Editors' Summary: In the 1982 Term, the Supreme Court decided three cases involving the nuclear power industry. In the first and third cases, the Court continued its pattern of deference to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and nuclear energy. But to the surprise of many observers, in the second case, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v.

The report of the §301(e) Superfund study groupwas completed in June 1982, and was published in August of that year. As reporter for the study group, I have been involved in many discussions, roundtables and debates during the past 15 months. I have concluded that my first task, invariably, is to rescue the report from the rewrite it has experienced at the hands of its critics.

Editors' Summary: In June, the Supreme Court handed down the third nuclear energy ruling of the Term. Justice O'Connor, writing or a unanimous court in Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (Vermont Yankee IV), upheld the NRC's Table S-3 Rule—a generic rule dictating how licensing boards are to consider the environmental impacts associated with the nuclear fuel cycle. This was the second time the Supreme Court had reversed a D.C. Circuit decision invalidating the rule. Judge Bazelon of the D.C.

Editors' Summary: A string of recent cases, mostly out of the D.C. Circuit, have held that under many environmental statutes, a court could grant attorneys fees to a losing party whose participation substantially furthered the purposes of the statute. The Supreme Court, reversing the D.C. Circuit in Ruckelshaus v. Sierra Club, put an end to grants to non-prevailing parties. The five-member majority hewed closely to traditional notions of fee shifting. The four-member dissent found an intent in the statutes to abandon the traditional rules.

In a comment appearing in 13 ELR 10099 (April 1983), Kenneth L. Rosenbaum criticized a recent decision by the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, United States v.

Editors' Summary: In recent years, a number of coastal states have resisted the Department of the Interior's stepped-up efforts to issue oil and gas leases in the outer continental shelf (OCS) because of the potential adverse environmental and other impacts on their coastal zones. Legal challenges based on the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Endangered Species Act, and NEPA have been largely unsuccessful, but the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) has proved a more effective weapon.

Editors' Summary: Actions by municipalities and nongovernmental entities to recover the costs of responding to hazardous waste releases are authorized by the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), but the authority has not been utilized heavily.The author, who brought such a suit on behalf of the City of Philadelphia, reviews the relevant provisions of CERCLA, outlining the types of response costs that may be recoverable.

Editors' Summary: Property owners often respond to solid and hazardous waste contamination of their properties by cleaning up the contamination and then seeking reimbursement of cleanup costs from responsible parties under federal and state hazardous waste laws. RCRA is one such law; however, RCRA §7002 does not explicitly provide for recovery of damages. A court faced with a RCRA §7002 citizen suit to recover cleanup costs must imply a private cause of action for damages. This Article addresses the availability of a private cause of action for damages under RCRA §7002.

Congress enacted the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1976, to regulate management of solid and hazardous waste. RCRA Subtitle C regulates hazardous waste management and Subtitle D governs nonhazardous, solid waste. In 1984, Congress passed the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA), significantly amending and expanding RCRA Subtitle C. HSWA added to RCRA the Land Disposal Restriction (LDR) Program, or land ban, which bars land disposal of hazardous wastes that fail to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency)-promulgated treatment standards.

Editors' Summary: Congress first addressed the problem of leaking underground storage tanks (USTs) in 1984, by enacting Subtitle I of RCRA. The UST regulatory program addresses, inter alia, corrosion protection, reporting, corrective action, and financial responsibility. In this Article, the author provides an overview of the federal UST program. The author outlines the program's significant elements and explores specific regulations in the context of the technical problems they are intended to address, giving particular attention to how, to what, and to whom the regulations apply.