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 reward 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. ^{? ?}This paper, particulary sections three and four, draws heavily upon a more detailed presentation examining the impact of federal court decisions on the policies and administration of the EPA from 1970 through 1988, published as O’Leary, R. Administrative Law Review, vol. 41. no. 4 (Fall, 1989).