The Environmental Forum

OPENING ARGUMENT The actions needed to reverse the tide of marine environmental decline are many. We can start by fully protecting at least 30 percent of the ocean by 2030—before we reach tipping points that may lead to a wholesale change in the structure and function of ecosystems.

ASSAY Solutions must be found within existing legal frameworks. This means bringing scientific evidence together with the art of policy through an interdisciplinary approach and with input from impacted communities.

COVER STORY The Supreme Court’s reversal of the Chevron doctrine follows a series of recent judicial curve balls and a long-term barrage of anti-regulatory pitches. EPA can still score hits powered by statutory mandates, while environmentalists come up with a new game plan.

PROFILE As commissioner of Connecticut’s combined Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Katie Dykes is able to apply an interdisciplinary approach that allows the state to address challenges in a holistic way, leveraging one policy to optimize another.

THE DEBATE Less than a decade has passed since enactment of the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, the first time the Toxic Substances Control Act was amended since the original law was passed 40 years earlier. Welcomed with broad enthusiasm, the 2016 amendments were intended to correct a number of TSCA’s shortcomings. But has the new law worked as expected? Or, as critics have since argued, is it time to consider new amendments because implementation of the 2016 act has revealed significant flaws?