Editors' Summary: The 100th Congress closed out its term with a flurry of activity, enacting several environmental bills and introducing a number of bills that will set the stage for the 101st Congress. A FIFRA reauthorization bill passed, and the Endangered Species Act was reauthorized after three years' delay with few significant changes. Yet, in many respects the session that just ended was disappointing, and resulted in more form than substance.

In September of last year the Fourth Circuit handed down its decision in United States v. Monsanto Co.¹ The court affirmed the imposition of joint and several liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act² (CERCLA) on site owners and waste generators for governmental response costs incurred at the Bluff Road site in South Carolina.

The long national debate on the acid rain problem may be approaching a turning point. President Bush and his EPA Administrator, William Reilly, have stated their belief that the time has come to take action. The new Senate majority leader, George Mitchell of Maine, is one of the leading advocates in Congress for acid rain control. The ten-year National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NAPAP) is nearing its conclusion. These developments may shift the focus of the national debate from whether there should be a new acid rain control program to how that program should be designed.

Keynote Address

Laying the Groundwork: The Techniques and Applications of Recombinant DNA Technology

Federal, State, and Local Regulation of Biotechnology

Current Models of Risk Assessment Used in Biotechnology Regulation

USDA's Regulation of Genetically Engineered Plants, Microorganisms, and Veterinary Biological Products

Current Litigation Issues Associated With Biotechnology

Panel Discussion: Enforcement of Regulations

International Aspects of Biotechnology and Its Use in the Environment

Editors' Summary: Criminal prosecution is becoming an increasingly important component of the federal government's environmental enforcement strategy. The recent issuance of the federal Sentencing Guidelines has dramatically increased the role of criminal enforcement in environmental law. The guidelines require judges to impose specific sentences within certain ranges for various categories of environment crimes. Defendants are unlikely to escape with probation, as was often the case in preguideline prosecutions. This Article analyzes the impacts and mechanics of the guidelines.

Environmental enforcement officials in the United States stand on the frontiers of law and science. As the federal agency that stands guard over the environment, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must draw the line of enforcement at the boundaries of current knowledge about the ecosystem and use its enforcement authority to encourage compliance and bring violators to book.

Editors' Summary: Estimates of hazardous waste cleanup costs now reach $500 billion nationwide, or $2,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. And historically, estimates of cleanup costs have nearly always gone up. As the magnitude of the problem has become clearer, governments and private plaintiffs have searched for more deep pockets to pay for cleanups.

Editors' Summary: In June, the Supreme Court handed the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Act enforcement program a significant victory. The Court held that EPA is not required to act on a proposed SIP revision within four months and is not barred from enforcing the existing SIP if it does not act on the proposal within a reasonable time. This Comment describes the "four-month rule" for revisions and the enforcement bar that created the split in the circuits, and it analyzes the opinion.

My subject is the corporate compliance system. It is hard to think of this as separable fromgovernment and the public, but I will focus on the corporate end, highlighting what is working, what isn't working, and why.

PATRICK PARENTEAU: I would like to organize this discussion a little differently, by opening the floor to questins for the panel, and then permitting panelists to make longer follow-up remarks.