Editors' Summary: Radon exposure in the home poses one of the greatest cancer risks of any environmental pollutant. However, responses by homeowners to the radon threat have been complacent. In this Article, the author discusses the reasons for this complacency and describes current efforts to educate the public about radon. The author concludes that existing efforts are inadequate and recommends a two-part national strategy that makes radon testing and disclosure an integral part of home sales.

Editors' Summary: The far-reaching effects of the nation's hazardous waste laws have become legendary. Manufacturers, insurers, bankers, senior corporate managers, and even cleanup contractors now worry about their liability under CERCLA. For the most part, Congress has left CERCLA's liability provisions intact since first enacting them in 1980. But Congress did make some changes in its 1986 amendments to CERCLA, and the meaning of some of these changes is only now emerging.

On August 18, 1990, President Bush signed into law the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA),¹ the most comprehensive federal legislation ever dealing with oil spill liability, compensation, prevention, response, and research. Nowhere in the statute will you find the word "federalize";² read between the lines and into the legislative history, however, and you will discover federalization is a major theme throughout the law.

On July 23, 1990, the U.S. Claims Court found in two separate decisions that the federal government had unconstitutionally taken private property without just compensation.¹ In both, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) had denied Clean Water Act §404² permits to fill wetlands.

Keynote Presentations: The Values Underlying Our Environmental Regulatory System

Panel Discussion: The Governmental Regulatory System

Corporate Compliance With Environmental Regulation: Striking a Balance

Panel Discussion: The Corporate Compliance System

Panel Discussion: The Communication/Feedback System

Panel Discussion: Completing the Loop

MICHAEL P. LAST: Some may think that the question, "environmental compliance: is the system working?" is intended to be theoretical. That is not the case. Our objective is to take a hard and honest look at our regulatory struccture and evaluate how it works and whether the way in which it works optimizes what the system as a whole is hoping to achieve.

JOHN A.S. McGLENNON: I have two or three suggestions that EPA should consider in order to develop a more formalized feedback system. One is to  incorporate an annual review process into some of our regulations. There would be no harm in convening an annual or biennial meeting of representatives of the regulated community to ask how well we are doing and how well the regulation is working.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which operates within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,¹ recently imposed the most severe penalties in its 13-year history on the Virginia Electric and Power Company (VEPCO), following its finding that VEPCO officials were responsible for a series of material false statements to the Commission. The false statements, 12 in all, were made between 1968 and 1973 at various stages in VEPCO's application for licenses to construct a four-unit complex of nuclear power reactors at North Anna, in rural Louisa County, Virginia.

Californians are no strangers to freeway interchanges and their strategic importance to ambitious land developers.

Two U.S. Courts of Appeals have recently ruled¹ that §113 of the Clean Air Act² does not give the Environmental Protection Agency authority to require states, under pain of civil sanctions and penalties, to adopt or enforce particular transportation control measures as part of their implementation plans.