Law Commons^™

Using Citizen Suits To Remedy Environmental Injustice And Achieve Clean Water In California, Paul Kneitz

Poverty Law Conference & Symposium

Nearly fifty years since the passage of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) in 1972, widespread pollution of California’s surface and groundwater continues across the state. “Over half of California’s lakes, bays, wetlands, and estuaries are too polluted to swim, drink, or fish,” according to the State Water Resources Control Board. Poor and working-class communities suffer disproportionately from the negative externalities and environmental impacts of water pollution, including effects on human health and wellness.

With a focus on the CWA citizen suit provision, this paper examines how the legal and administrative processes for water pollution control have not effectively addressed the …

2019 Environmental Law And Justice Clinic Report, Golden Gate University School Of Law

Environmental Law and Justice Clinic

Report on the recent activities of the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic.

From Dirty To Green: Increasing Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy In Environmental Justice Communities, Deborah N. Behles

Publications

The stifling summer heat that raged across the nation was difficult for everyone, but one group had a more difficult time than others—those who could not afford to cool their homes. Disparities like these will likely only get worse. Poor communities of color that are already vulnerable and disproportionately impacted by pollution will shoulder a larger burden of climate change impacts. These neighborhoods, often called environmental justice communities, have fewer resources to adapt to the effects of climate change. More measures should be taken to increase the development of renewable energy and energy efficiency in environmental justice communities before the …

Environmental Justice As An Essential Tool In Environmental Review Statutes — A New Look At Federal Policies And Civil Rights Protections And California’S Recent Initiatives, Alan Ramo

Publications

Recent litigation by the California Attorney General has sparked renewed interest in the role of environmental justice under federal and state project environmental review laws. Some say that inserting environmental justice into environmental review marks a “radical expansion” of the role of social justice in environmental review. Environmental justice is now a wellestablished federal legal doctrine addressing communities disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards as a result of their social or economic demographics. The doctrine is supported by President Clinton’s executive order, along with agency guidelines and regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), which govern federal project environmental review. …

Environmental Benefits And The Notion Of Positive Environmental Justice, Colin Crawford

Publications

Following the introductory section, the Article is divided into three parts. The first portion of Part 1 will chart the relatively thin case made in the U.S. literature for what this Article labels "positive environmental justice." The second section in Part 1 then looks outside the United States and analyzes an important and relatively recent decision of the Colombian Constitutional Court. The Colombian decision, which affirmed the constitutional and other international and domestic law rights of native and Afro- Colombian peoples in that country to make decisions regarding the use and exploitation of the nation's abundant forests," provides a nuanced …

Pursuing Environmental Justice: Obstacles And Opportunities - Lessons From The Field, Helen H. Kang

Publications

This article argues that the clinic‘s clients and similarly situated grassroots groups pursue litigation because the laws do not adequately protect them from pollution at the neighborhood level. Environmental lawsuits filed by such groups result from the conclusion that there is "too much" pollution in the neighborhood—there is elevated background pollution, violations of environmental laws contribute to excess pollution, and litigation is one of the few ways to redress the distributive injustice resulting from pollution created by multiple sources.

Access To Parkland: Environmental Justice At East Bay Parks, Paul Stanton Kibel

Environmental Law and Justice Clinic

In the United States, the environmental justice movement began with a focus on the inequitable burden of toxic exposures placed on low-income minority residents. There is now an increasing recognition that low-income minority residents also often face inequitable access to environmental amenities such as open space, parks and wilderness. Access to Parkland: Environmental Justice at East Bay Parks examines questions of equity for low-income minority residents related to the parkland holdings of the East Bay Regional Park District, the agency that manages close to 100,000 park acres in Alameda and Contra Costa counties east of San Francisco Bay.

Environmental Justice In Cuba: Capital Needs, Developing A Tourist Infrastructure, And Liberty Of Access To National Resources, Colin Crawford

Publications

First, I will describe the role of tourism in the current Cuban economy and identify the environmental concerns this development poses. In particular, this analysis will explore the environmental justice concerns of Cuba's emerging tourist infrastructure. Second, the article will examine both practical and theoretical efforts to include claims for freedom of access to environmental benefits under the environmental justice rubric. The article will both examine the relevance and lessons of those efforts for Cuba and do so with reference to notions of liberty rather than equality-the standard principle on which environmental justice claims are advanced. This section will conclude …

Advancing Environmental Justice Norms, Clifford Rechtschaffen

Publications

Part I of this Article provides brief background on the environmental justice movement. Part 11 generally describes some of the challenges that environmental justice principles pose for the traditional environmental decision-making paradigm. Part III presents several specific examples of how environmental justice norms can be incorporated to improve the ethical outcomes of traditional agency decision making.

California's Energy Crisis - The Perils Of Crisis Management And A Challenge To Environmental Justice, Alan Ramo

Publications

California's energy crisis represented a profound moment in energy policy, crisis management and environmental justice. California's deregulation led to blackouts and rapid increases in ratepayer bills that eventually fueled the Governor's declaration of emergency and emergency legislation by the State Legislature. Lessons about deregulation, crisis management and environmental justice abound. This article is not an attempt to systematically and comprehensively analyze California's energy deregulation. It instead focuses on the repercussions of crisis management, particularly as it relates to environmental justice.

A Survey Of Federal Agency Response To President Clinton's Executive Order No. 12898 On Environmental Justice, Colin Crawford

Publications

Authors: Denis Binder, Colin Crawford, Eileen Gauna, M. Casey Jarman, Alice Kaswan, Bradford C. Mank, Catherine A. O'Neill, Clifford Rechtschaffen, and Robert R.M. Verchick.

Each of the authors reviewed the response of a specific federal agency to Executive Order No. 12898, relying extensively, but not solely, upon the responses to a prepared survey. Professor Binder then summarized and edited the individual responses into this cohesive, comprehensive study with the substantial assistance of the other authors. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance provided by the representatives of the individual agencies in preparing and responding, often at great length, to our inquiries. We …

Using Federal Property Rights Laws For Environmental Justice, Colin Crawford

Publications

The late Ralph Santiago Abascal, who worked for years out of California Rural Legal Services and became one of the most admired legal service attorneys of his generation, was co-counsel in a celebrated environmental justice victory, El Pueblo Para Aqua y Aire Limpio v. County of Kings. El Pueblo successfully blocked the proposed siting of a hazardous waste incinerator by holding that the project's proponents had not translated the public review documents into Spanish in a majority monolingual Spanish-speaking community. Despite this victory, however, Abascal later observed, "The handful of reported environmental justice cases that have raised civil rights claims …

Hunters Point: Energy Development Meets Environmental Justice, Alan Ramo

Publications

Community reaction to a proposal to build the first new power plant in decades in San Francisco has forced a California agency, the California Energy Commission (CEC), to hold the first ever evidentiary hearings explicitly on the issue of environmental justice. In the process, fundamental questions regarding civil rights, energy development, environmental decision-making and economic development in poor communities are being litigated. At stake is the public and economic health of a community and perhaps the conscience of our environmental regulatory system.

Analyzing Evidence Of Environmental Justice: A Suggestion For Professor Been, Colin Crawford

Publications

One effect of the environmental justice movement has been to draw attention to the prejudices inherent in some modem environmental policies. These prejudices are most apparent when analyzing the location of hazardous waste facilities throughout the country. Several recent environmental justice studies have debated whether the location of these facilities has a direct correlation to the percentage of minorities in the surrounding areas.

This article critiques some of the methodology of these recent studies, most notably that of Professor Vicki Been, to determine the rationale governing the placement of hazardous waste facilities. Furthermore, this article suggests that researchers should expand …

Strategies For Environmental Justice: Rethinking Cercla Medical Monitoring Lawsuits, Colin Crawford

Publications

This Article argues that by concentrating largely on expanding the scope of constitutional jurisprudence, lawyers and legal academics have failed to examine possibilities for strategic lawsuits using the elaborate array of existing federal environmental statutes. Specifically, both lawyers and legal academics have needlessly neglected or shied away from the medical monitoring lawsuit available under section 107(a)(4)(B) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), to the disadvantage of potential environmental justice plaintiffs.