Our magnificent 40,000-mile National Trails System was established by Congress under the National Trails System Act (NTSA) of 1968 through the combined efforts of President Lyndon Johnson, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, and Sens. Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.) and Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.). Private and nonfederal public lands make up the lion's share of federally recognized long-distance trail corridors.

"In the ranchers' view, history has created expectations in respect to the security of 'grazing privileges'; they have relied upon those expectations; and the statute requires the Secretary to 'safeguard' that reliance."

"Their adamance derives from a recollection of history that never existed and from asserted promises that were never made."

The quest by law abiding pesticide registrants for relief from illegally registered pesticides has taken a new turn. Tacitly acknowledging the futility of urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to initiate enforcement action against bad actors, registrants are now, in epidemic proportion, taking their case to EPA in the form of filing administrative petitions to revoke and/or cancel Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) registrations issued to competitors and alleged to be obtained illegally.

New rules are emerging to change the way the government makes decisions about cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund). These changes have altered Superfund decisionmaking fundamentally and irrevocably, requiring the government to reach for new levels of accountability, rationality, and consistency. Central to the government's ability to meet this challenge is the way in which it makes and explains decisions about acceptable risks and required levels of cleanup.

Editors' Summary: Since 1910, the federal government has played a role in regulating pesticides. At first, the motive was to fight fraud, but as pesticides became more sophisticated and as environmental concerns grew, the government's regulatory efforts became more comprehensive. Now, near the dawn of bioengineered pesticides, with society confronting and reevaluating environmental risks, and with agencies facing fiscal challenges, pesticide regulation continues to evolve. It is a field of concern to the pesticide industry, of course, but in U.S.