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:

Through the post-World War II era the U.S. Congress, by an incremental process of experimentation and error, developed the knowledge and experience that led to the imposition of individual permits based on uniform technology-based effluent limitations to regulate industrial water pollution. The resulting permit system has gradually reduced the amount of industrial pollution that enters our national waterways.

Agricultural biotechnology has generated much debate about the environmental consequences of field trials and commercialization of transgenic crops. Thus far, the debate has focused on opponents' claims of alleged risks presented by transgenic crops and the proponents' responses to those asserted risks. To date, three issues have dominated the debate:

. the risk of gene flow;

. the risk of weediness; and

. the risk of insect-resistance.

In recent years, the western states have often struggled with the federal government over control and management of natural resources, particularly water. For its part, federal law defers to states in many matters of water resource allocation.

Under the Wetland Conservation subtitle of the Food Security Act of 1985, as amended, commonly known as "Swampbuster," wetlands may be used to grow crops provided they are not degraded by this practice. In the legislation, Congress has made an effort, by use of the "minimal effects" concept, to make precise just what farming practices are acceptable. If a farming practice has only a minimal effect on the wetland's function, then the farmer is not ineligible for participation in federal loan, commodity price and income support, and conservation programs.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision last term in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (SWANCC), striking down the migratory bird rule for wetlands regulation, warrants some reading of the Court's environmental tea leaves. Some fine commentary in these pages still leaves murky whether the opinion seriously imperils other environmental laws and regulations. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's SWANCC opinion for a five-Justice majority had worrisome implications that the new restrictive view of the U.S.

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

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.

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.