Editors' Summary: The increasing number of toxic tort lawsuits in the courts today causes litigants to use a vast array of scientific methodologies and exposure models, which in turn add to the already high level of confusion among attorneys, judges, witnesses, and juries in the toxic tort courtroom.
Editors' Summary: State audit privilege and immunity laws and audit policies have been championed as a way to encourage facilities to audit, or increase the auditing of, their compliance with environmental laws. A recent study by the National Conference of State Legislatures examined the success of these laws and policies by surveying how they have affected facilities' auditing practices. In this Dialogue, the Director of EPA's Office of Planning and Policy Analysis and an attorney advisor in that Office analyze this study and its implications.
Editors' Summary: This Article is the second of three parts of a discussion of environmental law in the European Community. The first Article, which was published in the September 1998 edition of ELR's News & Analysis, discussed the evolving European treaties and institutions. This Article delves into the particulars of the European environmental regulatory framework. It begins by covering institutional issues and then moves into an inventory of production-related regulation.
Editors' Summary: In 1993, Congress passed the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), which requires federal agencies to prepare strategic plans and performance reports for achieving program goals. In two companion Dialogues published in the October 1998 and the February 1999 issues of ELR-The Environmental Law Reporter, Professor Rena Steinzor examined GPRA's impact on EPA's strategic planning, budget process, and relationship with the states.
Editors' Summary: The Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) was designed to control the undue influence of special interests on advisory committees by balancing committee membership, opening committee meetings and minutes to the public, and controlling the number of committees formed. In this Dialogue, the authors evaluate whether FACA has achieved its objective. They begin with a description of advisory committees and the applicability of FACA.
Editors' Summary: In environmental economics, the concept of negative externalities refers to the costs of adverse environmental effects that result from resource extracting and industrial activities and that are borne by the public, rather than the responsible entity. While this concept is widely accepted, serious debate exists as to whether environmental regulation for internalizing environmental externalities is market correcting or market distorting.
Editors' Summary: By combining environmental assessment obligations parallel to those of NEPA with consultation requirements similar to those of the ESA, the essential fish habitat provisions set forth in the 1996 amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act created a new regulatory process for federal actions that may adversely affect essential fish habitat. Consequently, the provisions represent a potentially powerful new tool for influencing coastal development.
Editors' Summary: This Article is the third and final installment of a survey of European Community (EC) environmental law. The first Article, which was published in the September 1998 edition of ELR's News & Analysis, discussed the evolving European treaties and institutions. The second Article, published in the June 1999 issue of News & Analysis, analyzed the particulars of the European environmental regulatory scheme by discussing production-related regulation.
Editors' Summary: In the first of two Articles, Professor Craig N. Oren examines the recent "blockbuster" opinion in American Trucking Ass'n v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, in which a panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals remanded EPA's air quality standards for ozone and particulate matter. The author begins with a discussion of the statutory and regulatory framework and describes the court's holding.
Editors' Summary: In this Article, the authors examine whether the U.S. Supreme Court's recent "federalism trilogy"—Alden v. Maine, College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board, and Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank—restrict the ability of Congress to regulate state compliance with federal environmental statutes. The authors begin with a review of the facts and holdings of the cases.