Millions of tons of plastic enter the environment every year, killing wildlife, releasing toxins, clogging drains, and marring landscapes. Bans or restrictions on single-use plastics have exploded in popularity in recent years as a means of addressing these problems. Yet these bans remain controversial, with some businesses pushing back against what they consider excessive regulation and others maintaining that banning single-use plastics uses political capital that could be spent advancing more urgent and systemic agendas.

The United States owns, on behalf of all Americans, approximately 30% of the nation’s land, totaling more than 600 million acres. These lands are overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI).

In Federal Lands and Fossil Fuels: Maximizing Social Welfare in Federal Energy Leasing, Prof. Jayni Foley Hein assesses inefficiencies in the federal fossil fuel leasing program that lead to the over-extraction of fossil fuels at great societal cost. In recognition of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI's) role in stewarding federal lands for the long-term benefit of the American people, Hein proposes that DOI should adopt a policy of seeking to maximize social welfare or “net public benefits” in its leasing decisions.

The externality costs of fossil fuel production—including pollution costs—are not accounted for under the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (Interior) coal, oil, and natural gas leasing programs. This results in fossil fuel production on public lands imposing significant social costs. Interior’s leasing programs have never been tailored to meet any past or present climate change goals, despite their significant contribution to domestic greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change has important implications for the management and conservation of natural resources and public lands. The federal agencies responsible for managing these resources have generally recognized that considerations pertaining to climate change adaptation should be incorporated into existing planning processes, yet this topic is still treated as an afterthought in many planning documents. Only a few federal agencies have published guidance on how managers should consider climate change impacts and their management implications.

The rise of high-volume hydraulic fracturing has been accompanied by a suite of environmental and social concerns, including potential water and air contamination, greenhouse gas emissions, health effects, and community disruptions. Concerned over these negative environmental impacts, individuals and communities have turned to the law to restrict oil and natural gas production.

There can be no sustainable development without sustainable transportation. It is an essential component not only because transportation is a prerequisite to development in general but also because transportation, especially our use of motorized vehicles, contributes substantially to a wide range of environmental problems, including energy waste, global warming, degradation of air and water, noise, ecosystem loss and fragmentation, and desecration of the landscape. Our nation's environmental quality will be sustainable only if we pursue transportation in a sustainable way.

Editors' Summary: The recently completed 105th Congress provided the nation with a legacy of unparalleled legislative inactivity. Few, if any, of the legislative initiatives earmarked as priorities passed as bitter partisan debate ruled on Capitol Hill. This Comment analyzes how such partisanship and subsequent congressional lethargy created the environmental successes, controversies, and failures of the 105th Congress.

Although the 104th Congress did not begin officially until January 4, 1995, its significance was apparent as soon as the polls closed on November 8, 1994. When the votes were tallied, Republicans had acquired majorities in both the Senate and the House for the first time in 40 years. And they were quick to proclaim the beginning of a revolution in congressional lawmaking.

Editors' Summary: It has become regular practice for federal legislators to insert into annual appropriations bills riders having little to do with the appropriations process. Last year, under the sponsorship of the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, a bill that would have exempted recyclers from CERCLA "arranger" and "transporter" liability was almost enacted as a rider to the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 1999. This Dialogue examines that rider and the changes it would have wrought to CERCLA.