ENVIRONMENTAL ADMINISTRATION, THE COURTS AND PUBLIC-POLICY, 1980-1989

Of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's seven major enabling statutes, six contain citizen suit provisions which reqard anti-EPA plaintiffs. This fact, coupled with the agency's increasing use of the courts to bolster its enforcement efforts, yield a multitude of avenues through which courts have affected the policies and administration of the agency. This article discusses how the courts have affected the EPA in the 1980s and then briefly assesses the implications of such court-agency interaction for the successful operation of public agencies in the next decade. *