Law Commons^™

Shared Sovereignty: The Role Of Expert Agencies In Environmental Law, Michael Blumm, Andrea Lang

Michael Blumm

Environmental law usually features statutory interpretation or administrative interpretation by a single agency. Less frequent is a close look at the mechanics of implementing environmental policy across agency lines. In this article, we offer such a look: a comparative analysis of five statutes and their approaches to sharing decision-making authority among more than one federal agency. We call this pluralistic approach to administrative decisionmaking “shared sovereignty.”

In this analysis, we compare implementation of the National Environmental Policy, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Federal Power Act. All of these statutes incorporate …

The Real Story Behind The Columbia Basin Salmon Debacle: Preserving Dams Under The Endangered Species Act, Michael Blumm

Michael Blumm

This review of Steven Hawley’s provocative book, Recovering a Lost River: Removing Dams, Rewilding Salmon, Revitalizing Communities, examines Hawley’s claim that the best way to recover endangered Snake River salmon is by removing the four Lower Snake River dams. These dams, managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, impede access to over 5300 miles of prime salmon habitat and operate with enormous public subsidies, largely to maintain a seaport 465 miles inland at Lewiston, Idaho. Hawley’s book not only shows that additional public subsidies in the form of river dredging and new levees will be necessary to maintain the …