Law Commons^™

Constitutional Resilience, Shannon M. Roesler

Washington and Lee Law Review

Since the New Deal era, our system of constitutional governance has relied on expansive federal authority to regulate economic and social problems of national scale. Throughout the twentieth century, Congress passed ambitious federal statutes designed to address these problems. In doing so, it often enlisted states as regulatory partners—creating a system of shared governance that underpins major environmental statutes, such as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act. These governance structures remain important today as we seek to adapt our laws and institutions to the serious disruptions of climate change. But recent Supreme Court decisions challenge this long-established …

The Impact Of Government Sponsored Segregation On Health Inequities: Addressing Death Gaps Through Reparations, Mariya Denisenko

Washington and Lee Law Review

Government sponsored segregation of urban neighborhoods has detrimentally impacted the health of Black Americans. Over the last century, federal, state, and local governments have promulgated racist laws and policies that shaped the racial divide of communities in major metropolitan cities. This divide has contributed to poor health outcomes and large discrepancies in life expectancy for Black Americans when compared to their White counterparts. While health is impacted by various factors, segregation has been shown to impose various challenges that make it difficult for Black Americans to attain good health.

Segregated Black communities struggle with economic inequality, environmental racism, and face …

Something Stinks: The Need For Stronger Agricultural Waste Regulations, Audrey Curelop

Washington and Lee Law Review

In the twentieth century, the American agricultural industry underwent significant changes—while most food animals were once raised on small family farms, now, over fifty percent are produced entirely inside concentrated animal feeding operations. These large‑scale farming operations house hundreds to thousands of cows, swine, or chickens, which collectively produce hundreds of millions of tons of waste per year. The primary method of waste disposal is land application, a process in which waste is sprayed or spread onto land with no required pretreatment. After land application, waste byproducts make their way into the surrounding air and waterways, posing significant threats to …

Making Net Zero Matter, Albert C. Lin

Washington and Lee Law Review

In recent months, dozens of countries and thousands of businesses have pledged to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions. However, net zero often means different things to different entities, and it is often uncertain how net zero pledges—which set targets years or decades from the present—will be met. This Article considers the motivations behind net zero pledges, highlights the underappreciated role of carbon removal in net zero efforts, and identifies mechanisms for encouraging the accomplishment of net zero goals. Two key strategies are essential to making net zero targets matter. First, society should develop and implement accountability and enforcement mechanisms …

This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is Mined Land: Expanding Governmental Ownership Liability Under Cercla, Kiersten E. Holms

Washington and Lee Law Review

Part II of this Note begins by providing a brief overview of the background and goals of CERCLA. Part II also provides an examination of the issue of ownership liability under CERCLA and recounts the federal courts’ difficulty in applying ownership liability. Part II then describes how the federal government’s “bare legal title” argument arose out of the confusion surrounding ownership liability in CERCLA litigation. Part III moves on to examine the recent trend in CERCLA litigation rejecting the federal government’s bare legal title argument, thus holding the federal government liable as an owner based on its possession of legal …

Half A Century Of Supreme Court Clean Air Act Interpretation: Purposivism, Textualism, Dynamism, And Activism, David M. Driesen, Thomas M. Keck, Brandon T. Metroka

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article addresses the history of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act, which now goes back almost half a century. Many scholars have argued that the Court has shifted from an approach to statutory interpretation that relied heavily on purposivism—the custom of giving statutory goals weight in interpreting statutes—toward one that relies more heavily on textualism during this period. At the same time, proponents of dynamic statutory interpretation have argued that courts, in many cases, do not so much excavate a statute’s meaning as adapt a statute to contemporary circumstances.

Rehabilitating The Nuisance Injunction To Protect The Environment, Doug Rendleman

Washington and Lee Law Review

The Trump Administration has reversed the federal government’s role of protecting the environment. The reversal focuses attention on states’ environmental capacity. This Article advocates more vigorous state environmental tort remedies for nuisance and trespass. An injunction is the superior remedy in most successful environmental litigation because it orders correction and improvement. Two anachronistic barriers to an environmental injunction are the New York Court of Appeals’ decision, Boomer v. Atlantic Cement, and Calabresi and Melamed’s early and iconic law-and-economics article, One View of the Cathedral. This Article examines and criticizes both because, by subordinating the injunction to money damages, they undervalue …

Dynamic Forest Federalism, Blake Hudson

Washington and Lee Law Review

State and local governments have long maintained regulatory authority to manage natural resources, and most subnational governments have politically exercised that authority to some degree. Policy makers, however, have increasingly recognized that the dynamic attributes of natural resources make them difficult to manage on any one scale of government. As a result, the nation has shifted toward multilevel governance known as “dynamic federalism” for many if not most regulatory subject areas, especially in the context of the natural environment. The nation has done so both legally and politically—the constitutional validity of expanded federal regulatory authority over resources has consistently been …

Bp Oil Spill: Compensation, Agency Costs,And Restitution, David F. Partlett, Russell L. Weaver

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Complicated Environment: The Problem With Extending Victims' Rights To Victims Of Environmental Crimes, Andrew Atkins

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mitigating The Distributional Impacts Of Climate Change Policy, Tracey M. Roberts

Washington and Lee Law Review

Under both a cap-and-trade system and a greenhouse gas tax, the government will regulate energy suppliers and distributors, utility companies, and large manufacturers. These parties will bear the statutory incidence of the regulation. However, the financial impacts of regulating greenhouse gas emissions will be borne primarily by consumers. Consumers will bear the economic incidence of the regulation in the form of increased costs ofgasoline, electricity, and home heating fuels and in increased consumer prices for all goods manufactured or distributed using fossil fuels. Greenhouse gas regulation will also generate significant revenue. This Article addresses the question of what should be …

Examining Epact 2005: A Prospective Look At The Changing Regulatory Approach Of The Ferc, Heather Curlee

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment Under The North American Free Trade Agreement, Jameson Tweedie

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Facing A Hobson's Choice? The Constitutionality Of The Epa's Administrative Compliance Order Enforcement Scheme Under The Clean Air Act, Christopher M. Wynn

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Conservation Through Collusion: Antitrust As An Obstacle To Marine Resource Conservation, Jonathan H. Adler

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Should The World Trade Organization Incorporate Labor And Environmental Standards, Chantal Thomas

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Proof Is In The Policy: The Bush Administration, Nonpoint Source Pollution, And Epa's Final Tmdl Rule, R. Bryant Mcculley

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Environmental Supra-Nationalism, Mark A. Drumbl

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Economics V. Equity Ii: The European Experience, Stephen M. Johnson

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Rhetoric And Reality Of Nature Protection: Toward A New Discourse, Holly Doremus

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Economics V. Equity: Do Market-Based Environmental Reforms Exacerbate Environmental Injustice?, Stephen M. Johnson

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is Emissions Trading An Economic Incentive Program?: Replacing The Command And Control/Economic Incentive Dichotomy, David M. Driesen

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unreasonable Risk: Model Rule 1.6, Environmental Hazards, And Positive Law, Irma S. Russell

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Emergency Planning And Community Right-To-Know Citizen Suits: Should The Supreme Court Extend Gwaltney?, Jeffrey A. Keithline

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Noaa's New Natural Resource Damage Assessment Scheme: It's Not About Collecting Money, James S. Seevers, Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is A Textualist Approach To Statutory Interpretation Pro-Environmentalist?: Why Pragmatic Agency Decisionmaking Is Better Than Judicial Literalism, Bradford C. Mank

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Paradoxical Perils Of The Precautionary Principle, Frank B. Cross

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Disclosure Of Environmental Liabilities Under The Securities Laws: The Potential Of Securities-Market-Based Incentives For Pollution Control , Perry E. Wallace

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Ever-Changing Balance Of Power In Interstate Water Pollution: Do Affected States Have Anything To Say After Arkansas V. Oklahoma?, Mary A. Stilts

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Primer On Federal Facility Compliance With Environmental Laws: Where Do We Go From Here?, Nelson D. Cary

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.