In mid-November 1975, a congressional conference committee¹ finally settled a bitter conflict which had broken out last summer between conservationists and farming interests over federal pesticide policy. The focus of the adversaries' well-prepared legislative campaigns, which quickly polarized the houses of Congress, was the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA),² the funding authorization for which was due to expire November 15.

The latest brief in a protracted legal struggle between environmentalists and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was filed in early November when the SEC published its proposed revised corporate environmental disclosure rules under the securities acts and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

Beauty can indeed by viewed by the eyes of the law, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has concluded, rejecting a statutory and constitutional challenge to a town by-law prohibiting off-premise advertising signs in residential, industrial or business zones.¹ The court held that a police power regulation does not violate due process simply because it is based solely on aesthetic considerations, and that municipalities may enact reasonable billboard regulations in order to preserve or enhance their urban environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded the Environmental Law Institute an eight-month contract to prepare a handbook which will assist local governmental bodies known as "208 planning agencies" in the design of regulatory programs for the control of water pollution. The handbook will focus on the legal and institutional aspects of programs regulating water pollution and will supplement other EPA technical studies.

Economist Robert C.

Students of the administrative process generally agree that all interested and affected persons should have an opportunity to participate in agency decision making.¹ Full participation is thought to serve the public interest because it achieves thorough exposition and consideration of information relevant to a particular rulemaking or adjudication; in short, it is thought to contribute to a better-informed, and, therefore, wiser decision.

PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) have made a comeback. First brought to international attention in the late 1960s by outbreaks of "Yusho disease"¹ in Japan and by discovery of trace concentrations in United States' fish, wildlife, food, food packaging, and human tissue,² these synthetic industrial-electrical compounds were thought to have been brought under domestic control in 1972.

Section 309,¹ a little-known but broad-ranging provision of the Clean Air Act of 1970, empowers the EPA Administrator to review and comment upon all environmental impact statements prepared by other federal agencies. In addition, the section provides a "referral" mechanism by which the Administrator can apply leverage against the sponsoring agency to have an environmentally harmful project modified or dropped altogether.

The courts generally do not favor private nuisance actions for air pollution; the dire prospect of shutting down a polluting industry usually prevails over individual plaintiffs' comparatively insubstantial environmental rights. Often, however, the court's task of balancing the partics' relative equities is eased by defendant's transigence, e.g., where it neither seeks to alleviate the complainants' suffering nor to perform functions that are particularly vital to the economic health of society.

The federal government's commitment to environmental protection has weakened considerably since 1970-1971. Perhaps nothing better symbolizes this shift than Secretary of Transportation William Coleman's recent decision to permit the Concorde supersonic transport (SST) to land in the United States.¹ This authorization contrasts with Congress' 1971 vote to cancel federal funding of a United States SST.