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Connecticut v. Department of the Interior

The court holds that the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) is not proscribed from taking into trust for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe of Connecticut land that the tribe purchased from outside an area defined by a settlement agreement between the tribe, the state, and the federal government. In 1...

Citizens for a Better Env't v. Steel Co.

The court affirms a district court decision denying a steel company's motion to recover attorney fees from an environmental group under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) §326. The group notified the company that it had missed several EPCRA reporting deadlines. Before th...

Environmental Audits and Confidentiality: Can What You Know Hurt You as Much as What You Don't Know?

Editors' Summary: The adoption by many corporations of environmental auditing is evidence of the maturity of pollution control law. Increasingly, environmental compliance is seen as good business, not a pesky problem that will go away if ignored. Environmental auditing is a means by which corporate leadership can wisely manage environmental assets and liabilities. However, as a result of the relative novelty of environmental auditing, the legal consequences are uncertain, and the confidentiality of environmental audits has become a major concern.

Natural Resource Recovery by Federal Agencies—A Roadmap to Avoid Losing Causes of Action

Editors' Summary: On December 11, 1983, the clock will run out for certain natural resource damage recovery actions under CERCLA. Section 107 of the Act allows state and federal agencies to recover natural resource damages from anyone who is a "responsible party" under the Act. However, much of the attention to date in implementing CERCLA has been on the response, enforcement, and cost recovery provisions of §§104, 106, and 107.

State Hazardous Waste Superfunds and CERCLA: Conflict or Complement?

Editors' Summary: In the past few years, many states have enacted legislation that closely parallels the fund and liability provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund).States have been spurred to adopt their own superfund legislation by the financial requirements and response action opportunities presented them by CERCLA as well as by gaps in the federal Act.

Amending CEQ's Worst Case Analysis Rule: Towards Better Decisionmaking?

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) litigation is often a tactical exercise. NEPA requires decisionmaking procedures that ensure the full and timely consideration of the environmental impacts of major federal actions. Though NEPA suits are usually waged over procedural points, preserving the integrity of NEPA's procedures is not necessarily the plaintiffs' first goal. Plaintiffs may bring NEPA suits as an indirect means to a more substantive end—to force the agency to abandon what they judge to be a poor proposed action.

Tragedy at Kesterson Reservoir: Death of a Wildlife Refuge Illustrates Failings of Water Law

Editors' Summary: In 1983, Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in central California achieved national prominence when Fish and Wildlife Service scientists discovered severely deformed and dead waterfowl at the refuge and concluded that the cause was selenium contamination from irrigation wastewater stored there. The use of Kesterson as a disposal site for such irrigation wastewater will cease in six months, but the problems it has raised will not soon fade. The contamination at the site must be cleaned up and further contamination prevented.

Water for Wilderness: Colorado Court Expands Federal Reserved Rights

Editors' Summary: A federal district court in Colorado recently added fuel to the fires of state-federal conflicts by ruling that federal reserved water rights apply to wilderness areas. The reserved rights doctrine, the focus of controversy ever since it was first recognized by the Supreme Court in 1908, is disliked by many western water users since water is a limiting factor in continued western urban and industrial development and water appropriated for federal interests means less is available for state and private interests. This Comment discusses the ruling in Sierra Club v.