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Could Official Climate Denial Revive The Common Law As A Regulatory Backstop?, Mark P. Nevitt, Robert Percival
Could Official Climate Denial Revive The Common Law As A Regulatory Backstop?, Mark P. Nevitt, Robert Percival
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The Trump Administration is rapidly turning the clock back on climate policy and environmental regulation. Despite overwhelming, peer-reviewed scientific evidence, administration officials eager to promote greater use of fossil fuels are disregarding climate science. This Article argues that this massive and historic deregulation may spawn yet another wave of legal innovation as litigants, including states and their political subdivisions, return to the common law to protect the health of the planet. Prior to the emergence of the major federal environmental laws in the 1970s, the common law of nuisance gave rise to the earliest environmental decisions in U.S. history. In …
An Empirical Analysis Of Cost Recovery In Superfund Cases: Implications For Brownfields And Joint And Several Liability, Howard F. Chang, Hilary Sigman
An Empirical Analysis Of Cost Recovery In Superfund Cases: Implications For Brownfields And Joint And Several Liability, Howard F. Chang, Hilary Sigman
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Economic theory developed in the prior literature indicates that under the joint and several liability imposed by the federal Superfund statute, the government should recover more of its costs of cleaning up contaminated sites than it would under nonjoint liability, and the amount recovered should increase with the number of defendants and with the independence among defendants in trial outcomes. We test these predictions empirically using data on outcomes in federal Superfund cases. Theory also suggests that this increase in the amount recovered may discourage the sale and redevelopment of potentially contaminated sites (or “brownfields”). We find the increase to …
Selling Mayberry: Communities And Individuals In Law And Economics, Gideon Parchomovsky, Peter Siegelman
Selling Mayberry: Communities And Individuals In Law And Economics, Gideon Parchomovsky, Peter Siegelman
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The small village of Cheshire, Ohio was recently acquired in its entirety by the firm whose giant power plant, located at the edge of town, caused it serious pollution problems. Although the plant was worth substantially more than the town, this was not a simple Coasean bargain. This paper combines an ethnographic methodology with theoretical insights from law and economics to present an empirical and theoretic challenge to the standard account of nuisance disputes. We explore the transaction in detail and explain what prevented collective action and holdout problems that are usually thought to hinder bargaining with groups. Specifically, we …