Editors' Summary: Since the Supreme Court's decision in Rapanos v. United States, courts, practitioners, and scholars have continued to discuss Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's significant nexus test. Under this test, to protect a wetland one must establish that there is a significant nexus between the wetland and a traditional navigable water. In this Article, authors William W. Sapp, Rebekah Robinson, and M. Allison Burdette suggest that the nearer a traditional navigable water is to the wetland, the better the chance of establishing that there is a significant nexus between the two.

Editors' Summary: The recently completed 105th Congress provided the nation with a legacy of unparalleled legislative inactivity. Few, if any, of the legislative initiatives earmarked as priorities passed as bitter partisan debate ruled on Capitol Hill. This Comment analyzes how such partisanship and subsequent congressional lethargy created the environmental successes, controversies, and failures of the 105th Congress.

Although the 104th Congress did not begin officially until January 4, 1995, its significance was apparent as soon as the polls closed on November 8, 1994. When the votes were tallied, Republicans had acquired majorities in both the Senate and the House for the first time in 40 years. And they were quick to proclaim the beginning of a revolution in congressional lawmaking.

Editors' Summary: It has become regular practice for federal legislators to insert into annual appropriations bills riders having little to do with the appropriations process. Last year, under the sponsorship of the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, a bill that would have exempted recyclers from CERCLA "arranger" and "transporter" liability was almost enacted as a rider to the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 1999. This Dialogue examines that rider and the changes it would have wrought to CERCLA.

In a recent article reviewing the U.S. Supreme Court's environmental decisions over the last 30 years (1969-1999), Professor Richard Lazarus argues that "the Justices have never fully appreciated environmental law as a distinct area of law."¹

The 1999 National Nuclear Security Administration Act (NNSA Act) threatens to reverse 20 years of reforms and court decisions intended to bring the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) into compliance with environmental laws and regulations. The NNSA Act, enacted in the wake of allegations of spying at Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory in New Mexico, established a semi-autonomous agency within DOE—the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The NNSA operates nine laboratories and facilities within the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

On January 11, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act (Act), which includes numerous amendments to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). The new legislation is designed to relieve small businesses from the financial burden of CERCLA liability, promote brownfields redevelopment, define transactional due diligence standards, and encourage state primacy in enforcement matters. The Act to some degree codifies U.S.

Editors' Summary: With their often substantial assets, parent corporations make attractive targets for parties seeking to remedy environmental harm. However, by challenging a court's jurisdiction over the parent, the parent may force a change of forum or, ultimately, a dismissal of the claims. This Article examines the scope of a parent's liabilities for the actions of its subsidiaries and discusses the jurisdictional issues.

Editors' Summary: Defining the scope of parent corporation liability under CERCLA has been a source of disagreement between appellate courts for years. This Article examines this disagreement and how it led to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Bestfoods. First, the Article examines the two contradictory lines of cases that spawned the disagreement. Courts using the remedial purpose doctrine have held parent corporations directly liable under CERCLA based on general involvement with the business and not due to specific involvement in the polluting activities.

Under the public welfare doctrine, certain regulatory crimes require no showing of the traditional mens rea, or "guilty mind," as a predicate to criminal liability. The doctrine has been used to relax intent requirements in criminal statutes when the public welfare is at stake and is predicated upon the fact that the defendant had notice that the dangerous activity is regulated. A majority of courts place the criminal provisions of the Clean Water Act (CWA) within the public welfare doctrine.