Law Commons^™

The Sustainable Development Principle In United States Environmental Law, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The American public perceives the principle of sustainable development and sustainability, the shorthand nomenclature, through green-tinted lenses. Whether the user of the term is academic, corporate, or governmental, the advocate of sustainability is understood as an advocate of protecting the environment. The international legal understanding of the principle of sustainable development, however, is more ambiguous than this popular American understanding.

Part II of this Article describes the important principle of sustainable development in modern international environmental law. It discusses how the sustainable development principle has evolved from its initial appearance in the 1987 Brundtland Commission Report through its central position …

The Logic And Limits Of Environmental Criminal Law In The Global Setting: Brazil And The United States--Comparisons, Contrasts, And Questions In Search Of A Robust Theory, Robert F. Blomquist

Law Faculty Publications

Strict but arguably unfair and counterproductive systems of criminal environmental law and enforcement exist in both the United States and Brazll in the twenty-first century. In order to create a sovereignty dividend encompassing the rule of law and evenhanded administrative control in the competitive global setting, both countries should rethink and reform their respective systems of environmental criminal law by seeking answers to several questions of legal philosophy in search of a robust theory.

Natural Resource “Conflicts” In The U.S. Southwest, William Snape

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

INTRODUCTION: Environmental laws and the ecosystems they support are under attack. Intermittently since the Reagan administration and increasingly since the 2008 economic collapse, certain politicians and their industry sponsors have inundated the media with angry rhetoric, blaming historic job losses on "overregulation."' Environmental laws are a frequent target of these politicians who often benefit from contributions supplied by the fossil fuel and mining industries. Ignoring the successes of these laws- cleaner air, cleaner water, and recovering imperiled wild species and habitat-they claim that environmental regulations are "job killers." Reflecting the success of these claims, the recent House Fiscal Year 2012 …

Environmental Law, Eleventh Circuit Review, Travis M. Trimble

Scholarly Works

Relatively few environmental cases were decided in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in 2010. The court decided a case holding that the portion of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009, which funded a mile-long bridge in the Everglades, repealed the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, Endangered Species Act, and other environmental laws to the extent they applied to the construction project. Additionally, the court decided that the leadbased paint hazard warning required to be included in residential leases pursuant to the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act had to be reproduced in such leases …

Macro-Risks: The Challenge For Rational Risk Regulation, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Jonathan A. Gilligan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Drawing on the recent financial crisis, we introduce the concept of macro-risk. We distinguish between micro-risks, which can be managed within conventional economic frameworks, and macro-risks, which threaten to disrupt economic systems so much that a different approach is required. We argue that catastrophic climate change is a prime example of a macro-risk. Research by climate scientists suggests disturbingly high likelihoods of temperature increases and sea level rises that could cause the kinds of systemic failures that almost occurred with the financial system. We suggest that macro-risks should be the principal concern of rational risk assessment and management, but they …

Who Killed The Hybrid Car? State And Local Green Incentive Programs After Metropolitan Taxicab V. City Of New York, Jonathan Skinner

Publications

Unnecessarily broad preemption ruling under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act discourages other states and municipalities from pursuing innovative, environmentally beneficial policies.

The Curious Case Of Greening In Carbon Markets, William Boyd, James Salzman

Publications

Over the last several years, so-called carbon markets have emerged around the world to facilitate trading in greenhouse gas credits. This Article takes a close look at an unexpected and unprecedented development in some of these markets--premium "green" currencies have emerged and, in some cases, displaced standard compliance currencies. Past experiences with other environmental compliance markets, such as the sulfur dioxide and wetlands mitigation markets, suggest the exact opposite should be occurring. Indeed, buyers in such markets should only be interested in buying compliance, not in the underlying environmental integrity of the compliance unit. In some of the compliance carbon …

A Once And Future Gulf Of Mexico Ecosystem: Restoration Recommendations Of An Expert Working Group, Charles H. Peterson, Felicia C. Coleman, Jeremy B.C. Jackson, R. Eugene Turner, Gilbert T. Rowe, Richard T. Barber, Karen A. Bjorndal, Robert S. Carney, Robert K. Cowen, Jonathan M. Hoekstra, James T. Hollibaugh, Shirley B. Laska, Richard A. Luettich Jr., Craig W. Osenberg, Stephen E. Roady, Stanley Senner, John M. Teal, Ping Wang

Faculty Scholarship

The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) well blowout released more petroleum hydrocarbons into the marine environment than any previous U.S. oil spill (4.9 million barrels), fouling marine life, damaging deep sea and shoreline habitats and causing closures of economically valuable fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. A suite of pollutants — liquid and gaseous petroleum compounds plus chemical dispersants — poured into ecosystems that had already been stressed by overfishing, development and global climate change. Beyond the direct effects that were captured in dramatic photographs of oiled birds in the media, it is likely that there are subtle, delayed, indirect and potentially …

Constitutional Limitations On Land Use Controls, Environmental Regulations And Governmental Exactions (2011 Edition), Garrett Power

Faculty Scholarship

This electronic book is published in a searchable PDF format as a part of the E-scholarship Repository of the University of Maryland School of Law. It is an “open content” casebook intended for classroom use in courses in Land Use Control, Environmental Law and Constitutional Law. It consists of cases carefully selected from the two hundred years of American constitutional history which address the clash between public sovereignty and private property. It considers both the personal right to liberty and the personal right in property. The text consists of non-copyrighted material and readers are free to use it or re-mix …

Transition Policy In Environmental Law, Bruce R. Huber

Journal Articles

Embedded within the structure of much American environmental regulation is a distinction between the new and the existing. This distinction reflects a recurrent political challenge for environmental policymakers: whether and how to mitigate regulatory burdens when policy change upsets settled expectations and investment commitments. Environmental law often grandfathers existing products and pollution sources or provides them with other kinds of transition relief. This paper presents a survey of transition policies in environmental regulation, which is followed by a pair of short case studies drawn from the trucking and pesticide industries. These examples demonstrate that the form and extent of transition …