Editors' Summary: In recent years, a number of coastal states have resisted the Department of the Interior's stepped-up efforts to issue oil and gas leases in the outer continental shelf (OCS) because of the potential adverse environmental and other impacts on their coastal zones. Legal challenges based on the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, the Endangered Species Act, and NEPA have been largely unsuccessful, but the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) has proved a more effective weapon.

Editors' Summary: Actions by municipalities and nongovernmental entities to recover the costs of responding to hazardous waste releases are authorized by the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), but the authority has not been utilized heavily.The author, who brought such a suit on behalf of the City of Philadelphia, reviews the relevant provisions of CERCLA, outlining the types of response costs that may be recoverable.

Editors' Summary: Property owners often respond to solid and hazardous waste contamination of their properties by cleaning up the contamination and then seeking reimbursement of cleanup costs from responsible parties under federal and state hazardous waste laws. RCRA is one such law; however, RCRA §7002 does not explicitly provide for recovery of damages. A court faced with a RCRA §7002 citizen suit to recover cleanup costs must imply a private cause of action for damages. This Article addresses the availability of a private cause of action for damages under RCRA §7002.

Congress enacted the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1976, to regulate management of solid and hazardous waste. RCRA Subtitle C regulates hazardous waste management and Subtitle D governs nonhazardous, solid waste. In 1984, Congress passed the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA), significantly amending and expanding RCRA Subtitle C. HSWA added to RCRA the Land Disposal Restriction (LDR) Program, or land ban, which bars land disposal of hazardous wastes that fail to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency)-promulgated treatment standards.

Editors' Summary: Congress first addressed the problem of leaking underground storage tanks (USTs) in 1984, by enacting Subtitle I of RCRA. The UST regulatory program addresses, inter alia, corrosion protection, reporting, corrective action, and financial responsibility. In this Article, the author provides an overview of the federal UST program. The author outlines the program's significant elements and explores specific regulations in the context of the technical problems they are intended to address, giving particular attention to how, to what, and to whom the regulations apply.

The government use of compulsory purchase and land use control powers appears to be increasing worldwide as competition for useable and livable space increases. The need for large and relatively undeveloped space for agriculture and conservation purposes often competes with the need for shelter and the commercial and industrial development accompanying such development for employment, product production and distribution, and other largely urban uses.

Editors' Summary: Property rights advocates implicitly complained in Babbitt v. Sweet Home Chapter of Communities for a Great Oregon that a Fish and Wildlife Service regulation that aimed to protect endangered and threatened species by defining "harm" to include habitat modification impinged on their rights as private landowners by asking them to share with the government responsibility for protecting such species. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the regulation as reasonable given the relevant language of the Endangered Species Act.

The bedrock notion that courts should, in the overwhelming majority of cases, defer to lawmakers is currently under attack in the nation's courts, commentary, and classrooms. Leading the way are several U.S. Supreme Court Justices who, in cases involving the U.S. Commerce Clause, Takings Clause, and §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, are much more willing than their immediate predecessors to second-guess the motives and tactics of elected and appointed officials at all levels of government.

Editors' Summary: Although most talk in terms of wildlife protection seems to focus on the operation of the ESA, there are a host of other federal and state laws designed to protect wildlife from the impacts of resource-development projects—before the species become threatened or endangered.

Editors' Summary: In 1996, the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA) made major changes in the law governing pesticide residues in food, including elimination of the zero-risk standard for carcinogenic food additives. The FQPA instead imposed a new safety standard—a reasonable certainty that no harm will result from aggregate exposure to the pesticide—for establishment of "tolerances" setting maximum allowable amounts of pesticide residue.