Over the years, the environmental lobby has advanced a considerable number of laws—leading to the passage of hundreds of environmental statutes. But the legacy does not end there; a great many of these laws require federal agencies to issue regulations on an ongoing basis. The following analysis employs several tools to assess the scope and growth of the environmental regulatory state. It shows that environmental regulations comprise a considerable size of the total federal regulatory agenda, and the impact expands annually in the absence of congressional activity.

April 26 marks the 20th anniversary of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Anti-nuclear activists are still trying to turn Chernobyl into a bigger disaster than it really was.

Although the Number Four nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded just before dawn on April 26, 1986, Soviet secrecy prevented the world from learning about the accident for days. Once details began to emerge, however, the anti-nuclear scare machine swung into action.