The scope of climate change impacts is expected to be extraordinary, touching every ecosystem on the planet and affecting human interactions with the natural and built environment. From increased surface and water temperatures to sea level rise and more frequent extreme weather events, climate...

Every year, a number of major industrial catastrophes occur in the United States. They often result in tragic losses in terms of human life and environmental degradation. They also produce substantial losses for the U.S. economy, sidelining industrial capacity and wasting millions, if not...

Over the last two decades, natural resource scientists, managers, and policymakers have increasingly endorsed “adaptive management” of land and natural resources. Indeed, this approach, based on adaptive implementation of resource management and pollution control laws, is now mandated in a...

The 1972 passage of the Clean Water Act (CWA) marked an important milestone in the nation's environmental history. Motivated by public outrage at oil spills covering hundreds of square miles, massive fish kills due to pollution, and rivers so laden with pollutants that they actually caught fire,...

In many ways, the Clean Water Act of 1972 has been a tremendous success. Discharges of water pollutants from both industrial and municipal point sources have plummeted; the loss of wetlands has been cut decisively; and water quality has improved broadly across the nation. Despite all of this...

The NEPA process does not end with the preparation of satisfactory impact statements. NEPA requires more than just the preparation of paperwork, even excellent paperwork. It requires an action agency to come to terms with what was learned in an EIS, to balance competing policy interests, and to...

Vigorous enforcement is a critical component of any credible environmental protection program. Congress recognized that fact when it enacted the Clean Water Act in 1972. The Act, therefore, contains an enforceable pollution control scheme, more than adequate federal enforcement tools, and calls...

The Clean Water Act is at a critical juncture today. New policies, new approaches may soon be adopted before we have had an adequate opportunity to assess how well the old techniques have worked. We need to determine as accurately as possible what has worked and what has failed as we approach...

Momentum for Chesapeake Bay restoration has advanced significantly in the past two years, shaped by the combination of President Obama’s Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration Executive Order and the EPA’s Bay-wide Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) process. These federal initiatives, taken...

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is destined to take its place as one of the greatest environmental disasters in the history of the United States, or for that matter, of the entire planet. Like so many other disasters on that list, it was entirely preventable. BP must shoulder its share of...