On March 31, 1977, federal Judge James B. McMillan of the Western District of North Carolina declared the Price-Anderson Act,¹ which limits total liability for damages from accidents involving civilan nuclear power reactors, to be an unconstitutional deprivation of due process and equal protection. Judge McMillan's decision in Carolina Environmental Study Group v. United States Atomic Energy Commission,² is certain to elate opponents of nuclear power development, who view Price-Anderson as the fulcrum of nuclear power issues.

To the apparent dissatisfaction of all the parties involved, the Supreme Court on May 2, 1977, refused to resolve the issue of whether the Clean Air Act empowers the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require states under pain of federal enforcement sanctions to implement EPA-drafted transportation controls as part of their air quality implementation programs.

The unfortunate spate of oil tanker disasters last winter highlighted the increasingly serious problem of vesselsource oil pollution of the marine environment. Attention focused not only upon tanker construction and operation standards but also upon liability for clean-up costs and damages. Because present national and international regulatory mechanisms seem inadequate, both Congress and the Carter Administration are developing numerous reforms.

Four years ago, the policy to increase domestic energy production clashed with the desire to preserve large areas of pristine Alaskan wilderness over the question of constructing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline to bring oil from the large deposits on the North Slope at Prudhoe Bay to the ice-free port of Valdez.

Using Land to Save Energy is one in a series of books prepared by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) on energy conservation strategies for state and local governments. The book was funded by the National Science Foundation and will be available in June from Ballinger Publishing Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Written by ELI attorney Corbin Crews Harwood, this book examines one generally overlooked opportunity for significant energy savings—more efficient design and location of new residential and commercial development.

On May 23, 1977, President Carter sent Congress his long-awaited Environmental Message,¹ setting forth in a comprehensive and coherent fashion the environmental goals and policies of his Administration. The document, which is the first such message since 1973,² evidences the new Administration's genuine concern for environmental matters and charts a firm course of environmental protection and resource conservation.

In April, President Carter announced an ambitious reorientation of national energy policy toward conservation and renewable resources.¹ The National Energy Plan² combines a complicated series of price incentives and disincentives, mandatory efficiency standards, excise taxes, and production increases in order to achieve an American society that is more energy efficient and less dependent on foreign energy supplies.

The 95th Congress has witnessed intensified attacks on wildlife conservation statutes that are chipping away at the Administration's expressed concern for environmental values and that threaten to undo the national commitment made in prior years. The billion-dollar tuna fishing and canning industry has collided with the requirements of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1976¹ (MMPA) over the incidental killing of porpoises while using high-technology fishing practices.

The latest round in the controversy surrounding the New Melones Dam in California has resulted in a substantial legal setback to state efforts to plan water allocation. In a decision by Judge Duniway, the Ninth Circuit has held that the Federal Bureau of Reclamation need not comply with state water permit restrictions when it obtains unallocated waters. In effect, this decision allows the federal government to obtain unallocated waters regardless of state conservation priorities.

Government Procurement and Operations, the second volume in the Environmental Law Institute's (ELI's) State and Local Energy Conservation Series, will be available in July from Ballinger Publishing Company of Cambridge, Massachusetts.¹ Written by Ivan J. Tether, an ELI staff attorney, the book considers the issue of what goverments—usually in a posture of controlling the rest of society—can do to run their own houses with energy thrift.