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Amoco Oil Co. v. EPA

The court holds that although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) withdrawal of a final administrative order (FAO) against an oil company rendered moot the oil company's appeal of a district court decision upholding the FAO, vacatur of the district court's order is not the proper reme...

Anderson v. Babbitt

The court holds that the exhaustion requirements of 43 C.F.R. §4.21(c) do not bar a district court from considering a colorable due process challenge to the procedures followed by the administrative law judge (ALJ) and the Interior Board of Indian Appeals (IBIA) in a pending Indian probate proceedi...

Reed v. Department of the Interior

The court affirms a district court decision that the Federal Tort Claims Act's discretionary function exception barred an individual's suit against the United States to recover damages for injuries he suffered after a car ran over his tent while he was attending a festival held on federally owned la...

Natural Resources Defense Council v. Peña

The court denies environmental groups' motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin new U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapon Stockpile Stewardship and Management (SSM) facilities, as well as activities or major upgrades to mission capability based on alleged violations of the National Env...

The U.S. EPA Draft Guide for Industrial Waste Management—Too Little, Too Late?

Editors' Summary: EPA recently proposed for public comment a draft guidance document that discusses voluntary federal recommendations for hundreds of thousands of nonhazardous industrial waste sites that currently escape RCRA regulation. In this Dialogue, a member of the chartered advisory group that assisted the Agency in the development of the document discusses its attributes and shortcomings. The Dialogue describes the history of EPA's use of RCRA Subtitle D and the statutory and programmatic obstacles to meaningful federal regulation.

Regulatory Takings, Methodically

The regulatory takings jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court has become an ungainly body, awkward for citizens and judges to apply and challenging as well, one might guess, for the Court itself, as it continues to reshape the law to better serve its aims. One cause of this predicament: leading decisions have arisen from peculiar facts and messy procedural contexts, yielding rulings that are hard to apply elsewhere. Another cause: the divergent views of Court members on the deference properly due the work of land use regulators.

Innovative Solutions to Euclidean Sprawl

Improperly planned urban development has resulted in catastrophic sprawl. The present land use zeitgeist hails urban and suburban mixed-use zoning as the solution. Mixed-use zoning combines—rather than segregates—residential, commercial, and sometimes industrial land uses, and thereby decreases housing costs, decreases commuting periods, decreases vehicle miles traveled and air emissions, increases the efficient use of land and time, and increases consumer convenience.

Local Land Use Controls That Achieve Smart Growth

Smart Growth admits of no clear definition. It provides a popular label for a growth strategy that addresses current concerns about traffic congestion, disappearing open space, nonpoint source pollution, the high cost of housing, increasing local property taxes, longer commutes, and the diminishing quality of community life. To accomplish smart growth, government must take two related actions. The first is the designation of discrete geographical areas into which private market growth pressures are directed.

Smart Growth or Dumb Bureaucracy?

In the west Chicago suburb of Sugar Grove—population 4,000, twice what it was 10 years ago—new large-lot developments spread spider-like from the downtown public library, police station, and village hall out into open farmland. The village has no sizeable employers or large shopping centers, and has limited recreational facilities. All those things are available close by in other suburbs and, of course, in the city of Chicago. After elementary school, children travel to neighboring suburbs for high school.