Federalism in Environmental Protection

In the last seven years, the Supreme Court has decided several cases that potentially alter the balance between the states and the federal government. Although these decisions have generated much controversy, in some ways they only address some important federalism questions at the periphery. Professor Appel examines four areas of environmental law that the recent decisions either only inform or do not address at all: cleanup of hazardous waste sites; the effect of state enforcement actions on citizen enforcement brought under federal environmental laws; the effect of state enforcement actions on federal enforcement actions; and the management of federal lands within the states. Each of these areas raises difficult federalism problems, but the Court\u27s recent federalism jurisprudence does not begin to address those problems. The solution to these federalism problems, then, likely lies within the political branches