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Environmental Law

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Responsible, Renewable, And Redesigned: How The Renewable Energy Movement Can Make Peace With The Endangered Species Act, Kalyani Robbins Jan 2014

Responsible, Renewable, And Redesigned: How The Renewable Energy Movement Can Make Peace With The Endangered Species Act, Kalyani Robbins

Faculty Publications

One of the most promising routes to a sustainable energy future, as well as climate change mitigation, is the development of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar energy, and hydropower. Indeed, scientists have proposed plans to move completely (100 percent!) to these energy sources within a couple of decades. Mark Z. Jacobson and M.A. Delucchi, scientists from Stanford and U.C. Davis, have outlined a plan to achieve this goal, thereby “eliminating all fossil fuels”. Hydroelectric power already provides almost one-fifth of the world's electricity, and wind and solar development is rapidly picking up as well. However, before we leave …


Strength In Numbers: Setting Quantitative Criteria For Listing Species Under The Endangered Species Act, Kalyani Robbins Jan 2009

Strength In Numbers: Setting Quantitative Criteria For Listing Species Under The Endangered Species Act, Kalyani Robbins

Faculty Publications

My primary thesis is that the Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service need to set quantitative criteria for listing species under the Endangered Species Act in order to promote consistency, transparency, and efficiency. I suggest a model for doing so, the use of which would create an opportunity to move beyond the political quagmire surrounding the selection of vulnerable species for preservation. Like my other environmental scholarship, the article merges scientific research in the field of conservation biology with legal analysis. With the status quo, listing decisions often turn on wildly different factors, including some not …


Missing The Link: The Importance Of Keeping Ecosystems Intact And What The Endangered Species Act Suggests We Do About It, Kalyani Robbins Jan 2007

Missing The Link: The Importance Of Keeping Ecosystems Intact And What The Endangered Species Act Suggests We Do About It, Kalyani Robbins

Faculty Publications

The Endangered Species Act was created in response to a rapid decline in species biodiversity. Although Congress chose direct protection of individual species as its tool, protecting ecosystems (a necessary component of biodiversity) was clearly one of the goals for which that tool was to be used. A species can be abundant in some areas and declining in others, such that protecting the entire species does not make sense. Congress dealt with this issue by amending the Endangered Species Act in 1978 to allow for protection of “distinct population segments,” thereby allowing the population in decline to be protected in …