In their article, In Defense of Regulatory Peer Review, J.B. Ruhl and James Salzman have made a valuable contribution to the politically charged debate over regulatory peer review. Their proposal for a mechanism to provide empirical data about whether agencies would benefit from peer review helps lift the debate from the realm of arguing over "sound science." They correctly identify the need for information collection to determine the scope of the problem before proposing the notion that regulatory peer review is the solution.

In Defense of Regulatory Peer Review by J.B. Ruhl and James Salzman presents a thoughtful, well researched, and optimistic case for the expanded use of peer review in federal regulation (including both rulemaking and administrative adjudication).

Editors' Summary: In 2007, China continued its environmental development goals outlined in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan passed in 2006. The Seventeenth National Congress convened in Beijing to adopt new policies for 2007-2008 and beyond. This annual review surveys the major developments in Chinese environmental law and policy in the past year. The Article covers national policy shifts, China's activities in the international environmental law arena, zoning and planning regulations, and enforcement mechanisms.

Editor's Summary: In 2003, the Imperial Irrigation District (IID) of California agreed to transfer water from rural Imperial County to urban southern California cities as part of a quantitative settlement agreement (QSA). The Colorado River water that the IID transferred to the wealthy coastal cities was held in trust for the residents of the Imperial Valley, the poorest county in the state.

Tropical deforestation is a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, estimated to contribute as much as 25% of global emissions. In Brazil, which is reported to be the fourth-largest GHG emitter, deforestation causes about 75% of all national emissions. Yet deforestation in Brazil and other countries with tropical forests has proven very difficult to control, in part because of the weakness of national legal and regulatory institutions for environmental protection.

Editors' Summary

Editors' Summary

It once might have seemed that the federal policy of promoting environmental justice was on a collision course with limitations the Equal Protection Clause imposes on federal actions to benefit minorities. In February 1994, Executive Order (EO) 12898 directed federal agencies to take special steps to ensure environmental protection for low-income and minority communities. In June of the following year, the U.S.

Editor's Summary

In a recent essay, David Coursen asks an important and unexamined question: Are environmental justice policies, which seek to avoid disproportionate environmental burdens on minority and poor communities, on a "collision course" with the Equal Protection Clause? In concluding that a potential collision is more illusory than real, Coursen offers a number of reasons why governmental actions to promote environmental justice have not been challenged in court and, even if they were to be, would not be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny.