On October 9, 1970, the Internal Revenue Service announced that it was beginning a 60-day review of the tax-exempt status of §501(c)(3) organizations that supported or directly undertook the litigation of environmental, consumer, or related "public" issues. The IRS' announcement attempted to define traditional public service litigation, e.g., charitable neighborhood legal services, in such a way as to exclude them from the review.

On March 20, 1970, the 9th Circuit held that Executive Order No. 8979, which established the 2,000,000-acre Kenai National Moose Range on Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, in 1941, must be construed to include the Tustumena Lake bottom in the federal withdrawal of lands and waters that would otherwise have passed to the state of Alaska upon admission to the Union on January 3, 1959. The court concluded that if it did not find that the president intended to withdraw the submerged lands where the moose both feed and breed, it would effectively attribute to him an empty intent and empty action.

On February 22, 1971, the Supreme Court granted the Sierra Club's petition for writ of certiorari in Sierra Club v. Morton (Rogers B. Morton substituted as defendant Secretary of Interior for Walter J. Hickel). See previous discussion, 1 ELR 10002. The motion of the United States Ski Association et al for leave to file a brief as amici curiae was also granted. Petitioner has 45 days in which to file its brief.

On January 19, 1971, the 9th Circuit held that eight individual members of a conservation association who lived near and claimed beneficial use of San Francisco Bay had standing to challenge defendant Leslie Salt Company's plan to fill portions of the Bay in violation of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, 33 U.S.C. §§401 et seq. (1 ELR 41141). The Alameda Conservation Association was denied standing, because it did not assert that actual harm to its protected interests would result from the proposed landfill.

This month, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals endorsed the development by the federal courts of a federal common law of the environment that would be applicable in instances of interstate environmental degradation. In an opinion that bears directly on jurisdictional questions raised in the multi-district air pollution suits, now consolidated for trial in the Central District of California, and in Washington v.

Certiorari denied in San Antonio Conservation Society v. Texas Highway Dept.

The likelihood that a federal district court will agree that individuals can bring a qui tam suit under the Refuse Act, 33 U.S.C. §§407 and 411, and collect half of any fine levied appears less likely after the February 8, 1971, consolidated decision in Bass Anglers Sportsman Society v. United States Steel Corp., consolidating Civ. Actions No. 70-733 (N.D. Ala.), 3124-N (M.D. Ala.), and 6290-70-T (S.D. Ala.) (N.D., M.D. & S.D. Ala. February 8, 1971).

The Supreme Court's decision earlier this month in Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, __ U.S. __, 1 ELR 20110 (Mar. 2, 1971), is important to the developing field of environmental law on two levels. By its construction of two environmental protection sections of the federal highway statutes,¹ the Court has substantially restricted the availability of parklands and similar "green havens"² as sites for interstate highways.

Ohio v. Wyandotte, 1 ELR 20124, decided by the Supreme Court on March 23, 1971, puts to rest expectations that the Court might actively employ its original jurisdiction to hear environmental lawsuits brought by a state against citizens of another state.

Army Corps environmental statements rejected, and NEPA §102 favorably construed in Gillham Dam decision