Professors Flatt and Collins should be commended for seeking to answer one of the most perplexing questions that has plagued environmental protection advocates and regulators in the United States for over 40 years—how to improve compliance with federal environmental laws, and therefore, improve the quality of the environment.

How well are environmental laws in the United States being enforced, and what difference does that make to the quality of our air and water? Professors Flatt and Collins work hard to find the answers in Environmental Enforcement in Dire Straits: There Is No Protection for Nothing and No Data for Free, but run into some familiar roadblocks.

While I take issue with the title, suggesting that environmental enforcement is in “dire straits,” the body of Professors Flatt and Collins' article does not actually evaluate enforcement, but rather enters the oft-discussed world of attempting to find metrics for measuring the effectiveness of state environmental enforcement actions. Using selected Clean Water Act (CWA) and Clean Air Act (CAA) enforcement data, the authors’ four-year survey compares certain enforcement indicators with two parameters: state per capita environmental spending and the type of state government.

While much of the world debates what our environmental laws should be, the less esoteric question of whether the environmental laws we already have are being properly enforced continues to be insufficiently examined. As we approach the fortieth anniversary of modern environmental law, the answer to this “$64 billion question” still is not clear.

President Obama signed an Executive Order on January 18, 2011, requiring federal agencies to design cost-effective, evidence-based regulations that are compatible with economic growth, job creation, and competitiveness. The guiding principles include analysis of costs and benefits, transparency, public participation, coordination of regulations among agencies, flexibility, and reliance on objective scientific evidence. Perhaps most significantly, the EO requires a review of existing regulations according to these principles.

With soaring gas prices, international commitments to reduce carbon emissions, and domestic pressure to reduce dependence on foreign oil, there is significant momentum for the development of alternative energy within the United States. As a mature existing technology, wind energy is the fastest growing source of domestic alternative energy. However, the local siting of wind turbines has been rife with conflict.

In 2010, China continued its environmental development goals outlined in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan passed in 2006. This annual review surveys the major developments in Chinese environmental law and policy in the past year. The Article covers developments in international environmental law, water and soil conservation, and other law and policy developments in environmental protection in China in the past year.

Since the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976, EPA has struggled with implementation of the law, and with intermittent initiatives has explored, proposed, and attempted solutions to key chemicals management challenges. The successes or failures of TSCA (or any environmental policy for that matter) are not simply an issue of statutory language. Passage of legislation, even well-written and well-intended, is only the first step in successful implementation of a policy.

Proponents of the precautionary principle argue that it should be rigorously applied to ensure the safety of human activities that potentially impact public health or welfare before those activities commence.

A proposed alternative for reducing GHG emissions—payiing developing countries to forego fossil fuel exploitation in tropical forests, or "compensated moratoria"—could serve an important role in future climate change regulation. Ecuador's proposal to impose a moratorium on oil exploitation in the Amazon rainforest—the Yasuní-ITT Initiative—illustrates how compensated moratoria could help to improve the shortcomings of prevailing policy mechanisms for mitigating GHG emissions in developing countries.