Buried deep within the several thousand page Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act signed by President Clinton in the waning days of the 104th Congress are the first significant amendments in a decade to the much-debated Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund). CERCLA is the federal law that creates a broad class of parties potentially liable for expenses incurred in cleaning up sites contaminated with hazardous substances.

Editors' Summary: After TSCA was enacted in 1976, some commentators described it as the most powerful of all the environmental laws. Congress intended it to provide for the comprehensive and direct control of commercial chemicals' potential health or environmental effects in a true cradle-to-grave tracking system. Indeed, it was the single law addressing toxic substances that could cover all areas of environmental regulation, supplementing sections of existing toxic substances laws. In the 17 years since its enactment, however, TSCA has not fulfilled these goals or expectations.

Editors' Summary: This Article is the last in a three-part series intended to supplement Federal Wetlands Law, a primer that ELR published in 1993 and subsequently incorporated into the Wetlands Deskbook. The Article, which refers to the primer but stands on its own, focuses primarily on where wetlands law has changed since the primer's publication. The Article first addresses judicial review of agency wetlands decisions, including a proposed administrative appeal process for U.S.

Until the 1970s, federal and state laws did little to control the harmful water quality impacts of mining exploration, and mine wastes were regularly deposited wherever was convenient, including directly into streams. As a result, one enduring legacy of the boom and bust mining cycles in the United States from the mid-1800s to 1970 is widespread and unmitigated water pollution from inactive or abandoned mines.

Editors' Summary

I. Introduction and Overview

Editors' Summary: Since the Supreme Court's decision in Rapanos v. United States, courts, practitioners, and scholars have continued to discuss Justice Anthony M. Kennedy's significant nexus test. Under this test, to protect a wetland one must establish that there is a significant nexus between the wetland and a traditional navigable water. In this Article, authors William W. Sapp, Rebekah Robinson, and M. Allison Burdette suggest that the nearer a traditional navigable water is to the wetland, the better the chance of establishing that there is a significant nexus between the two.