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Full-Text Articles in Law
Water Rights, Markets, And Changing Ecological Conditions, Jonathan H. Adler
Water Rights, Markets, And Changing Ecological Conditions, Jonathan H. Adler
Faculty Publications
Conventional environmentalist thought is suspicious of private markets and property rights. The prospect of global climate change, and consequent ecological disruptions, has fueled the call for additional limitations on private markets and property rights. This essay, written for the Environmental Law Symposium on 21st Century Water Law, presents an alternative view. Specifically, this essay briefly explains why environmental problems generally, and the prospect of changing environmental conditions such as those brought about by climate change in particular, do not counsel further restrictions on private property rights and markets. To the contrary, the prospect of significant environmental changes strengthens the case …
Heat Expands All Things: The Proliferation Of Greenhouse Gas Regulation Under The Obama Administration, Jonathan H. Adler
Heat Expands All Things: The Proliferation Of Greenhouse Gas Regulation Under The Obama Administration, Jonathan H. Adler
Faculty Publications
The Obama Administration has been moving aggressively to control greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act and other pre-existing statutory authority. Much of this new regulation was facilitated – if not mandated – by the Supreme Court’s decision in Massachusetts v. EPA. These regulatory initiatives mark a dramatic expansion of federal environmental controls on private economic activity. These efforts are unwise. Regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, in particular, will impose substantial regulatory costs for minimal environmental gain. Extensive GHG regulation will not produce much actual climate change mitigation. Mitigating the threat of anthropogenic climate change requires …
Water Marketing As An Adaptive Response To The Threat Of Climate Change, Jonathan H. Adler
Water Marketing As An Adaptive Response To The Threat Of Climate Change, Jonathan H. Adler
Faculty Publications
Demographic changes and existing water use patterns have placed tremendous pressures upon water supplies, particularly in the West. Global climate change will exacerbate pressures on water resources. The gradual warming of the atmosphere is certain to change the distribution and availability of water supplies, with potentially severe consequences for freshwater supplies. While climate change will have a significant impact on water resources through changes in the timing and volume of precipitation, altered evaporation rates, and the like, the precise nature, magnitude, timing, and distribution of such climate-induced changes are unknown. This uncertainty complicates the task of water managers who are …
Sepas, Climate Change, And Corporate Responsibility: The Contribution Of Local Government, Catherine J. Lacroix
Sepas, Climate Change, And Corporate Responsibility: The Contribution Of Local Government, Catherine J. Lacroix
Faculty Publications
Municipalities in the United States are increasingly active in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Data suggest that the physical layout of communities and the buildings they contain make significant contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and thus to climate change. One useful tool for municipalities could be the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), pioneered in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) at the federal level and subsequently adopted as a policymaking guide in the State Environmental Policy Acts (SEPAs) of many states. A SEPA requires state governments - and, in six states, local governments as well - to consider the …
Massachusetts V. Epa Heats Up Climate Policy No Less Than Administrative Law: A Comment On Professors Watts And Wildermuth, Jonathan H. Adler
Massachusetts V. Epa Heats Up Climate Policy No Less Than Administrative Law: A Comment On Professors Watts And Wildermuth, Jonathan H. Adler
Faculty Publications
In their essay Breaking New Ground on Issues Other than Global Warming, Professors Kathryn A. Watts and Amy J. Wildermuth have presented a thoughtful preliminary analysis of the Supreme Court's handiwork in Massachusetts v. EPA. They are correct that the decision potentially paves new ground in administrative law, particularly with regard to state standing. The Court's approach to review of agency decisions to decline rulemaking petitions is also potentially significant, but perhaps less ground-breaking than they suggest. In the context of climate change policy their assessment of the Court's decision is too modest, however, for Massachusetts virtually ensures federal regulation …
Warming Up To Climate Change Litigation, Jonathan H. Adler
Warming Up To Climate Change Litigation, Jonathan H. Adler
Faculty Publications
The surprise in Massachusetts v. EPA was not that it was a close, hotly contested case. Rather, the surprise was the facility and ease with which the Court majority dispatched opposing arguments and redefined prior precedents. Not content to widen doctrines on the margins, Justice Stevens' majority opinion blazed a new path through the law of standing and unearthed newfound regulatory authority for the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Under the Court's new interpretation, the Clean Air Act ("CAA" or "the Act") provides EPA with roving authority, if not responsibility, to regulate any substance capable of causing or contributing to …