ABSTRACT
Environmental law is firmly established, with a valid scientific basis recognized by the courts. Environmental law has travelled through obvious problems of air and water pollution control, with some midcourse corrections, and now copes with complex problems of comprehensive environmental decisionmaking, energy supplies and conservation, housing and growth control, disposal of radioactive and hazardous waste, protection of drinking water, management of watersheds, protection of global resources, and undoing chemical contamination of the environment. The “command and control” approach of the 1970s and 1980s is being supplemented by the use of economic tools. The traditional technology-forcing purpose of modern environmental law may not be good enough to cope with the nature and scope of our national and international environmental problems. The news for agency officials is that the decision makes clear “that a broad range of governmental purposes and regulations satisfies these requirements” for land use regulation to be based on a “legitimate state interest” and to “substantially advance” that interest.
