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Update: The NEPA Worst Case Analysis Regulation

Editors' Summary: The worst case analysis regulation has brought agencies, litigants, and courts to examine NEPA's requirements for dealing with uncertainty in decisionmaking. Since our last Comment on the regulation, over a year ago, the case law has grown and the outlines of agency obligations to address uncertainty have emerged. The author explores three basic questions about the regulation in light of the developing case law: What level of uncertainty triggers the worst case requirement? When must the analysis be done? And what is the worst case?

The Role of EPA's Guidelines in the Clean Water Act §404 Permit Program—Judicial Interpretation and Administrative Application

Editors' Summary: Although the Army Corps of Engineers has the power to issue permits for discharge of dredge and fill materials under Clean Water Act §404, the Act directs EPA to establish guidelines for the permit program. The role of those guidelines and their legal effect has been a topic of debate recently among both administrative reformers and litigants. This Article examines the genesis of the guidelines, the intragovernmental debate over their role, and their application by the courts. It particularly considers the settlement in National Wildlife Federation v.

Jefferson County's Lament: Clean Air Offers No Relief for Interstate Pollution

Editors' Summary: In Air Pollution Control District of Jefferson County v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Sixth Circuit upheld EPA's refusal to tighten the Indiana sulfur dioxide (SO2) control requirements on an Indiana power plant that pollutes the air of Jefferson County, Kentucky from a mile across the state border. The court ruled that EPA properly processed, and then rejected, the county's Clean Air Act §126 petition for a revision in the Indiana requirements.

CERCLA's Natural Resource Damage Provisions: What do We Know so Far?

Editors' Summary: Recent months have brought a flurry of natural resource damage recovery actions under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). As it also failed to do with other CERCLA provisions, Congress did not provide clear guidance on a number of critical issues in natural resource damage recovery. Mr. Breen, an attorney involved in a major CERCLA natural resource damage action, outlines the status of the law at present.

Valuing Natural Resource Damages: Economics for CERCLA Lawyers

Editors' Summary: New paths in the development of pollution control law and resource economics intersect in the natural resource damage provisions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). The law gives the trustees for public access natural resources a new, streamlined cause of action for recovery of damages inflicted by the improper disposal of hazardous substances. At the same time, resource economists have been developing sophisticated methods for estimating the value of such resources to society.

EPA's Regional Counsels

I have been EPA's regional counsel in Philadelphia for six years, and as that assignment is now ending it seems suitable for me to say a few words about a regional counsel's work.

United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc.: Mountain or Molehill?

Editors' summary: Federal Water Polution Control Act §404 gives the Army Corps of Engineers broad jurisdiction to control development of wetlands. In United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc., the Sixth Circuit apparently drastically curtailed the Corps' jurisdiction, ruling that a parcel not frequently inundated by navigable waters was outside the Corps' overview. This Comment takes a close look at the opinion and its apparent anomalies, and concludes that the court's odd approach leaves Corps jurisdiction over many types of wetlands intact.

Three Strikes and the Umpire Is Out: The Supreme Court Throws the D.C. Circuit Out of the Bubble Review Game

Editors' Summary: In Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., the Supreme Court resolved a long-running dispute over the definition of "source" in the Clean Air Act nonattainment area new source review program. The Court ruled that EPA acted within the discretion left if by Congress in changing to a definition making "source" synonomous with "plant," and castigated the D.C. Circuit for inserting its own policy preferences into an equation Congress intended the Agency to solve.