On February 11, 1975, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it will conduct a public proceeding and hold public hearings on whether it should require corporations to disclose information about "socially significant matters," and, in particular, about the environmental effects of corporate activities and about corporate fair employment practices.¹ The SEC has never before scheduled a formal public hearing to consider disclosures related to the interests of "ethical investors."² Nor has the SEC ever announced publicly t

The large number of federal facilities throughout the nation—military bases, nuclear fuel plants, the TVA, the Bonneville Power Administration—contribute significantly to ambient environmental pollution. Various efforts have been made at the federal level to bring federal facilities into conformity with federal and state pollution standards, but the problem still persists.

As urban populations in ever increasing numbers flee the smog and heat of city summers, they bring with them to formerly rural and wild areas the urban problems of crowding and environmental degradation. A case in point is the once remote Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge bordering the Atlantic Ocean in extreme southeastern Virginia, which today is sandwiched between burgeoning "second home" beach developments.

Editors' Summary: More than most areas of law, Congress looms large over environmental law. Federal environmental statutes, and the appropriations that fund them, serve as the central vein from which most areas of environmental law branch out. The 101st Congress in 1989 and 1990 was one of the most environmentally active congresses in two decades. From the Clean Air Act to the Oil Pollution Act to more criminal investigators at EPA, Congress strengthened environmental laws in a host of areas.

The passage of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990¹ and its attendant Statement of the Senate Managers once again raises the issue of the proper role and treatment of environmental self-audit programs in the field of environmental enforcement.

Are lenders' fears of Superfund liability justified? The conventional wisdom holds that they are. However, this hasty judgment may not be able to withstand legal scrutiny.

The federal government and citizen groups are attempting to increase enforcement of environmental laws and regulations. Under the major environmental laws, government agencies and other groups may sue alleged violators for injunctive relief and civil penalties. Several of these laws authorize plaintiffs to recover civil penalties that (1) deprive violators of the economic savings they may have obtained through noncompliance and (2) account for harm to human health and the environment.

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) was designed "to facilitate the prompt clean up of hazardous dumpsites by providing a means of financing both governmental and private responses and by placing the ultimate financial burden upon those responsible for the danger." CERCLA establishes a trust fund, known as the "Superfund," that can be used to finance government response actions.

Editors' Summary: The Superfund liability scheme has been heavily criticized for creating needless litigation among potentially responsible parties (PRPs) and for generating inordinately high costs and extended delays in cleaning up hazardous waste sites. This Article discusses the transaction costs and delays arising at each step in the Superfund process from initial listing of a site on the CERCLA national priorities list, through the search for PRPs, to the formation and maintenance of PRP committees and the remedial investigation/feasibility study processes.

Editors' Summary: To practice environmental law in the 1990s, it is necessary to be familiar with international trade. Trade concerns affect every aspect of environmental law from agricultural subsidies to the disparate impact of pollution abatement regulation on pricing. The following two Dialogues present an overview of the issues and insight on the relationship between international trade and the environment. The first, by a member of the Trade and Environmental Committees of the U.S.