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Full-Text Articles in Law
Could Official Climate Denial Revive The Common Law As A Regulatory Backstop?, Mark P. Nevitt, Robert Percival
Could Official Climate Denial Revive The Common Law As A Regulatory Backstop?, Mark P. Nevitt, Robert Percival
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The Trump Administration is rapidly turning the clock back on climate policy and environmental regulation. Despite overwhelming, peer-reviewed scientific evidence, administration officials eager to promote greater use of fossil fuels are disregarding climate science. This Article argues that this massive and historic deregulation may spawn yet another wave of legal innovation as litigants, including states and their political subdivisions, return to the common law to protect the health of the planet. Prior to the emergence of the major federal environmental laws in the 1970s, the common law of nuisance gave rise to the earliest environmental decisions in U.S. history. In …
The Epa's Risky Reasoning, Cary Coglianese, Gary E. Marchant
The Epa's Risky Reasoning, Cary Coglianese, Gary E. Marchant
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Regulators must rely on science to understand problems and predict the consequences of regulatory actions, but science by itself cannot justify public policy decisions. We review the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to justify recent changes to its National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone and particulate matter, showing how the agency was able to cloak its policy judgments under the guise of scientific objectivity. By doing so, the EPA evaded accountability for a shifting and incoherent set of policy positions that will have major implications for public health and the economy. For example, even though EPA claimed to base …