Environmental Justice And The Gullah Geechee: The National Environmental Policy Act's Potential In Protecting The Sea Islands, Paul N. Nybo

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reimagining Exceptional Events: Regulating Wildfires Through The Clean Air Act, Emily Williams

Washington Law Review

Wildfires are increasing in both frequency and severity due to climate change. Smoke from these fires causes serious health problems. Land managers agree that prescribed burns help mitigate these negative consequences. Prescribed burns are lower-intensity fires that are intentionally ignited and managed for an ecological benefit. They reduce the amount of smoke produced and limit wildfire damage to natural systems and human property.

The Clean Air Act (CAA) is designed to regulate air pollution to protect public health, yet it exempts wildfire smoke through the exceptional events designation while imposing strict regulations on prescribed burns. Congress and the Environmental Protection …

The Regulation Of Complementary And Alternative Medicine (Cam) In South Carolina, What Is Happening And What Needs To Change, Anna C. Smith

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Commercial-Property Leases As A Means For Private Environmental Governance, Darren A. Prum

Georgia State University Law Review

Commercial-property leases as a means for private environmental governance routinely get overlooked despite their noticeable presence. The applicable theoretical models used in environmental law and the standards that typically measure legal activity fail to detect the commercial-property lease as a regulatory action as well. Moreover, the public and positive law and policy approach of the past that heavily relied on administrative authority now follows more of a private law and governance approach. The private law and governance approach responds to the marketplace where standards are set, enforcement occurs, and dispute resolution takes place between parties involved in the transaction outside …

Slides: Flpma In Its Historical Context, John D. Leshy

FLPMA Turns 40 (October 21)

Presenter: John D. Leshy, Sunderland Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, U.C. Hastings College of the Law

36 slides

This session traces the history of FLPMA including, among other things, its legislative, administrative, and historical antecedents, including for example, the Public Land Law Review Commission’s 1970 report, One Third of Our Nation’s Lands. It then considers FLPMA’s unique public lands policies and requirements and how they are reflected in the BLM’s management of public lands today.

See: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/blm/history/contents.htm

America's Invaders: The Nile Monitor And The Ineffectiveness Of The Reactive Response To Invasive Species, William K. Norvell Iii

Animal Law Review

In response to an ever increasing level of environmental devastation caused by invasive species and the resultant concerns for ecological preservation, both the state and federal governments have passed legislation to combat this pressing issue. In this Note, the author evaluates the effectiveness of these reactive and proactive policies in the United States. The author also analyzes the successful, proactive invasive species legislation from Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, and then contrasts them to the failing, mainly reactive laws found in the United States. Despite these shortcomings, the author concludes that it is entirely possible for the United …

Preserving Dynamic Systems: Wetlands, Ecology And Law, Alyson C. Flournoy

Alyson Flournoy

Ecology has advanced human understanding of natural systems considerably over the course of this century. Wetlands law and policy have evolved in response to our increased understanding of wetlands and the many benefits we derive from them. Notwithstanding this shift in policy and law, roughly 50% of the wetlands that existed in the continental United States in colonial times have been lost or degraded largely as a result of recent human activity. Current policies struggle to reconcile the goal of preventing further loss with the pervasive concern for making our laws more efficient. This essay explores the lessons ecology offers …

Vetoing Wetland Permits Under Section 404(C) Of The Clean Water Act: A History Of Inter-Federal Agency Controversy And Reform, Michael Blumm, Elisabeth D. Mering

Michael Blumm

For most of its four-decade history, section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act could have been considered to be a sleeper provision of environmental law. The proviso authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overrule permits for discharges of dredged or fill material issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) where necessary to ensure protection of fish and wildlife habitat, municipal water supplies, and recreational areas against unacceptable adverse effects. This authority of one federal agency to veto the decisions of another federal agency is quite unusual, perhaps unprecedented in environmental law. The exceptional nature of section 404(c) …

Economics-Based Environmentalism In The Fourth Generation Of Environmental Law, Donald J. Kochan

Donald J. Kochan

Environmental protection and economic concerns are not mutually exclusive. This article explores some of the issues of economic analysis that might arise as we approach the fourth generation of environmental law. It explains ways that economic analysis can be employed to generate the best environmental rules, including measures under what this article terms as "economics-based environmentalism." Economics-based environmentalism contends that the advantages of using economic principles within a “polycentric toolbox” of environmental law come from the benefits available in private ordering, markets, property rights, liability regimes and incentives structures that will better protect the environment than alternatives like state-based interventionist, …

Shellfish Contamination: Reducing The Necessity For Scientific Evidence In Natural Resource Damages Under The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, And Liability Act, Matthew J. Koes

University of Massachusetts Law Review

It is indisputable that shellfish contamination creates a negative impact on the economy, poses a serious risk to human health, and has a harmful effect on the fragile coastal ecosystems. However, the litigation designed to redress the harmful effects of shellfish contamination produces uncounted difficulties. Although a general public policy of preventing pollution has led Congress to enact and revise CERCLA, the application of such a statute has proven to be uncertain due to the enormous amount of discretion given to the trial courts in deciding admissibility of scientific evidence and testimony of experts. A CERLA natural resource damage action …

Global Warming - International Environmental Agreements - The 1992 United Nations Conference On The Environment And Development Most Likely Will Not Culminate In A Successfully Preventative Global Warming Treaty Without The United States' Support., Suzanne C. Massey

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Eco-Terrorist Acts During The Persian Gulf War: Is International Law Sufficient To Hold Iraq Liable?, Laura Edgerton

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Grazing In Wilderness Areas, Mark Squillace

Publications

Domestic livestock grazing is naturally in tension with wilderness. Wilderness areas are not truly "untrammeled by man" when they host managed livestock grazing. Yet the compromise that allowed livestock grazing in wilderness areas was surely one of the greatest in the history of the conservation movement. Without it, Congress might never have passed a wilderness bill or designated countless wilderness areas throughout the country. The grazing exception--and the Congressional Grazing Guidelines that afford specific protections for grazers--made it possible to secure bipartisan support for wilderness bills in even the most conservative western states.

Notwithstanding this success, the ecology of some …

The Real Challenge To The Polish Revolution: Cleaning The Polish Environment Through Privatization And Preventive Market-Based Incentives, G. Nelson Smith Iii

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Harm Means Harm: Babbitt V. Sweet Home Chapter Of Communities For A Great Oregon, Laurie M. Stone

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Use Of The Public Trust Doctrine As A Management Tool Over Public And Private Lands, Patricia E. Salkin

Patricia E. Salkin

No abstract provided.

Incorporating Emergy Synthesis Into Environmental Law: An Integration Of Ecology, Economics, And Law, Mary Jane Angelo, Mark T. Brown

Mary Jane Angelo

Emergy synthesis, flrst developed by Dr. Howard T. Odum in the 1970s, and further expanded and refined by other scholars over the past thirty years, has the potential to transform environmental decisionmaking by providing a methodology that can integrate ecology, economics, and law. Virtually all areas of environmental law are concerned in some way with both the ecological and the economic impacts of environmental decision making. Unfortunately, existing environmental law statutes tend to incorporate ecological and economic considerations in a simplistic, piecemeal, and awkward fashion. Emergy synthesis incorporates both ecological and economic considerations through a sophisticated scientiic methodology. Emergy synthesis …

Harnessing The Power Of Science In Environmental Law: Why We Should, Why We Don't, And How We Can, Mary Jane Angelo

Mary Jane Angelo

To illustrate how legal scholars, lawmakers, environmental agencies, and practicing lawyers have attempted to incorporate new scientific developments into environmental law, particularly in the administrative context, this Article traces the journeys of three distinct scientific developments -- risk assessment, adaptive management, and emergy synthesis -- from scientific academia to environmental administrative law. The Article concludes by making observations about what types of scientific developments are most likely to be incorporated into the law and suggesting ways for improving the likelihood that new beneficial developments will be adopted to inform the law.

Private Conservation Easements: A Record Of Achievements And The Challenges Ahead, Gerald Korngold

Other Publications

Over the past 25 years, there has been a dramatic increase in the acquisition of conservation easements by nonprofit organizations. Privately held conservation easements, i.e., those held by nonprofits rather than governmental entities, have thus emerged as an important and growing tool for the preservation of natural and scenic features of the United States landscape.

Cities, Green Construction, And The Endangered Species Act, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The geographic footprint of cities--the space they occupy--is relatively small in comparison to their ecological footprint, which is measured in terms of impact on the sustainability of resources situated mostly outside of the urban realm. Ironically, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), though widely regarded as one of the most powerful environmental laws, has been and continues to be administered with respect to urbanized land masses primarily with the objective of managing their geographic footprints. This Article uses the example of "green construction" techniques to explore this disconnect between the macro-scale contribution of cities' ecological footprints to species endangerment and the …

Slides: "Mitaku Oyasin" Means "We Are All Related", Bob Gough

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Bob Gough, NativeEnergy, Inc.

72 slides

Harnessing The Power Of Science In Environmental Law: Why We Should, Why We Don't, And How We Can, Mary Jane Angelo

UF Law Faculty Publications

To illustrate how legal scholars, lawmakers, environmental agencies, and practicing lawyers have attempted to incorporate new scientific developments into environmental law, particularly in the administrative context, this Article traces the journeys of three distinct scientific developments -- risk assessment, adaptive management, and emergy synthesis -- from scientific academia to environmental administrative law. The Article concludes by making observations about what types of scientific developments are most likely to be incorporated into the law and suggesting ways for improving the likelihood that new beneficial developments will be adopted to inform the law.

Agriculture And Ecosystem Services: Strategies For State And Local Governments, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Agriculture has long been the Rubik's Cube of environmental policy. Although agriculture is a leading cause of pollution and other environmental harms, it has been resistant to regulation and remarkably successful at requiring payment to do the right thing. This article focuses on hints of movement in a new direction for agriculture, arising out of a merger between the age-old practice of paying farmers to do what is right, the fear of losing agricultural lands to suburban development, the rising fiscal burdens to state and local jurisdictions presented by new suburban development, and the new understanding that farms may hold …

Incorporating Emergy Synthesis Into Environmental Law: An Integration Of Ecology, Economics, And Law, Mary Jane Angelo, Mark T. Brown

UF Law Faculty Publications

Emergy synthesis, flrst developed by Dr. Howard T. Odum in the 1970s, and further expanded and refined by other scholars over the past thirty years, has the potential to transform environmental decisionmaking by providing a methodology that can integrate ecology, economics, and law. Virtually all areas of environmental law are concerned in some way with both the ecological and the economic impacts of environmental decision making. Unfortunately, existing environmental law statutes tend to incorporate ecological and economic considerations in a simplistic, piecemeal, and awkward fashion. Emergy synthesis incorporates both ecological and economic considerations through a sophisticated scientiic methodology.

Emergy synthesis …

Historical Evolution And Future Of Natural Resources Law And Policy: The Beginning Of An Argument And Some Modest Predictions, Sally K. Fairfax, Helen Ingram, Leigh Raymond

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

8 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

"Sally Fairfax, UC-Berkeley, Helen Ingram, UC-Irvine, and Leigh Raymond, Purdue University" -- Agenda

Private Rights And Collective Governance: A Functional Approach To Natural Resources Law, Eric T. Freyfogle

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

4 pages.

"Eric T. Freyfogle, Max L. Rowe Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law"

Preserving The Chesapeake: Law, Ecology, And The Bay, Hon. Gerald L. Baliles

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Animal Question: The Key To Coming To Terms With Nature, Jim Mason

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

Either/Or? Will Climate Change Force A Choice Between Salmon And Electricity In The Northwest?, John M. Volkman

Water, Climate and Uncertainty: Implications for Western Water Law, Policy, and Management (Summer Conference, June 11-13)

12 pages and 16 slides

Includes bibliographical references

"John M. Volkman, Partner, Stoel Rives LLP, Portland, Oregon"

Farmland Stewardship: Can Ecosystems Stand Any More Of It?, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Second in my series of articles on farming and environmental policy, this article examines farmland stewardship rhetoric in light of the reality of extensive agricultural exemptions from environmental regulation.