More than three years after passage of the Endangered Species Act,¹ the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has proposed regulations² to implement §7,³ one of the strongest statutory mandates for environmental protection presently on the books.⁴ Less than two weeks after the §7 regulations were proposed, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a decision strictly enforcing §7's mandate.

Partially resolving a protracted series of inconsistent decisions among the circuits,¹ the Supreme Court on February 23, 1977 held in E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. v. Train² that §301 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (FWPCA)³ authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to promulgate regulations establishing uniform, single-number, industrywide effluent limitations for existing dischargers, provided some allowance is made for variations in individual plants.

In a decision with possible serious implications for the Department of the Interior's program to accelerate oil and gas production from the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), Federal District Judge Jack B.

An emotional debate, heretofore waged in scientific journals¹ and university communities, has now moved to congressional hearing rooms. The debate concerns the potentially beneficial but perhaps hazardous technique of recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) research, in which DNA molecules—the genetic material of every cell that transmits an organism's hereditary characteristics—are chemically cut and then recombined into new molecules.

On April 5, 1977,¹ the House of Representatives passed a bill which would severely limit the federal government's authority to regulate the dredging and filling of wetlands. H.R. 3199 renews a number of funding authorizations under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), including the multi-billion-dollar grant program for construction of municipal sewage treatment facilities.

On March 31, 1977, federal Judge James B. McMillan of the Western District of North Carolina declared the Price-Anderson Act,¹ which limits total liability for damages from accidents involving civilan nuclear power reactors, to be an unconstitutional deprivation of due process and equal protection. Judge McMillan's decision in Carolina Environmental Study Group v. United States Atomic Energy Commission,² is certain to elate opponents of nuclear power development, who view Price-Anderson as the fulcrum of nuclear power issues.

To the apparent dissatisfaction of all the parties involved, the Supreme Court on May 2, 1977, refused to resolve the issue of whether the Clean Air Act empowers the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require states under pain of federal enforcement sanctions to implement EPA-drafted transportation controls as part of their air quality implementation programs.

The unfortunate spate of oil tanker disasters last winter highlighted the increasingly serious problem of vesselsource oil pollution of the marine environment. Attention focused not only upon tanker construction and operation standards but also upon liability for clean-up costs and damages. Because present national and international regulatory mechanisms seem inadequate, both Congress and the Carter Administration are developing numerous reforms.

Four years ago, the policy to increase domestic energy production clashed with the desire to preserve large areas of pristine Alaskan wilderness over the question of constructing the Trans-Alaska Pipeline to bring oil from the large deposits on the North Slope at Prudhoe Bay to the ice-free port of Valdez.

Using Land to Save Energy is one in a series of books prepared by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) on energy conservation strategies for state and local governments. The book was funded by the National Science Foundation and will be available in June from Ballinger Publishing Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Written by ELI attorney Corbin Crews Harwood, this book examines one generally overlooked opportunity for significant energy savings—more efficient design and location of new residential and commercial development.