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Full-Text Articles in Law

Policy Analysis For Natural Hazards: Some Cautionary Lessons From Environmental Policy Analysis, Matthew D. Adler Nov 2006

Policy Analysis For Natural Hazards: Some Cautionary Lessons From Environmental Policy Analysis, Matthew D. Adler

All Faculty Scholarship

How should agencies and legislatures evaluate possible policies to mitigate the impacts of earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and other natural hazards? In particular, should governmental bodies adopt the sorts of policy-analytic and risk assessment techniques that are widely used in the area of environmental hazards (chemical toxins and radiation)? Environmental hazards policy analysis regularly employs proxy tests, in particular tests of technological “feasibility,” rather than focusing on a policy’s impact on well-being. When human welfare does enter the analysis, particular aspects of well-being, such as health and safety, are often given priority over others. “Individual risk” tests and other features of …


Did Nepa Drown New Orleans? The Levees, The Blame Game, And The Hazards Of Hindsight, Thomas O. Mcgarity, Douglas A. Kysar Sep 2006

Did Nepa Drown New Orleans? The Levees, The Blame Game, And The Hazards Of Hindsight, Thomas O. Mcgarity, Douglas A. Kysar

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article highlights the hazards of hindsight analysis of the causes of catastrophic events, focusing on theories of why the New Orleans levees failed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and particularly on the theory that the levee failures were "caused" by a 1977 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) lawsuit that resulted in a temporary injunction against the Army Corps of Engineers' hurricane protection project for New Orleans. The Article provides a detailed historical reconstruction of the decision process that eventuated in the New Orleans storm surge protection system, focusing both on the political and legal factors involved and on the …


The Legacy Of John Graham: Strait-Jacketing Risk Assessment, Rena I. Steinzor May 2006

The Legacy Of John Graham: Strait-Jacketing Risk Assessment, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.