The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is in the process of redesigning the Clean Water Act's (CWA's) total maximum daily load (TMDL) program. Section 303 of the Act requires states and, if necessary, EPA to: (1) identify waters that do not meet water quality standards; (2) establish the TMDLs for pollutants discharged into these waters that will achieve these standards; and (3) incorporate these loads into state planning. These are of course the classic steps of ambient-based water quality management.

Congress passed the Clean Water Act on October 4, 1972, by overwhelming margins—unanimously in the Senate and with a bare 11 dissenters in the House of Representatives. Rising on the Senate floor that day a full quarter-century ago, Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D-Me.), chairman of the Senate's Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution and leader of the Senate's clean water forces, explained with simple gravity why Congress was about to pass by such large margins such a powerful and unprecedented law:

Keynote Presentation: Making the Partnership Work

Panel Discussion: Regulation of Nuclear Materials

Regulation of Air Quality

Regulation of Water Quality: Is EPA Meeting Its Oblilgations or Can the States Better Meet Water Quality Challenges?

Regulating Solid and Hazardous Wastes

The 1990s mark the end of an era when pitched legislative battles can lead to either sound or timely public policy. Rather, the formulation of consensus by a critical mass of private-sector stakeholders is the only way to achieve the timely reauthorization of Superfund and may be the best (if not the only) way to break the gridlock that paralyzes other legislative debates.

Editors' Summary: On February 28, 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated and remanded portions of EPA's concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) rule. The ruling was not a win for either side of the debate, as it requires permitting authorities to review and incorporate nutrient management plans into their permits, but prevents EPA from requiring CAFOs to apply for permits based solely on their potential to discharge pollutants to U.S. waters.

New rules are emerging to change the way the government makes decisions about cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund). These changes have altered Superfund decisionmaking fundamentally and irrevocably, requiring the government to reach for new levels of accountability, rationality, and consistency. Central to the government's ability to meet this challenge is the way in which it makes and explains decisions about acceptable risks and required levels of cleanup.

Editors' Summary: Redeveloping abandoned urban hazardous waste sites, or brownfields, can significantly benefit developers, local communities, and the environment. Developers can purchase brownfields inexpensively, and subsequent redevelopment brings jobs to local communities and economic growth to inner cities, while allowing virgin land to remain pristine. Yet, barriers to redevelopment, such as the probability of legal liability, uncertainty regarding cleanup standards, and lenders' unwillingness to finance contaminated property, can make redevelopment extremely risky and difficult.

When the 103d Congress convened on January 5, 1993, many observers believed that it would make up for the dismal environmental record of its predecessor. The 102d Congress had tried and failed to reauthorize the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). Its attempt to elevate the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to a cabinet-level department had been blocked in the House of Representatives, and its attempt to reform the General Mining Law of 1872 had been blocked in both houses.

Environmental regulation of pollution in the United States is often maligned as costly and ineffective. Pollution continues to plague and degrade the natural resources in the United States, and U.S. waters in particular. Nonpoint source pollution is currently the most significant source of water pollution, but it is also the most unregulated. While other discharges into U.S. waters have been dramatically reduced since the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) was enacted, nonpoint source pollution—caused most by runoff from agricultural operations—has increased.

Few commentators doubt the value of clean, unadulterated waters teeming with varied and colorful aquatic life. The debate centers instead on more pragmatic concerns, that is, how to best accomplish the accepted imperative. Some maintain that the primary responsibility should fall on the federal government because of its insularity from regional economic and political pressures. Others suggest that states should take the lead because of their familiarity with and ability to respond to local environmental concerns. Both sides have valid points.