Law Commons^™

Climate Security Insights From The Covid-19 Response, Mark Nevitt

Indiana Law Journal

The climate change crisis and COVID-19 crisis are both complex collective action problems. Neither the coronavirus nor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions respect political borders. Both impose an opportunity cost that penalizes inaction. They are also increasingly understood as nontraditional, novel security threats. Indeed, COVID-19’s human cost is staggering, with American lives lost vastly exceeding those lost in recent armed conflicts. And climate change is both a threat accelerant and a catalyst for conflict—a characterization reinforced in several climate-security reports. To counter COVID-19, the President embraced martial language, stating that he will employ a “wartime footing” to “defeat the virus.” Perhaps …

Domestic Emergency Pretexts, Amy L. Stein

Indiana Law Journal

Whereas emergencies used to be the exception to the rule, they now seem to be the norm. Wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, and contagious diseases dominate our daily lives. Although these are not the traditional types of military emergencies of our past, these non-wartime emergencies can trigger some of the same emergency powers. And with their use comes some of the same concerns about abuses of such emergency powers. Much ink has been spilled analyzing the tradeoffs associated with necessary emergency powers and frequent abuses in the context of foreign threats—resulting in reduced privacy, civil liberties, and freedoms.

This Article is not …

Hidden In Plain Sight: The Dangers Of Environmental Protections Waivers, Olivia Stevens

Indiana Law Journal

When enacting both statutory and regulatory environmental protections, Congress and various agencies have recognized that emergency situations could arise that would require flexibility in the application and enforcement of those protections. Incorporating waivers into such protections provides that flexibility. However, the current state of waivers leaves them vulnerable to abuse. In this Note, I explore how a lack of procedural and substantive safeguards allows the inappropriate use of waivers to further administrative agendas in a way that poses serious risks to both environmental and human health. I then suggest remedial measures available to Congress that would strengthen environmental protections while …

What Will The “Foreseeable Future” Bring For Climate- Imperiled Species?, Olivia Bauer

Indiana Law Journal

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is the strongest source of federal protection for species that are at risk of extinction, and the ESA is becoming increasingly important as climate change threatens species and their habitats more than ever. In 2019, the Trump Administration amended the ESA to provide clarity and predictability when making decisions to list a species as threatened or endangered under the ESA. The Administration defined “foreseeable future” in a way that starkly limits how far into the future the listing agencies may look when assessing risks to species. Prior to the 2019 definition of “foreseeable future,” the …

Promoting Regulatory Prediction, Jonathan S. Masur

Indiana Law Journal

It is essential for environmental protection that private actors be able to anticipate government regulation. If, for instance, the Biden Administration is planning to tighten regulations of greenhouse gas emissions, it is imperative that private companies anticipate this regulatory change now, not a few years from now after they have constructed even more coal- and gas-fired power plants. Those additional power plants will mean more irreversible greenhouse gases, and these plants can be politically challenging to shutter once built. The point is general to private actors making decisions in the shadow of potential government regulation. Better information about future government …

"On The Eve Of Destruction": Courts Confronting The Climate Emergency, Mary Christina Wood

Indiana Law Journal

In the dim and smokey twilight, with only bare necessities in tow, a family rushes to escape the wildfire racing toward them. Elsewhere, a household evacuates just ahead of a category five hurricane, perhaps not for the first time. Along the coastlines, countless others are resigned to looking on as their homesites erode into the inexorably rising surf. At this moment, millions of Americans are forced to reckon with the horrors of the climate catastrophe, and the number of such people who now viscerally grasp our grim climate reality grows every day. Even the judges of this nation prove no …

Reconsidering Nepa, Brigham Daniels, Andrew P. Follett, James Salzman

Indiana Law Journal

The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) ushered in the modern era of environmental law. Thanks to its environmental impact statement (EIS) provision, it remains, by far, the most litigated environmental statute. Many administrations have sought to weaken the law. The Trump administration, for example, put into place regulations that strictly limit the EIS process, which the Biden administration seems poised to roll back. For the most part, however, NEPA has shown remarkable staying power and resilience since its passage just over fifty years ago. As a result, its legislative history remains relevant. But the accepted history of NEPA is deeply …

Consumer Perceptions Of The Right To Repair, Aaron Perzanowski

Indiana Law Journal

Part I of this Article details the strategies upon which device makers rely to frustrate repair. Part II considers legislative interventions intended to push back on existing barriers to repair, with a particular focus on the set of bills introduced in state legislatures across the United States. Part III describes the results of a survey of more than 800 U.S. consumers, focusing on their expectations of and experiences with the repair of electronic devices. The legal and policy implications of those results are discussed in Part IV.

The Third Age Of Oil And Gas Law, James Coleman

Indiana Law Journal

History’s biggest oil boom is happening right now, in the United States, ushering in the third age of oil and gas law. The first age of oil and gas law also began in the United States a century ago when landowners and oil companies developed the oil and gas lease. The lease made the modern oil and gas industry possible and soon spread as the model for development around the world. In the second age of oil and gas law, landowners and nations across the globe developed new legal agreements that improved upon the lease and won these resource owners …

First Amendment “Harms”, Stephanie H. Barclay

Indiana Law Journal

What role should harm to third parties play in the government’s ability to protect religious rights? The intuitively appealing “harm” principle has animated new theories advanced by scholars who argue that religious exemptions are indefensible whenever they result in cognizable harm to third parties. This third-party harm theory is gaining traction in some circles, particularly in light of the Supreme Court’s pending cases in Little Sisters of the Poor and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. While focusing on harm appears at first to provide an appealing, simple, and neutral principle for avoiding other difficult moral questions, the definition of harm …

Water, Water, Anywhere?: Protecting Water Quantity In State Water Quality Standards, Julie F. Youngman

Indiana Law Journal

Although much of the earth’s surface is covered with water, less than one percent of water is available for human use. Water is becoming progressively scarcer worldwide, as demand increases and pollution, drought, and climate change jeopardize access to clean water. The United States is no exception to that trend. Effective regulation of water supplies can blunt the impacts of water scarcity. This Article suggests that states can—and should—regulate instream flows and lake levels in their federally-mandated water quality standards, with an eye toward conserving scarce water resources. Regulating water quantity as an element of water quality is not only …

Money That Costs Too Much: Regulating Financial Incentives, Kristen Underhill

Indiana Law Journal

Money may not corrupt. But should we worry if it corrodes? Legal scholars in a range of fields have expressed concern about “motivational crowding-out,” a process by which offering financial rewards for good behavior may undermine laudable social motivations, like professionalism or civic duty. Disquiet about the motivational impacts of incentives has now extended to health law, employment law, tax, torts, contracts, criminal law, property, and beyond. In some cases, the fear of crowding-out has inspired concrete opposition to innovative policies that marshal incentives to change individual behavior. But to date, our fears about crowding-out have been unfocused and amorphous; …

Energy Re-Investment, Hari M. Osofsky, Jacqueline Peel, Brett H. Mcdonnell, Anita Foerster

Indiana Law Journal

Despite worsening climate change threats, investment in energy—in the United States and globally—is dominated by fossil fuels. This Article provides a novel analysis of two pathways in corporate and securities law that together have the potential to shift patterns of energy investment.

The first pathway targets current investments and corporate decision-making. It includes efforts to influence investors to divest from owning shares in fossil fuel companies and to influence companies to address climate change risks in their internal decision-making processes. This pathway has received increasing attention, especially in light of the Paris Agreement and the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw …

States Rise To The Front Of Climate Legislation, But Can A State-Level Carbon Tax Work?, Katelyn Nicasio

Indiana Law Journal

This Note uses two recent Massachusetts carbon tax proposals to discuss the costs and benefits of such state-level climate change legislation but discusses similar regional proposals as well. Although a state carbon tax poses some limitations and concern for the increased tax burden relative to other states that have not imposed a tax, the adoption of state carbon taxes represents an important advancement in climate policy. Part I overviews legislative tactics used to combat climate change thus far, including common policy responses, and the current attitude of federal legislators toward the global climate crisis. Part II introduces the advantages and …

Letting Go Of Stability: Resilience And Environmental Law, Robert L. Fischman

Indiana Law Journal

Historic variation in the environment once served as a reliable guide to future behavior. Sustainability promised continuity of ecological and social structures and functions within the known envelope of historic variation. Now climate change and other environmental stressors are tipping systems into behaviors that no longer remain within the confines of precedent. Social-ecological systems are neither persistent nor predicable. Letting go of stability releases us from untenable expectations of steady maintenance of some natural order. Resistance to change will continue to play a role as environmental law suppresses disruptions and buys time. But resistance will eventually yield the stage to …

Controlling Biogenic Volatile Organic Compounds For Air Quality, Brian Sawers

Indiana Law Journal

This Article tells a story that is true but seems completely wrong: Trees can make air pollution worse. Smog and ground-level ozone require two chemical ingredients to form: nitrous oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). On a warm, sunny day, these two precursors combine to form smog and ground-level ozone, a pollutant. While NOx are pollutants that are largely human-created, VOCs can originate with plants. In fact, emissions of just one type of VOC from trees exceed all human-caused emissions.

This Article presents new research on the impact of plants, especially trees, on air quality. The science is complicated …

The Fragile Menagerie: Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, And The Law, James M. Chen

Indiana Law Journal

I. THE HIPPODROME OF THE GODS: RACING AGAINST ECOLOGICAL AND

EVOLUTIONARY APOCALYPSE....................................................................... 304

II. ACROSS THE APOCALYPSE ON HORSEBACK: LEGAL RESPONSES

TO BIODIVERSITY LOSS .................................................................................... 310

A. OVERKILL ........................................................................................... 310

B. ALIEN INVASIVE SPECIES ..................................................................... 316

C. HABITAT DESTRUCTION AND PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT .................. 321

1. ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY .............................................................. 321

2. PUBLIC LANDS MANAGEMENT..................................................... 325

III. THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: FROM PRIVATE LANDS TO

GLOBAL COMMONS .......................................................................................... 329

A. ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT MECHANICS .............................................. 330

1. LISTING ENDANGERED AND THREATENED SPECIES....................... 330

2. CRITICAL HABITAT ..................................................................... 333

3. INTERAGENCY CONSULTATION .................................................... 333

B. HABITAT CONSERVATION ON PRIVATE LANDS...................................... 335

C. …

Picking Up The Slackline: Can The United States And Japan Successfully Regulate Commercial Fishing Of Bluefin Tuna Following Failed Intergovernmental Attempts?, Sarah E. Bauer

Indiana Law Journal

Part I of this Note will address the reasons why intergovernmental organizations have failed to adequately regulate the commercial fishing of Bluefin tuna. Part II offers an analysis of the Bluefin markets in the United States and Japan and argues that these countries are ideal candidates for successful Bluefin regulation because of their market structures. Part III explores the likelihood that the two countries would implement such regulations, taking into account the respective governments’ histories of species-specific regulation.

No Ordinary Fish Tale: Working Toward A Transnational Solution To The Cod Crisis In The Gulf Of Maine, Michael Ruderman

Indiana Law Journal

In response to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) survey that showed “record-low levels of abundance” of groundfish in the Gulf of Maine (“Gulf”), local fisherman Brian Pearce asserted: “It concerns [me] that what [NOAA is] saying and what we [the local fishermen] are seeing is such a contrast . . . . Who sees more fish in the ocean than the fishermen?” Despite Mr. Pearce’s skepticism, the state of the cod fishery in the Gulf of Maine—home to “critical” and “legendary" fishing grounds in Canadian and American territories—is, in fact, dire. According to the NOAA survey, conducted in …

Environmental Law Outside The Canon, Todd S. Aagaard

Indiana Law Journal

It is time to rethink the domination of environmental law by a canon of major federal statutes enacted in the 1970s. Environmental law is in a malaise. Despite widespread agreement that existing laws are inadequate to address current environmental problems, Congress has not passed a major environmental statute in more than twenty years. If it is to succeed, the environmental law of this new century may need to evolve into something that looks quite different than the extant environmental law canon. The next generation of environmental laws must be viable for creation and implementation even in an antagonistic political climate; …

Should Chevron Have Two Steps?, Richard M. Re

Indiana Law Journal

Prominent judges and scholars have criticized the familiar Chevron deference scheme on the ground that its two steps are redundant. But each step of traditional two-step Chevron actually does unique interpretive work. In short, step one asks whether agency interpretations are mandatory, whereas step two asks whether they are reasonable. Other judges and scholars defend two-step Chevron on the ground that the second step should be equated with arbitrary-and-capricious review. But that approach makes Chevron partially redundant with the Administrative Procedure Act and compresses the distinct mandatoriness and reasonableness questions into an artificially singular first step. This Article identifies a …

The Collective Origins Of Toxic Air Pollution: Implications For Greenhouse Gas Trading And Toxic Hotspots, David E. Adelman

Indiana Law Journal

This Article presents the first synthesis of geospatial data on toxic air pollution in the United States. Contrary to conventional views, the data show that vehicles and small stationary sources emit a majority of the air toxics nationally. Industrial sources, by contrast, rarely account for more than ten percent of cumulative cancer risks from all outdoor sources of air toxics. This pattern spans multiple spatial scales, ranging from census tracts to the nation as a whole. However, it is most pronounced in metropolitan areas, which have the lowest air quality and are home to eighty percent of the U.S. population. …

Federal Constitutions, Global Governance, And The Role Of Forests In Regulating Climate Change, Blake Hudson

Indiana Law Journal

Federal systems of government present more difficulties for international treaty formation than perhaps any other form of governance. Federal constitutions that grant subnational governments virtually exclusive regulatory authority over certain subject matter may constrain national governments during international negotiations—a national government that cannot constitutionally bind subnational governments to an international agreement cannot freely arrange its international obligations. While federal nations that grant subnational governments exclusive regulatory control obviously place value on stringent decentralization and the benefits it provides in those regulatory areas, the difficulty lies in striking a balance between global governance and constitutional decentralization in federal systems. Recent scholarship …

A Shift In The Wind: The Siting Of Wind Power Projects On Public Lands In The Obama Era, Eric S. Spengle

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Enabling Investments In Environmental Sustainability, Heather Hughes

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Beyond Chemicals: The Lessons That Toxic Substance Regulatory Reform Can Learn From Nanotechnology, Scott Bomkamp

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Preemption In Green Marketing: The Case For Uniform Federal Marketing Definitions, Robert B. White

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Forward, John S. Applegate, Robert L. Fischman

Indiana Law Journal

Scientific information has become a centralr ationalef or environmental regulation, and scientific uncertainty is viewed as a major obstacle in developing, justifying, and enforcing environmental laws and policies. In the context of environmental regulation, scientific information may be analyzed as subject to both supply and demand. A regulatory system that supplies more scientific information than it demands can operate effectively to impose protective regulation. By contrast, a system that demands more information than it supplies will face a "data gap "and will fail to accomplish its protective goals. The data gap can be addressed by applying regulatory techniques that increase …

Data Gaps In Natural Resource Management: Sniffing For Leaks Along The Information Pipeline, Holly Doremus

Indiana Law Journal

Despite wide recognition that natural resource management decisions are heavily dependent on the supply of scientific information, little attention has been paid to the processes by which that information is supplied. This paper lays out the key steps of the information supply pipeline, which include exploration, extraction, refining, blending, distribution, and consumption. Leaks in the pipeline can occur at any of these steps, interrupting the supply of information to decision makers. Because information supply is contextual and complex, no universal fix can address all information shortfalls. Nonetheless, several general recommendations emerge. First, decision makers must recognize the limits of scientific …

Information Generation And Use Under Proposition 65: Model Provisions For Other Postmarket Laws?, Carl Cranor

Indiana Law Journal

Symposium: Missing Information: The Scientific Data Gap in Conservation and Chemical Regulation, held on March 24, 2006 at Indiana University School of Law- Bloomington.