In a decision that is likely to be emulated in other states, the Supreme Court of New Jersey has recently rejected Commerce Clause challenges to that state's ban on the in-state dumping of solid waste originating outside New Jersey. The unanimous opinion in Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission v.

Secretary of Transportation William Coleman refused on March 25, 1976, to designate Florida and Mississippi as "adjacent coastal states" under the Deepwater Port Act of 1974,¹ thereby effectively denying those states a right to delay or to veto the Secretary's ultimate decision on the applications of Louisiana Offshore Oil Project (LOOP), Inc., and SEADOCK, Inc., to construct and operate deepwater port facilities off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas.² Instead, the Secretary promised to "give the fullest consideration" to concerns expresse

Controversies involving the propriety of regulating activities on privately-owned wetlands and coastal marshes have increasingly supplied grist for the judicial mill in the form of land use and takings cases. Private development of marshes, induced by the attractively low land capital costs, must continually buck governmental regulation fashioned to preserve our remaining wetlands. In the past few years, the resulting decisions have run the gamut, from upholding regulations that allow virtually no use of private marshes to striking down any restrictions on wetlands alterations.

In early June, a bipartisan, industry-supported substitute version of the proposed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), cleared the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee.¹ Because of the substitution, agreed to by the subcommittee bill's sponsor, Rep. Bob Eckhardt (D-TX), in order to ease committee action, the House measure, H.R. 14032, differs substantially from the Senate-passed bill, S.

Centuries ago—before its health threat was appreciated—garbage was thrown out of house windows onto streets, which seemed convenient commons for disposal of private wastes. Public health measures long ago banned garbage in the streets, and now the last remaining convenient commons are the oceans, which have begun receiving increasingly voluminous and toxic human garbage.

In the first extensive judicial interpretation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972,¹ federal district court Judge Charles R. Richey has found that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Act by allowing continued killing of porpoises incidental to tuna fishing operations.² The court also declared void regulations promulgated by the Service and a general permit issued to the American Tunaboat Association to allow taking of porpoise during tuna fishing.³

One of the most novel enforcement mechanisms devised by the drafters of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970 was §304's "citizen suit" provision.¹ This section, variants of which were later incorporated in the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972² and a number of other federal environmental statutes,³ authorizes any person to commence civil enforcement suits in federal district court.

The Environmental Law Institute has announced publication of A National Policy for the Environment: NEPA and Its Aftermath,¹ by Staff Political Scientist Richard A. Liroff. The book analyzes both enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the behavior of each of the key actors in its implementation.

The United States Supreme Court has undercut recent judicial¹ and scholarly² attempts to expand the use of programmatic impact statements under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in order to inject environmental factors more deeply into agency policymaking. In Kleppe v. Sierra Club,³ Justice Powell, writing for a seven-member majority, specifically disapproved the D.C.

In one of the most closely reasoned of its many end-of-term environmental law decisions, the Supreme Court held on June 1, 1976,¹ that Congress did not intend the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments (FWPCA)² to transfer regulatory authority over nuclear materials in nuclear power plant effluents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)³ to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).