Law Commons^™

The Honey Trap: How Pesticide Regulations Hold The Key To Honey Bee Survival

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

No abstract provided.

Navigating The Winds Of Change: Licensing, Registration, And Regulatory Overlay For Wind Farms And Associated Transmission In Texas, Dennis W. Donley Jr., Stephanie S. Potter

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

The State of Texas leads the United States in wind energy generation capacity—it has more than twice the wind generation capacity of the next-closest state, California. If Texas was an independent nation, it would rank sixth in the world in total installed wind capacity. Texas has a rich history of legislation and regulatory effort to thank for these statistics, which reflects the knowledge that energy and infrastructure drive the economy. Starting in 1999, Texas became one of the first states to enact a Renewable Portfolio Standard (“RPS”). The RPS set a state-wide goal for new renewable energy installation with deadlines …

The Floodplain Fiasco, Andrew J. Kubiak

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Flooding has long been a source of hardship for the people who work and live near bodies of water such as rivers, lakes, and streams. The United States has not been an exception. Only in recent decades has the United States taken proactive steps in an effort to mitigate the damage associated with flooding. These proactive measures predict the areas of the United States that flood, and require that people who live within those areas to purchase flood insurance. These predictions are in the form of a nationwide system of maps. Until recently, flood insurance was offered to affected property …

How To Remedy The Court's Unreasonable Expansion Of The Public Use Doctrine, Brian Walsh

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Comment will deal with the evolution of the public use requirement in Part II. Part III deals with the unnecessary expansion of the definition of a public use. In Part IV I will argue why the courts should return to a public use definition in line with the intent of the Fifth Amendment as written by the founders.

Sins Of The Father, K.K. Duvivier

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Article will first provide some general background about severance and the related doctrine of dominant–servient estates. Next, it will address oil and gas severance specifically. Third, it will track the parallels and distinctions between the history of wind severance and the oil and gas history set out in Section II. Finally, Section IV will address the problems with the current responses to wind severance.

Lessons Of Wind Policies In Texas, Joshua Linn, Clayton Munnings

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

Since the late 1990s, Texas has experienced more wind generator investment than any other U.S. state. It now has the most installed wind capacity of any state, and wind power accounts for a larger share of total generation in Texas than in most other states. Favorable wind resources and the relative ease of siting large projects have contributed to Texas’s prominence in wind investment and generation. Numerous policies have also played important roles, such as the federal tax credit for wind generation, the state’s renewable portfolio standard (“RPS”), and a regulatory environment conducive to new investment in the electric power …

J.R.R. Tolkien Goes To Law School: Exploring Property Law Jurisprudence Through The Hobbit And Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, Colin P. Benton

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Article offers J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic stories, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, as useful for Law and Literature scholarship because they have a large audience of all ages, who have either read them in books or seen them as movies. Their widespread popularity makes these stories an effective way to introduce and inspire many to the property law jurisprudence that permeates the texts. While Tolkien’s literature has not been traditionally utilized for Law and Literature purposes, there are several issues of property law jurisprudence that can be elucidated through Tolkien’s writings.

This Article begins by briefly …

Addressing Wind Power Intermittency In The Ercot And Spp Regions, Elizabeth Drews, Cedric Ireland, Neil Yallabandi

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Article explores efforts to address challenges involving wind power intermittency in two United States power regions: the South- west Power Pool (“SPP”) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (“ERCOT”). SPP and ERCOT are good case studies regarding these issues because each has among the strongest wind resources in the country, most of which are in isolated, sparsely populated areas and need long transmission lines to reach major load (electricity consumption) centers. Those circumstances increase the challenge of integrating intermittent wind generation into the electric system (grid).

Ride Like The Wind: Selected Issues In Multi-Party Wind Lease Negotiations, Rod E. Wetsel, Steven K. Dewolf

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

The large-scale wind industry arrived in Texas in the early years of the twenty-first century with the intensity of a spring tornado. It was a welcome relief to farmers and ranchers beset by years of no rain and falling prices, and they lined up in droves to hear about and sign new wind leases. It was a new dawn for energy lawyers too. Gone were the days of one-on-one representation in the leasing of land. The new era required landowner attorneys to represent dozens or perhaps hundreds of people at a time. This is the story of the issues and …

Robbing Peter And Blaming Paul: A Comment Explaining How Professor Robert Hockett Incorrectly Assess The Cause Of The Underwater Mortgage Crisis And An Aquinian Explanation Of How His Eminent Domain Solution Is Neither Ethically Correct Nor Appropriate, Cooper Morgan Walker

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

The Author’s purpose is to show the American community—and specifically the legal community—how and why Hockett’s proposal is not an ethically correct or appropriate solution for the underwater mortgage crisis. To achieve this end, the Author will give a detailed explanation of Professor Hockett’s proposal in Part II. Next, the Author will set forth Hockett’s explanation of what caused the underwater mortgage crisis in Part III. In Part IV the Author will provide his own belief on what the cause of the underwater mortgage crisis is. Then, after showing how Hockett does not assess the cause of the underwater mortgage …

Help Me, I'M Drowning! Using The Fair Housing Act To Protect Cities That Use Eminent Domain To Seize Underwater Mortgages, Emily D. Anderson

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Note will demonstrate that the FHA and ECOA prohibit implementation of lenders’ threats to limit or refuse credit availability because the result would have a disproportionate effect on minorities. This Note will examine the legality of the lenders’ threats to withhold credit and, in doing so, presumes that courts will find this novel use of eminent domain constitutional. First, Part II will discuss the current situation. Section IIA will explain eminent domain and explore precisely how cities hope to use it in the mortgage note context. Section IIB will describe the growth of this plan and the cities that …

Field Of Dreams: Is The Movie Site's Commercialization A Dream Plan With Significant Benefits Or A Nightmare Script With Crippling Effects?, Michael J. Mcgraw

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Comment will detail the field’s powerful attraction, discuss and analyze the applicable zoning laws and governing case law associated with comparable property disputes in relation to the present facts, praise the use of tax rebates to help subsidize the project, and assert that the public sector could have established even further requirements for the private business to meet before receiving such substantial public funds.

Spanish And Mexican Land Grants And Heirs' Rights To Unclaimed Mineral Estates In Texas, Rose Richerson

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Comment discusses the history of Spanish and Mexican land grants in Texas and the complicated issues of: (1) recognizing the rights of original land grant owners; and (2) distinguishing what remedies, if any, shall be given to their heirs. Part II provides background of Spanish and Mexican land grants in Texas, including the provisions included in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, and the underlying cultural, political, and social issues. Part III discusses the history of general land grant case law and mineral estate case law in Texas. Part IV discusses the current obstacles that heirs face in bringing ancient land …

Property Rights In Space: Asteroid Mining, David Sarnacki

Texas A&M Journal of Property Law

This Note will discuss why maintaining the status quo, while waiting for the technology to mature, will encourage development and strengthen the industry before being smothered by laws and regulations promulgated by parties who may have conflicts of interest. This Note will first explain why scientists are attempting to mine asteroids. It will then examine the rules that apply, including the two main space treaties (the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Treaty), the modern view of the court, and the history of deep-sea mining. Finally, this Note will apply the treaties to modern plans being developed to harvest an …