act suggests that generators who arranged for the disposal of wastes are not liable for cleaning up subsequent hazardous substance releases to the environment, unless they chose the unsafe sites at which the releases occurred. The legal battles that have been waged over the scope of generator liability under the Act have largely bypassed this issue, concentrating instead on joint and several liability and causation.

Editors' Summary: The huge liabilities associated with cleanup of hazardous waste sites have driven some waste generators and disposers into bankruptcy. When this happens, business creditors find themselves fighting with the government and cleanup-related claimants over the bankrupt's assets.These confrontations have become more common: the Supreme Court has already handed down one ruling in a cleanup-bankruptcy case, Kovacs, and has granted certiorari in two more.

Editors' Summary: In this Dialogue, Mr. Want describes the CERCLA amendments passed by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Commerce, Transportation, and Tourism. At press time, the full committee was proceeding with markup, but the committee version was not expected to differ substantially from the subcommittee bill, with one notable exception. On July 18, the Committee approved by voice vote an amendment, sponsored by Rep.

Editors' Summary: Of the major pathways now being followed in the implemetation of hazardous waste cleanups under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), several have been charted at one site, Chem-Dyne Corporation's Hamilton, Ohio facility. Chem-Dyne was the subject of the first multi-party CERCLA negotiation, in which state and federal agencies squared off against hundreds of companies whose wastes allegedly cluttered the site.

Editors' Summary: CERCLA continues to be one of the most complex and convoluted of the federal environmental statutes. Many legal battles have been waged over the scope of liability of potentially responsible parties. Although the courts have agreed on some of the issues concerning liability, most of the cases to date have focused on the liability of generators, owners, and operators.

We read with great interest the comment on "Arranging for Disposal Under CERCLA."¹ The comment was generally well done, but may have missed some points of interest.

Editors' Summary: Biotechnology has moved out of the labs and scientific journals and into the chemical plants of large chemical companies and small innovators and the popular press. Those in the federal government responsible for protecting the public from threats to its health and environment are struggling to find a coherent framework for regulating biotechnology. But like some other environmental problems of recent discovery—groundwater pollution, for example—no single statute clearly controls.

Editors' Summary: Federal agencies involved in complex, multi-level planning may have to prepare multiple environmental impact statements and environmental assessments to satisfy the requirements of NEPA. A recent Ninth Circuit case, Thomas v. Peterson, has shed new light on NEPA's requirements for analysis of individual actions that are connected to other activities. The case is the first appellate ruling construing the Council on Environmental Quality's connected-action and cumulative-effect regulations.

Editors' Summary: Toxic tort cases pose formidable problems of law and proof for plaintiffs. These problems are compounded in environmental suits, where defendants may be difficult to identify and causation may be especially clouded.The author outlines the obstacles to recovery in toxic tort cases arising from hazardous waste disposal, reviews developments in tort law that have reduced certain of the barriers, and then examines two pending New Jersey cases that may break further ground for plaintiffs.

Editors' Summary: Uncle Sam is both environmental policeman and environmental polluter. In 1970, Congress began to create a tough series of pollution control laws that govern the activities of private organizations and individuals. One of the great ironies of the early years of environmental law was that, while these deliberations were taking place, the air outside in the Capitol was often fouled by emissions from the federal government powerplant providing the electricity to light the congressional offices.