Law Commons^™

A Return To Common Sense: Protecting Health, Safety, And The Environment Through 'Pragmatic Regulatory Impact Analysis', Rena I. Steinzor, Amy Sinden, Sidney A. Shapiro, James Goodwin

Faculty Scholarship

Health and safety regulations have a more powerful impact on the quality of life in America than any other affirmative decision the government makes, except perhaps decisions to go to war or pull in the social safety net. To a great extent, the purity of the food we eat and all the medicines we take, the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink, the safety of industrial workplaces, and the preservation of the myriad natural systems that support life as we know it are dependent on how effectively government polices the side effects of manufacturing. Yet …

The Hidden Human And Environmental Costs Of Regulatory Delay, Catherine O'Neill, Amy Sinden, Rena I. Steinzor, James Goodwin, Ling-Yee Huang

Faculty Scholarship

Each year dozens of workers are killed, thousands of children harmed, and millions of dollars wasted because of unjustifiable delays in federal regulatory action. Such delays in regulatory action have become commonplace, part of the wallpaper of Washington’s regulatory process for the protector agencies—the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), EPA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and OSHA. Despite its significance, the problem of regulatory delay and the costs it generates has been virtually ignored in the debate over the general wisdom of the U.S. regulatory system over the last 30-plus years. Opponents …

The Challenge Of Chinese Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

China faces some of the most difficult environmental problems in the world as rapid industrial growth has produced horrendous air and water pollution. How China’s government responds to these challenges will have profound effects on the global environment. This essay discusses how Chinese environmental laws are evolving to cope with these problems and the severe obstacles that Chinese authorities face. It notes that the highly decentralized nature of China’s system of environmental laws makes it difficult for the central government to implement and enforce the laws. The essay concludes that, despite some progress, the lack of an independent judiciary and …

Massachusetts V Epa: Escaping The Common Law's Growing Shadow, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

In its first full Term with its newest member, the U.S. Supreme Court marched decidedly to the right with decisions narrowing abortion rights, striking down affirmative action programs, invalidating campaign finance regulations, and making it more difficult for victims of employment discrimination to seek redress. In the face of this rightward shift the most surprising decision of the Term was the Court’s embrace of claims that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had acted unlawfully by refusing to use the Clean Air Act to combat climate change. In Massachusetts v EPA, the Court held that EPA had the authority to …

Capture, Accountability, And Regulatory Metrics, Sidney A. Shapiro, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

21世纪环境法展望 (Environmental Law In The 21st Century), Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

After reviewing the history of environmental law, this article discusses some important lessons that can be learned from its successes and failures. It discusses the continued influence of common law notions of causal injury on the administrative state and how the globalization of environmental concerns is affecting environmental law throughout the world. It concludes by venturing some predictions concerning the future of environmental law.

El Surgimiento Del Derecho Ambiental Global, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

Legal systems across the globe are responding to environmental concerns in surprising new ways. As nations upgrade their environmental standards, some are transplanting law and regulatory policy innovations derived from the experience of other countries, including nations with very different legal and cultural traditions. New national, regional, and international initiatives have been undertaken both by governments and private organizations. Greater cross-border collaboration between government officials, nongovernmental organizations, multinational corporations and other entities is shaping environmental policy in ways that blur traditional private/public land domestic/international distinctions. The result has been the emergence of a kind of “global environmental law” – law …

Environmental Law In The Twenty-First Century, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Legacy Of John Graham: Strait-Jacketing Risk Assessment, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Will Superfund Rise Again?, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

The federal hazardous waste cleanup program and its state progency have been in decline for more than a decade, victims to a campaign of sabotage waged by industry and neglected by the Bush administration. Meanwhile, stakeholders do their best to ignore the program's sorry state. A sad story, but there may be a surprise ending in store.

Book Review: International Environmental Treaties And State Behavior: Factors Influencing Cooperation, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Buying The Way To A Better Gulf Fishery: Buybacks For Hurricane Relief And Fisheries Rationalization In The Gulf Of Mexico, Michael Pappas

Faculty Scholarship

Fishing stocks in the Gulf of Mexico have been dwindling for years, and in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the fishing industry has found itself in even deeper waters. But whle the two hurricanes caused massive damage to fishing fleets and infrastructrure, they may have also created an opporutnity for reform in the way Gulf fisheries are managed. In this Article Mike Pappas evaluates the use of a buyback program as a posssible solution. After examining the problmes of the Gulf fisheries both before and after the hurricanes, he looks at other buyback programs that have been successful …

Environmental Law In The Supreme Court: Highlights From The Blackmun Papers, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

The papers of the late Justice Harry A. Blackmun provide a remarkably rich archive that documents how the Court, for nearly a quarter century, handled environmental cases during a period crucial to the development of environmental law. This Article reviews highlights of what the Blackmun papers reveal about the U.S. Supreme Court’s handling of environmental cases during Justice Blackmun’s service on the Court from 1970 to 1994. The Article first examines what new light the Blackmun papers shed on some of the principal findings of the author’s October 1993 article Environmental Law in the Supreme Court: Highlights from the Marshall …

An Unnatural Disaster: The Aftermath Of Hurricane Katrina, David M. Driesen, Alyson Flournoy, Sheila Foster, Eileen Gauna, Robert L. Glicksman, Carmen G. Gonzalez, David J. Gottlieb, Donald T. Hornstein, Douglas A. Kysar, Thomas O. Mcgarity, Catherine A. O'Neill, Clifford Rechtschaffen, Christopher Schroeder, Sidney Shapiro, Rena I. Steinzor, Joseph P. Tomain, Robert R.M. Verchick, Karen Sokol

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Perfect Storm: Mercury And The Bush Administration, Part Ii, Rena I. Steinzor, Lisa Heinzerling

Faculty Scholarship

The Environmental Protection Agency's recent proposal to regulate mercury emissions from power plants, and its final rule on mercury emissions from chlor-alkali facilities, suffer from serious scientific, legal, economic, and distributional flaws. The first installment in this series examined the strong scientific basis for regulating mercury emissions and critiqued the agency's decisions from a legal perspective. This second (and final) installment finds that EPA's decisions also fail from the perspectives of economics and environmental justice. EPA and the Office of Management and Budget's economic analysis of the proposal to regulate mercury from power plants was shoddy and one-sided. EPA and …

Book Review: Differential Treatment In International Environmental Law, Maxwell O. Chibundu

Faculty Scholarship

A review of Differential Treatment in International Environmental Law by Phillippe Cullet. Brookfield, Ashgate Publishing Co., 2003.

The Clean Water Act And The Demise Of The Federal Common Law Of Interstate Nuisance, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Perfect Storm: Mercury And The Bush Administration, Rena I. Steinzor, Lisa Heinzerling

Faculty Scholarship

In December 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule for mercury emissions from power plants and issued a final rule for mercury emissions from chlor-alkali facilities. Regarding power plants, EPA had previously found that mercury posed the most serious threat among the hazardous air pollutants emitted by power plants, and also that regulation of mercury from power plants was appropriate and necessary under section 112 of the Clean Air Act, which requires stringent technology-based regulation for hazardous air pollutants. Despite section 112's clear rejection of emissions trading as a compliance option, EPA has proposed to allow commercial trading …

The Frictions Of Federalism: The Rise And Fall Of The Federal Common Law Of Interstate Nuisance, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

Prior to the erection in the 1970s of a comprehensive federal regulatory infrastructure to protect the environment, transboundary pollution disputes frequently were adjudicated by the U.S. Supreme Court, exercising its original jurisdiction over disputes between states. In a series of cases commencing at the dawn of the Twentieth Century, the Court served as a national arbiter of interstate pollution disputes. This paper reviews the history of the Supreme Court's use of these cases to develop a federal common law of interstate nuisance.

The paper argues that while federal common law initially performed a zoning function by encouraging polluters to relocate …

'You Just Don't Understand!" - The Right And Left In Conversation, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Toward Better Bubbles And Future Lives: A Progressive Response To The Conservative Agenda For Reforming Environmental Law, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bad Science, Linda Greer, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Epa And Its Sisters At 30: Devolution, Revolution, Or Reform?, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Myths Of The Reinvented State, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Corruption Of Civic Environmentalism, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Devolution And The Public Health, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reinventing Environmental Regulation Through The Government Performance And Results Act: Are The States Ready For The Devolution?, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reinventing Environmental Regulation Via The Government Performance And Results Act: Where's The Money?, Rena I. Steinzor, William F. Piermattei

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reinventing Environmental Regulation: Back To The Past By Way Of The Future, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Legislation Of Unintended Consequences, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.