Law Commons^™

California Should Lead The Nation In Controlling Agricultural Pollution, Helen H. Kang, Deborah Sivas

Publications

Agricultural runoff is one of the largest sources of pollution in the nation’s waterways. In recent years, scientific journals and the media have been filled with reports of toxic algae blooms and dead zones near and far: The Everglades, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, and San Francisco Bay-Delta. Agricultural pollution also threatens public health in communities that rely on tainted groundwater. In California alone, more than a quarter million residents in largely agricultural areas are served by water systems with degraded groundwater quality.

Salmon Lessons For The Delta Smelt: Unjustified Reliance On Hatcheries In The Usfws October 2019 Biological Opinion, Paul Stanton Kibel

Publications

Pursuant to the Endangered Species Act, in October 2019 the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) of the Trump Administration issued a new Biological Opinion (BiOp) for coordinated operations of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project (2019 USFWS BiOp).

The Central Valley Project is operated by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), and the State Water Project is operated by the California Department of Water Resources. The Central Valley Project and the State Water Project both divert freshwater from the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River watersheds, and the reduced freshwater flow resulting from these …

Of Hatcheries And Habitat: Old And New Conservation Assumptions In The Pacific Salmon Treaty, Paul Stanton Kibel

Publications

The 1985 Pacific Salmon Treaty between Canada and the United States was negotiated to deal with evidence that Pacific salmon stocks originating in Canada and the United States were in decline. The Pacific Salmon Treaty sought to establish total annual fishing limits for Canada and the United States that were consistent with the sustainable conservation of Pacific salmon stocks, and to base the total allowable catch for Canadian fishermen on forecasts of the total abundance of salmon. As the Pacific Salmon Treaty has been implemented, however, there has been a re-occuring pattern of annual abundance forecasts overestimating the actual abundance …

Fisheries Reliant On Aquifers: When Groundwater Extraction Depletes Surface Water Flows, Paul Stanton Kibel, Julie Gantenbein

Publications

IN CALIFORNIA, surface waters have historically been regulated as if they were unconnected to groundwater. Yet in reality, surface waters and groundwater are often hydrologically connected. Many of the rivers that support fisheries such as salmon and trout are hydrologically dependent on tributary groundwater to maintain instream flow. This means that when there is intensive pumping of tributary groundwater, the result can be reductions in instream flow and damage to fisheries. For this reason, stakeholders concerned with adequate instream flows for fisheries in California's rivers, streams, and creeks need to be effectively engaged in the implementation of California's Sustainable Groundwater …

Honoring Sally Jewell, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

(Carbon) Farming Our Way Out Of Climate Change, Alexia Brunet Marks

Publications

Numerous climate-related emergencies highlight the challenges and urgency posed by climate change: the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, the Global Climate Action Summit in California and international student walkouts, to name a few. While the IPCC Report sent an urgent cry to reduce total emissions and to achieve specific results—45% reduction by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050—reductions need to be combined with capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Scientific studies have shown that an annual increase of 0.4% of carbon stored in soils would make it possible to stop the present increase in atmospheric CO2.

This …

Not Yet America's Best Idea: Law, Inequality, And Grand Canyon National Park, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Even the nation’s most cherished and protected public lands are not spaces apart from the workings of law, politics, and power. This Essay explores that premise in the context of Grand Canyon National Park. On the occasion of the Park’s 100th Anniversary, it examines how law — embedded in a political economy committed to rapid growth and development in the southwestern United States — facilitated the violent displacement of indigenous peoples and entrenched racialized inequalities in the surrounding region. It also explores law’s shortcomings in the context of sexual harassment and discrimination within the Park. The Essay concludes by suggesting …

Administrative Law's Extraordinary Cases, Jonathan Skinner-Thompson

Publications

The Supreme Court's major questions doctrine is grounded in the Chevron framework. Reconstituting it as a "major rules" exception to Chevron or as a non-delegation principle are misguided and create greater uncertainty.

Global Energy Poverty: The Relevance Of Faith And Reason, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

The challenge of energy poverty (EP) primarily confronts the least developed countries (LDCs) of the world, located in Africa and Asia, but is also prevalent within segments of more advanced developing countries in Asia. This article will first delineate the nature of global energy poverty that results in the premature deaths of millions of people and leads to pervasive sickness among many more millions. The article will next sketch the legal and political responses to this problem that have generally applied principles of sustainable development (SD) and the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2015 adopted by the General Assembly …