Law Commons^™

Introduction: Connecting The Dots Between Two Parallel Worlds, Rena Steinzor

Rena I. Steinzor

No abstract provided.

An Unnatural Disaster: The Aftermath Of Hurricane Katrina, David Driesen, Alyson Flournoy, Sheila Foster, Eileen Gauna, Robert Glicksman, Carmen Gonzalez, David Gottlieb, Donald Hornstein, Douglas Kysar, Thomas Mcgarity, Catherine O'Neill, Clifford Rechtschaffen, Christopher Schroeder, Sidney Shapiro, Rena Steinzor, Joseph Tomain, Robert Verchick, Karen Sokol

Rena I. Steinzor

No abstract provided.

Harmonizing The International And Domestic Law Of Climate Change In The United States: An Executive Agreement On Climate?, David Wirth

David A. Wirth

No abstract provided.

Is The Supreme Court Irrelevant--Reflections On The Judicial Role In Environmental Law, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

No abstract provided.

Taking Slippage Seriously: Noncompliance And Creative Compliance In Environmental Law, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

Environmental law is examined in light of the slippage between regulatory standards and the actual conduct of regulated parties. Two forms of slippage are identified: negative, which describes the situation where something that is legally mandated to happen fails to happen; and affirmative, which describes the situation where required standards are renegotiated rather than ignored. This concept of slippage is explored in terms of how it might inform discussions of legal doctrine, environmental policy, and environmental pedagogy. Slippage is good in the context that it can ameliorate the sometimes impractical demands found in statues, and bad in the context that …

Saving Overton Park: A Comment On Environmental Values, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

Presents comments on an article about environmental goods. Background of incommensurability and federal environmental law; What the environmental law seems to incorporate; Overview of the incommensurability and individual choice.

Stretching The Margins: The Geographic Nexus In Environmental Law, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

No abstract provided.

Politics And Procedure In Environmental Law, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

Deals with a study which applied interest-group theories on environmental laws. Relationship between legislators and environmental groups; Sources of environmental legislation; Role of environmental groups in the passage of environmental legislation.

From Here To Eternity: Environmental Law And Future Generations, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Legal Scholarship, The Disaster Cycle, And The Fukushima Accident, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

No abstract provided.

Triangulating The Future Of Reinvention: Three Emerging Models Of Environmental Protection, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

No abstract provided.

The Application Of The Endangered Species Act To The Protection Of Freshwater Mussels: A Case Study, Eric Biber

Eric Biber

The success or failure of the 1973 Endangered Species Act in protecting freshwater mussels, which constitute a substantial portion of the species listed as threatened or endangered in the US, is examined. Current human threats to the survival of mussel species are reviewed, as are tools provided by the Act that might be used to protect and restore them. While the Act has prevented the extinction of most species of freshwater mussels, many remain critically endangered and declining. The inability of the statute to provide for freshwater mussel species recovery is attributed to the near-impossibility of recovering a species after …

How Environmental Review Can Generate Pollution: A Case Study, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

State environmental review statutes often require state and local governments to draft an environmental impact statement for any project or permit that might have a substantial environmental impact. One such statute, New York's State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) defines “environmental impact” broadly to include not only traditionally environmental impacts such as pollution, but also social impacts such as increased neighborhood population. As a result, any large-scale development is likely to require environmental review under SEQRA.

In my article, I argue that such stringency harms air quality by discouraging infill development (that is, development in already-urbanized areas). Such development is …

Dangers Of Trying To Set Earth's Thermostat, Andrew Strauss, William Burns

Andrew L. Strauss

No abstract provided.

The Birth, Death, And Afterlife Of The Wild Lands Policy: The Evolution Of The Bureau Of Land Management’S Authority To Protect Wilderness Values, Olivia Brumfield

Michael Blumm

Since the enactment of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) in 1976, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has had a troubled relationship with wild lands, the nation’s last remaining places with wilderness characteristics. Although for twenty-five years BLM recognized wilderness values as a resource it must balance and could protect consistent with the agency’s multiple use mandate, in 2003 BLM largely disclaimed that interpretation, potentially imperiling future protection of wild lands that were not designated as wilderness or wilderness study areas. Since then, the agency has made incremental – but potentially powerful – steps toward reclaiming a …

Antimonopoly And The Radical Lochean Origins Of Western Water Law, Michael Blumm

Michael Blumm

This review of David Schorr's book, The Colorado Doctrine: Water Rights, Corporations, and Distributive Justice on the American Frontier, maintains that the book is a therapeutic corrective to the standard history of the origins of western water law as celebration of economic efficiency and wealth maximization. Schorr's account convincingly contends that the roots of prior appropriation water law--the "Colorado Doctrine"--lie in distributional justice concerns, not in the supposed efficiency advantages of private property over common property. The goals of the founders of the Colorado doctrine, according to Schorr, were to advance Radical Lochean principles such as widespread distibution of water …

Integrating State, Regional, And Federal Greenhouse Gas Markets: Options And Tradeoffs, Jonas Monast

Jonas Monast

No abstract provided.

Considering Shale Gas Extraction In North Carolina: Lessons From Other States, Sarah Adair, Brooks Pearson, Jonas Monast, Avner Vengosh, Robert Jackson

Jonas Monast

No abstract provided.

The Potential Of Multilateral Environmental Agreements To Protect In Relation To Armed Conflict, Britta Sjöstedt

Britta Sjöstedt

This paper is provided for a seminar included in the UN International Law Commission (ILC) Seminars. The seminar deals with the important topic “Protection of the Environment in relation to Armed Conflict” that was put on the ILC’s current agenda of programme in May 2013. In this paper, I will share some of my comments on the new topic at ILC’s agenda. These focus on the potential of multilateral environmental agreements. The destructive activities taking place in relation to armed conflict can cause irreversible impacts on the environment. They can destruct important ecosystems, poison watercourses and extinct species. Keeping in …

Classic Lessons From A Little Fish In A Pork Barrel - Featuring The Notorious Story Of The Endangered Snail Darter And The Tva's Last Dam, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Zygmunt J.B. Plater

Canaries are small, fragile, sensitive creatures weighing no more than 20 grams, about seven-tenths of an ounce. They have become a familiar and significant metaphor, however, due to the important role they played as vivid warning indicators of substantial threats to human welfare. Because canaries are extremely sensitive to the presence of methane and carbon monoxide—deadly but odorless gases that seep from deep coal deposits—miners in England and the U.S. carried canaries in little cages along with them as they worked in underground coal seams. When the canaries began to sway and slump noticeably on their perches, the miners could …

"Introduction" (Chapter 1) Of Stories About Science In Law: Literary And Historical Images Of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate 2011), David S. Caudill

David S Caudill

This is the introductory chapter of Stories About Science in Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate, 2011), explaining that the book presents examples of how literary accounts can provide a supplement to our understanding of science in law. Challenging the view that law and science are completely different, I focus on stories that explore the relationship between law and science, and identify cultural images of science that prevail in legal contexts. In contrast to other studies on the transfer and construction of expertise in legal settings, the book considers the intersection of three interdisciplinary projects-- law and …

Strategic Idealizations Of Science To Oppose Environmenal Regulation: A Case Study Of Five Tmdl Controversies, David S. Caudill, Donald E. Curley

David S Caudill

Proponents of environmental regulation have catalogued various strategies used by takeholders to delay or weaken regulatory efforts, including (1) manufacturing or magnifying uncertainty; (2) demanding “sound science” (and thereby imposing unreasonable standards of evidence); and (3) data quality initiatives that permit deconstruction of credible studies by highlighting inevitable assumptions, funding sources, and areas for further research. Such strategies can be termed “idealizations” of science insofar as they rely on an unrealistic image of good science as somehow capable of avoiding tentative conclusions, institutional interests, consensual assumptions, and the need for further research.

The question remains, however, when does an argument …

The Growing Importance Of Sustainability To Lawyers And The Aba, John Dernbach, Lee Dehihns, Ira Feldman

John C. Dernbach

No abstract provided.

Eu Climate Change Litigation, The Role Of The European Courts, And The Importance Of Legal Culture, Sanja Bogojevic

Sanja Bogojević

The purpose of this article is to show it is only in light of legal culture that climate change jurisprudence in the EU can be explained. Examining the case law concerning the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, this article demonstrates that climate change proceedings in the EU raise questions that stand at the heart of the EU legal order; that is, they demand that the boundaries of the EU’s regulatory competences are drawn. In effect, the EU courts focus on ensuring that EU climate change laws are in accord with the rule of law or, in the context of EU law, …

How Comprehensive Planning Makes Suburbia More Sprawling, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

Many commentators associate comprehensive land use planning with smart growth- but in fact, municipal plans can be used to further sprawl as well as smart growth.

Emissions Trading Schemes: Markets, States And Law, Sanja Bogojevic

Sanja Bogojević

Over the past four decades emissions trading schemes have enjoyed a high profile in environmental law scholarship and environmental law and policy. Much of this regulatory discussion has promoted the use of emissions trading on the basis of its alleged straightforwardness in terms of construction and operation and wide applicability across different jurisdictions and environmental settings. This book challenges the common understanding of emissions trading by offering a more nuanced prism through which to view this regulatory choice. As such, it shows how different regulatory goals are entrusted to emissions trading, each having as its corollary particular governance structures, which, …

Law, The Laws Of Nature And Ecosystem Energy Services: A Case Of Wilful Blindness, David R. Hodas

David R. Hodas

Ecosystems services include the collection, concentration, and storage of solar energy as fossil fuels (e.g., coal, petroleum, and natural gas). These concentrated forms of energy were produced by ancient ecosystem services. However, our legal and economic systems fail to recognise the value of the ecosystem service subsidies embedded in fossil fuels. This ecosystem services price subsidy causes overuse and waste of fossil fuels in the free market: fossil fuels are consumed more quickly than they can be replaced by ecosystem services and in far larger quantities than they would be if the price of fossil fuels included the cost of …

Thinking Ahead: The Impacts Of Sea Level Rise On Coastal Landscape Protections, Chad J. Mcguire, Devon Lynch

Chad J McGuire

The Key To Unlocking The Power Of Small Scale Renewable Energy: Local Land Use Regulation, Patricia Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

Myriad federal and state programs have been promoted to incentivize the research and development of renewable energy as a means of achieving sustainability and producing more affordable alternative energy systems, and these programs could potentially have a profound impact on the way that electricity is produced and consumed in the United States. Small-scale renewable energy generation from sources such as solar and wind, that can be used at the consumer level as a source of power for homes and small businesses, is an important part of this paradigm shift. However, regardless of the fiscal incentives offered to clean-tech companies to …

Linking Land Use With Climate Change And Sustainability Topped State Legislative Land Use Reform Agenda In 2008, Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

Linking land use with climate change and sustainability topped state legislative land use reform agenda in 2008. The only discernible state land use reform trends in 2008 have focused primarily on themes surrounding sustainability. Many states pursued statutory reforms to address the strong linkages between land use and climate change, green development and affordable housing. Only one state, Michigan, focused on recodification of its planning and zoning enabling acts.