Law Commons^™

Fig Leaves, Pipe Dreams, And Myopia: Too-Easy Solutions In Environmental Law, Albert C. Lin

University of Colorado Law Review

Much of environmental law and policy rests on an unspoken premise that accomplishing environmental goals may not require addressing the root causes of environmental problems. For example, rather than regulating risks directly, society may adopt warnings that merely avoid risk, and rather than limiting plastic use and reducing plastic waste, society may adopt recycling programs. Such approaches may be well-intended and come at a relatively low economic or political cost. However, they often prove ineffective, or even harmful, and they may mislead society into believing that further responses are unnecessary.

This Article proposes the concept of "too-easy solutions" to describe …

Book Review Of Toxic Debts And The Superfund Dilemma, Ronald H. Rosenberg

Ronald H. Rosenberg

No abstract provided.

The Necessary Interrelationship Between Land Use And Preservation Of Groundwater Resources, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Reflections On The Jeffersonian Ideal Of An Agrarian Democracy And The Emergence Of An Agricultural And Environmental Ethic In The 1990 Farm Bill, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Green Helmets: A Conceptual Framework For Security Council Authority In Environmental Emergencies, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Discussion In The Security Council On Environmental Intervention In The Ukraine, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Eco-Pragmatism: Making Sensible Environmental Decisions In An Uncertain World, Lynda L. Butler

Lynda L. Butler

No abstract provided.

How Science Has Influenced, But Should Now Determine, Environmental Policy, Jan G. Laitos

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This is an article about science and environmental law. More specifically, it is an article about two different versions of science, and how each has affected environmental law and the development of environmental policy. The emergence of science-driven environmental law has significantly affected how humans view and respond to the natural world that makes up the biosphere, which is the thin envelope surrounding the Earth that permits the human species to exist. This Article argues that humans, and law-makers, should embrace a different role for science. Instead of science answering “what is” questions, it should also explain the universal laws …

Shaping The Future: The Dialectic Of Law And Environmental Values, Holly Doremus

Holly Doremus

No abstract provided.

Shaping The Future: The Dialectic Of Law And Environmental Values, Holly Doremus

Holly Doremus

No abstract provided.

Shaping The Future: The Dialectic Of Law And Environmental Values, Holly Doremus

Holly Doremus

No abstract provided.

Regulation And Business Behavior, Neil Gunningham, Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan

Presents an introduction to various articles and issues discussed in the April 1, 2005 issue of the journal "Law and Policy."

General Deterrence And Corporate Environmental Behavior, Dorothy Thornton, Neil Gunningham, Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan

This research addresses the assumption that“general deterrence” is an important key to enhanced compliance with regulatory laws. Through a survey of 233 firms in several industries in the United States, we sought to answer the following questions: (1) When severe legal penalties are imposed against a violator of environmental laws, do other companies in the same industry actually learn about such“signal cases”? (2) Does knowing about“signal cases” change firms’ compliance-related behavior? It was found that only 42 percent of respondents could identify the“signal case,” but 89 percent could identify some enforcement actions against other firms, and 63 percent of firms …

Motivating Management: Corporate Compliance In Environmental Protection, Neil Gunningham, Dorothy Thornton, Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan

Based on interviews with facility managers in the electroplating and chemical industries, this study examines regulated firms’ perceptions of how various instrumental, normative, and social factors motivated their firms’ environmental actions. We found that“implicit general deterrence” (the overall effect of sustained inspection and enforcement activity) was far more important than either specific or general deterrence, and that deterrence in any form was of far greater concern to small and medium-sized enterprises than it was to large ones. Most reputation-sensitive firms in the environmentally sensitive chemical industry chose to go substantially beyond compliance for reasons that related to risk management and …

Water Quality Conflict Resolution And Agricultural Discharges: Lessons From Waterkeeper V. Hudson, Jennifer M. Egan, Joshua M. Duke

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This Article presents a comparative institutional analysis of an increasingly important type of environmental conflict—the agricultural-waste-discharge and water-land-nexus conflict—using the recent citizen suit Waterkeeper v. Hudson as a case study. The objective is to assess the resource allocation efficiency and procedural fairness of the dispute processing in Hudson. The Hudson setting involves substantial scientific complexity, including ecological interdependencies, unobservable and observable land management decisions, pollutant transport, in-stream removal, and the problem of multiple and diverse sources of water quality pollution. Although the Hudson farm does fall under a regulated point source category in a state legislative definition, not all agricultural …

Market Failures And Protecting The Environment, Chad J. Mcguire

Chad J McGuire

Rising Sea Levels Challenge Flood Insurance Management, Chad J. Mcguire

Chad J McGuire

Valuing Ecosystem Services In Coastal Management Policy: Looking Beyond The Here And Now, Chad J. Mcguire

Chad J McGuire

Climate-Induced Sea Level Rise And Sustainable Coastal Management: The Influence Of Existing Policy Frameworks On Risk Perception, Chad J. Mcguire

Chad J McGuire

Losing The Message: Some Policy Implications Of Anthropocentric Indirect Arguments For Environmental Protection, Chad J. Mcguire

Chad J McGuire

Disagreement And Design: Searching For Consensus In The Climate Policy And Intergenerational Discounting Debate, Michael A. Kane

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Current approaches to discounting in climate policy present a seemingly intractable problem. While it is widely recognized that choice of discount rate in climate models can easily dwarf the effect of other parameter inputs, there is at present a very wide disagreement, both in law and in economics, about the appropriate discount rate to use. This Paper provides a framework for achieving a workable consensus range for acceptable discount rates in climate models. It does so by emphasizing three factors previously ignored in the literature. First, it demonstrates that the choice of discount rate should be tailored to the type …

Uncertainty, Daniel A. Farber

Daniel A Farber

The article discusses environmental risks and uncertainties and the current approaches to risk assessment. It is said that conventional risk assessment is a powerful methodology, but over-reliance on it can lead to a failure to acknowledge any risks that do not lend themselves to the technique. Uncertainties can be associated with fat-tailed distributions.

Tidal Turmoil: Environmental Justice And Sea Level Rise In Hampton Roads: Norfolk Case Study, Michael Boyer, Erica Penn

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

No abstract provided.

The Challenges Of Dynamic Water Management In The American West, Holly Doremus, Michael Hanemann

Holly Doremus

No abstract provided.

Constitutive Law And Environmental Policy, Holly Doremus

Holly Doremus

No abstract provided.

Sciene Plays Defense: Natural Resource Management In The Bush Administration, Holly Doremus

Holly Doremus

The George W. Bush Administration has been criticized by scientists for its use of science in the policy arena generally, and for politicizing science. However, the problem is more one of the scientizing of politics, as the administration has shown that the rhetoric of science can be used defensively, as a barrier to regulation. Key methods used by the administration to pursue its strategy of defensive science in natural resource management are detailed. A more normatively defensible, and a more politically effective, strategy for conservationists would emphasize the need to bring transparency and a commitment to updating into the regulatory …

A Win-Win Scenario: Using The Gold Standard To Improve The World Cup's Green Goal Initiative, Allison A. Kotula

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Systems Thinking Applied To U.S. Federal Fisheries Management, Chad J. Mcguire, Bradley P. Harris

Chad J McGuire

Coastal Planning, Federal Consistency, And Climate Change: A Recent Divergence Of Federal And State Interests, Chad J. Mcguire

Chad J McGuire

Climate Adaptation And The Fifth Amendment Of The U.S. Constitution: A Regulatory Takings Analysis Of Adaptation Strategies In Coastal Development With Application To Connecticut’S Coastal Management Regime, Chad J. Mcguire, Jason Hill

Chad J McGuire