This month, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals endorsed the development by the federal courts of a federal common law of the environment that would be applicable in instances of interstate environmental degradation. In an opinion that bears directly on jurisdictional questions raised in the multi-district air pollution suits, now consolidated for trial in the Central District of California, and in Washington v. General Motors, a similar suit in the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, the circuit court declined either to require Texas to resort to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court or to have its cause decided under applicable state choice-of-law or substantive law principles.

In Texas v. Pankey, reported in this issue of ELR at 20089, the Tenth Circuit reversed the U.S. District Court's (D.N.M.) dismissal for lack of jurisdiction of a suit for injunction filed by the state of Texas against ranchers in New Mexico who allegedly pollute the Canadian River before it crosses into Texas by spraying their grazing lands with Toxaphene, a toxic chlorinated camphene pesticide used in controlling range caterpillars. The runoff of rainwater from the grazing lands in New Mexico allegedly carries with it quantities of the pesticide that ultimately show up in Texas' drinking water supply.