The timing of environmental analysis and judicial review presents critical issues of interpretation under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Courts must be able to review an agency's compliance with NEPA before the agency makes major decisions, and before it invests significant resources that can compromise environmental review. Agencies must not be allowed to delay environmental review just because necessary data and research are difficult to obtain, or environmental impacts are uncertain. This Article discusses how the courts have handled these timing problems.

A recent headline on the front page of the Wall Street Journal hailed the opening of the nation's first "butterfly bank." The "deposits" in this unusual bank are conservation credits earned by preserving an important area of habitat for the Quino checkerspot butterfly, an endangered species restricted to California. The bank's intended customers are other landowners who hope to develop other sites where the butterfly occurs. In order to do so, they can buy credits from the private entrepreneur who established the butterfly bank.

Editors' Summary: Although the Clean Air Act is the primary tool used for controlling air toxics, the dramatic increase in toxic tort cases brought under common-law theories such as nuisance, trespass, negligence, and strict liability for ultrahazardous activities has raised concern in the industrial community that compliance with regulatory requirements may not protect industry from large-scale toxic tort liability. This Article analyzes the implications of common-law liability on the selection of air quality controls.

In the span of just a few years, the U.S. Supreme Court has brought the venerable constitutional concept of federalism back to life with a vengeance. In the 1999 Term alone, the Rehnquist Court struck down three federal laws for violating basic principles of federalism and narrowly construed a fourth to avoid any conflict with those precepts.

Editors' Summary: This past summer, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered its decision in Ohio Forestry Ass'n v. Sierra Club, 118 S. Ct. 1665, 28 ELR 21119 (1998). The Court held that an environmental group's challenge to a U.S. Forest Service land and resource management plan for the Wayne National Forest in Ohio was not ripe for review. This Article examines how this decision affects the rules for judicial review of national forest plans.

Editors' Summary