Editors' Summary: CERCLA divides response actions into two categories: removal actions and remedial actions. The need for clarity in the classification of CERCLA response actions as removal or remedial actions is crucial for private parties attempting to recover their response costs. These parties must prove that the costs of their response actions are necessary and consistent with the national contingency plan (NCP), however, the NCP requirements differ for the two types of actions.

Editors' Summary: Currently, mixed radioactive/hazardous waste is regulated by both the NRC and DOE under the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) and by EPA under RCRA. Despite the agencies' numerous and elaborate attempts to minimize and avoid conflicts between these two regulatory schemes, a fundamental conflict remains between the approaches that the two statutes take to regulating waste.

Editors' Summary: CERCLA § 107(a) authorizes EPA and private-party plaintiffs to recover prejudgment interest on outstanding costs related to CERCLA's response actions. This interest can amount to millions of dollars, and may be the single largest cost item at a site. Despite this, surprisingly little attention has been paid to prejudgment interest and how it is calculated.

Keynote Presentation: Making the Partnership Work

Panel Discussion: Regulation of Nuclear Materials

Regulation of Air Quality

Regulation of Water Quality: Is EPA Meeting Its Oblilgations or Can the States Better Meet Water Quality Challenges?

Regulating Solid and Hazardous Wastes

Editors' Summary: Naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM), which exists at very low levels throughout nature, is found in significant concentrations in over 50 common industrial wastes. EPA estimates that U.S. industry generates tens of billions of metric tons of low activity NORM waste each year. Despite the tremendous volume of NORM waste produced annually, there is only one site in the country that is expressly licensed to receive it.

Editors' Summary: The Clean Air Act's (CAA's) Title V operating permit program was one of the most significant additions of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) July 1992 final rules for the Title V program, which are the heart of CAA permitting, set forth the minimum requirements for federally mandated state permit programs.

Editors' Summary: The subject of natural resource damages continues to become ever more prominent. Congress' 1990 enactment of the Oil Pollution Act with a strong provision on causes of action for natural resource damages, combined with the 1991 settlement for damages from the Exxon Valdez oil spill worth hundreds of millions of dollars, promises to create even more attention in the future.

Editors' Summary: On September 3, 1991, a three-member dispute resolution panel formed by the signatories to the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) held that a U.S. embargo on Mexican tuna and tuna products harvested in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean violated GATT. The resulting controversy has focused on the decision's effect on U.S. actions under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), and the ramifications to other U.S. environmental laws with international trade impacts.

Editors' Summary: Environmental regulations can be complex and confusing. Even sophisticated companies sometimes have trouble deciphering the regulations. A number of defendants have argued that environmental penalties should be reduced or eliminated when regulations are ambiguous or confusing. In the recent case of Rollins Environmental Services (NJ), Inc. v. EPA, the D.C. Circuit addressed this "regulatory confusion" defense. The court set aside a $ 25,000 penalty for violation of EPA's PCB regulations based on the ambiguity of the regulations.

Editors' Summary: Congress, through the 1986 Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA), has succeeded in promoting CERCLA settlements between potentially responsible parties (PRPs) and the government. But the growing number of settlements have resulted in increased litigation between settling and nonsettling PRPs, in part due to uncertainties about SARA's contribution provisions. SARA clarified that settling PRPs may seek contribution from other liable parties, and obtain protection from contribution actions related to matters addressed in their settlements.