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The Antiregulatory Arsenal, Antidemocratic Can(N)Ons, And The Waters Wars, William W. Buzbee
The Antiregulatory Arsenal, Antidemocratic Can(N)Ons, And The Waters Wars, William W. Buzbee
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Clean Water Act has become a centerpiece in an enduring multifront battle against both environmental regulation and federal regulatory power in all of its settings. This Article focuses on the emergence, elements, and linked uses of an antiregulatory arsenal now central to battles over what are federally protected “waters of the United States.” This is the key jurisdictional hook for CWA jurisdiction, and hence, logically, has become the heart of CWA contestation. The multi-decade battle over Waters protections has both drawn on emergent antiregulatory moves and generated new weapons in this increasingly prevalent and powerful antiregulatory arsenal. This array …
Administering The Clean Water Act: Do Regulators Have "Bigger Fish To Fry" When It Comes To Addressing The Practice Of Chumming On The Chesapeake Bay?, Hope M. Babcock
Administering The Clean Water Act: Do Regulators Have "Bigger Fish To Fry" When It Comes To Addressing The Practice Of Chumming On The Chesapeake Bay?, Hope M. Babcock
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Chesapeake Bay is one of the country's most productive estuaries. However, for decades the health of the Bay has been declining due in large part to nutrification. Excessive nutrients encourage algal blooms, which lower dissolved oxygen and increase turbidity in the Bay's waters. More than 40% of the Bay's main stern is now dead largely as a result of this problem. The practice of chumming, the discarding of baitfish, usually menhaden, over the sides of fishing boats to attract game fish like striped bass, is contributing to the Bay's nutrification problem because the decomposing chum raises the waters biological …
The Effect Of The Supreme Court's Eleventh Amendment Jurisprudence On Environmental Citizen Suits: Gotcha!, Hope M. Babcock
The Effect Of The Supreme Court's Eleventh Amendment Jurisprudence On Environmental Citizen Suits: Gotcha!, Hope M. Babcock
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The current Supreme Court has substantially expanded the scope of protection from lawsuits accorded to states by the Eleventh Amendment and narrowed the exceptions to its application. As a result, many people are finding they are unable to vindicate federal rights in any court when the defendant is a state or a state agency. The most recent example of this is the Court's decision in South Carolina State Ports Authority v. Federal Maritime Commission, in which the Court extended the reach of the Eleventh Amendment to private administrative enforcement actions against states, thus forsaking completely any connection to the …
Federal Wetlands Regulatory Policy: Up To Its Ears In Alligators, Hope M. Babcock
Federal Wetlands Regulatory Policy: Up To Its Ears In Alligators, Hope M. Babcock
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Protecting the nation's dwindling wetland resources under section 404 of the Clean Water Act has been a persistent and discouraging proposition. Section 404 of the Act "lies like an open wound across the body of environmental law." Given the ecological and economic value of the resource, this seems puzzling--but only for a moment. An examination of the federal wetlands permitting program reveals significant problems. These problems, combined with ingrained attitudes about the sanctity of private property, lack of public appreciation of wetland values, and insufficient political will to protect them, make it easy to see why wetlands continue to disappear, …