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Full-Text Articles in Law
Harnessing Information Technology To Improve The Environmental Impact Review Process, Michael B. Gerrard, Michael Herz
Harnessing Information Technology To Improve The Environmental Impact Review Process, Michael B. Gerrard, Michael Herz
Faculty Scholarship
In 1970, when the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was enacted, the new and exciting information management technologies were the handheld four-function calculator and the eight-track tape cassette. Three decades later, after the personal computer, the digital revolution, and the World Wide Web, the implementation of NEPA is still stuck in the world of 1970. Other aspects of the bureaucracy have seen reform-the E-Government Strategy, an E-Government Act, the creation of a new Office of Electronic Government within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and, to focus on the environmental arena, the breathtaking success of the web-based Toxic Release …
Incomplete Compensation For Takings, Thomas W. Merrill
Incomplete Compensation For Takings, Thomas W. Merrill
Faculty Scholarship
If a tribunal determines that a state actor has expropriated foreign investment property, or, under Chapter 11 of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), that a state actor has adopted a regulation that is "tantamount to" an expropriation of foreign investment property, then that tribunal must determine the amount of compensation owed. International law has developed methods to determine the size of a compensation award when a state formally expropriates property. But the notion, reflected in Chapter 11 of NAFTA, that states may be required to pay compensation to foreign investors for what are, in effect, regulatory takings, is …
Asteroids And Comets: U.S. And International Law And The Lowest-Probability, Highest Consequence Risk, Michael B. Gerrard, Anna W. Barber
Asteroids And Comets: U.S. And International Law And The Lowest-Probability, Highest Consequence Risk, Michael B. Gerrard, Anna W. Barber
Faculty Scholarship
Asteroids and comets pose unique policy problems. They are the ultimate example of a low probability, high consequence event: no one in recorded human history is confirmed to have ever died from an asteroid or a comet, but the odds are that at some time in the next several centuries (and conceivably next year) an asteroid or a comet will cause mass localized destruction and that at some time in the coming half million years (and conceivably next year), an asteroid or a comet will kill several billion people. The sudden extinction of the dinosaurs, and most other species 65 …
The Dynamics Of Secrecy In The Environmental Impact Statement Process, Michael B. Gerrard
The Dynamics Of Secrecy In The Environmental Impact Statement Process, Michael B. Gerrard
Faculty Scholarship
The environmental impact review laws – the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and its state counterparts – are premised on the idea of full and open disclosure. The notion underlying these laws is that if the government and the public are fully informed of the impacts of and alternatives to proposed actions, they will make wise decisions about whether and how to proceed. The Freedom of Information Act and its state counterparts even more explicitly seek to open up governmental deliberations to the public. Considered together, these two types of laws would lead one to believe that secrecy has little …