1.   All the major environmental statutes delegate enforcement to the states as long as the states meet Federal standards.

2.   But the relevant environmental statutes also allow for citizen oversight, and so far there has been very little.

3.   House Republicans and numerous Democratic allies approved legislation last month designed to subject new environmental statutes and regulations to much more rigorous cost and scientific accounting.

4.   In spirit, the Endangered Species Act is the noblest of the landmark environmental statutes passed during the Nixon era.

5.   That bill was intended to sweep aside what industry views as unduly burdensome regulations issued under a generation of environmental statutes.

6.   The Endangered Species Act is the most controversial of the landmark environmental statutes passed during the Nixon era.

7.   Those laws, like many environmental statutes, call for anti-pollution rules to be based mainly on considerations of public health and technological feasibility rather than cost.

8.   With a few exceptions, the administration has stood up to the test, resisting congressional efforts to weaken environmental statutes and commercialize the public lands.