The Environmental Protection Agency recently contracted with the Environmental Law Institute for a year-long research project entitled "Federal Tax Policy and Depletable Resources: Impacts and Alternatives for Recycling and Conservation." The project, which will join legal and economic talents, is the Institute's first major interdisciplinary venture.

The 93rd Congress produced a number of eleventh hour surprises to brighten what otherwise would have amounted to a discouraging environmental legislation scorecard. In particular two major acts, the Deepwater Port Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, combine stringent environmental protection provisions with strong citizen suit and award-of-fee sections, making both fields fertile for public interest and environmental litigation.

It is now more than a year since then President Nixon announced that the Outer Continental Shelf would be called upon to play a crucial role in implementing the newly formulated national policy of energy self-sufficiency. The Ford Administration, while warmly endorsing Project Independence, has tacitly conceded that the original target date of 1980 was unrealistic and replaced it with 1985.

In a major NEPA decision, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has planted its feet firmly on a deck which, if not actually burning, indisputably smells of smoke. In companion highway cases decided December 11, the court held—despite decisions to the contrary in five circuits—that federal agencies must prepare their own environmental impact statements and cannot delegate the task to state officials or private parties.¹ The ruling reaffirmed the Second Circuit's 1972 decision in Greene County Planning Board v.

The Environmental Law Institute has recently undertaken a research project on the enforcement of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 for the National Commission on Water Quality. The project is designed to determine the effectiveness of the new enforcement provisions of the Act, to assess the role of citizen suits in achieving the objectives of the Act, and to evaluate the relationships between and among state and federal agencies involved in enforcement activities.

The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in a decision handed down on January 28, 1975, added significantly to the developing law governing standards of proof in cases affecting public health. In Society of the Plastics Industry v.

In the 19th century, the great advanture of whaling captured the American imagination; men in wooden ships risked and somethimes lost their lives stalking the leviathan with hand-held harpoons. Yet, even then the whales generally fell easy prey to their resourceful hunters. The advent of modern, highly mechanized whaling fleets with cannon-fired explosive harpoons has reduced the contest to an efficient slaughter.

The Environmental Law Institute is undertaking a major research effort to locate and create legal and administrative means for encouraging energy conservation at the state and local level. The research, funded for an 18-month period by a $498,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, will employ four Institute attorneys, an economist, and a manager to direct a search for legal materials and structures that mandate or encourage energy conservation, as well as those that presently stand as impediments to efficient energy usage.

Last month's ELR reported on the January 31 decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, upholding strict new standards governing exposure of workers to vinyl chloride gas.¹ The court took the position that once the danger to the workers was proved, a rigid standard could be imposed by the government without a showing that that standard was technologically feasible.

Within a week of each other, two circuit courts of appeals recently handed down contradictory rulings on the question of whether the EPA Administrator must consider the technological feasibility and economic impact of state air quality implementation plans in the process of approving or disapproving them under §110 of the Clean Air Act.