Law Commons^™

Organizing Themes Of Environmental Law, Marcia R. Gelpe

Faculty Scholarship

This article is designed to assist students and lawyers in their work in the field of Environmental Law; specifically, in the area of preventing and mitigating the effects of pollution. The article begins with the origins of modern environmental law. It briefly summarizes the reasons we have environmental problems and describes the inadequacies of the common law responses. This is key to understanding modern environmental statutes, which are designed to remedy the shortcomings of the common law. The main part of the article sets out the various approaches to remedying those shortcomings and gives examples of environmental statutes which take …

Penalties In Settlements Of Citizen Suit Enforcement Actions Under The Clean Water Act, Marcia R. Gelpe

Faculty Scholarship

This article critiques the feminist view Ute Gerhard offers in “Debating Women's Equality: Toward a Feminist Theory of Law from a European Perspective”. Throughout Debating Women's Equality, Gerhard appears to have three ambitious objectives in mind: (1) to decry the paucity of research into women's legal history while beginning to do the needed work, focusing primarily on Germany but also broadly exploring European trends, (2) to demonstrate that German/European women's legal history ultimately vindicates reliance on “equal rights” as a political strategy for women, and (3) to develop an understanding of legal equality that can serve as a meaningful tool …

Environmental Quality: Three Ways To Decide How Much To Spend, Marcia R. Gelpe

Faculty Scholarship

Federal and state laws limiting environmental emissions reflect three approaches to deciding how much money to spend on improving environmental quality. The balancing approach estimates the benefits of limiting emissions and the costs of meeting various limits, then sets limits at levels where benefits justify costs. The cost ignoring approach sets emissions limits at levels necessary to prevent environmental harm, without considering the costs of meeting those limits. Technology-based standards limit emissions to levels attainable using the best pollution control technology, as long as no significant environmental effects are known to occur at those levels. In this article, the author …

Independent Agencies - Independent From Whom?, Sally Katzen, Edward Markey, James Miller, Joseph Grundfest, R. Gaull Silberman, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Clean Water Act Citizens Suits After Gwaltney: Applying Mootness Principles In Private Enforcement Actions, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court recently held that a citizen plaintiff must make a good-faith allegation of an ongoing violation in order to bring an enforcement action under the Clean Water Act. The decision in Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc., will prevent citizens from bringing suit for the assessment of civil penalties solely for past violations of the Clean Water Act.

Chernobyl Fallout: Recent Iaea Conventions Expand Transboundary Nuclear Pollution Law, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

After releasing a radioactive cloud over Europe, the April 1986 nuclear power plant accident at Chernobyl in the USSR sparked a chain-reaction of diplomatic negotiation that culminated in two recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conventions on nuclear accidents. The Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (Convention on Early Notification) and the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (Convention on Assistance) were both opened for signature on September 26, 1986 at the end of a three-day IAEA special session on the lessons of the Soviet nuclear plant disaster. In the months …

With Liberty And Justice For All: An Essay On Agent Orange And Choice Of Law, Aaron Twerski

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

New Role For Nonparties In Tort Actions-The Empty Chair, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

In courtroom drama, the spotlight rarely falls on an empty chair. That may change, due to a new Colorado statute allowing factfinders to consider the negligence or fault of nonparties in tort actions. The new statute may not give nonparties starring roles in every trial, but it will certainly thicken the plot.

Understanding The Plaintiff's Attorney: The Implications Of Economic Theory For Private Enforcement Of Law Through Class And Derivative Actions, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Probably to a unique degree, American law relies upon private litigants to enforce substantive provisions of law that in other legal systems are left largely to the discretion of public enforcement agencies. This system of enforcement through "private attorneys general" is most closely associated with the federal antitrust and securities laws and the common law's derivative action, but similar institutional arrangements have developed recently in the environmental, "mass tort," and employment discrimination fields. The key legal rules that make the private attorney general a reality in American law today, however, are not substantive but procedural – namely, those rules that …

The Limits Of Rationality And The Place Of Religious Conviction: Protecting Animals And The Environment, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

When people hold religious views that have implications for moral choices and for the desirable uses of law, may they properly rely on those religious views in our liberal democracy? The commonly expressed ideas that church and state are separate and that no group should impose its religious views on others may seem to suggest that political dialogue and bases for political decisions should be wholly nonreligious. This position, which is the main target of this Article, receives articulate defense among prominent social philosophers. This Article urges a different position: that no commonly shared ground of decision is available for …

Exhaustion Of Administrative Remedies: The Lesson From Environmental Cases, Marcia R. Gelpe

Faculty Scholarship

The law governing exhaustion of administrative remedies is complex and confusing and fosters needless litigation: litigation that is burdensome to the courts and costly to defendants, that adversely affects agency decision making and that by its very existence, wrongly influences courts to dispense with the exhaustion requirement. Exhaustion remains troublesome to the courts; many of the decisions are confusing and poorly reasoned. A reexamination of the exhaustion doctrine is called for, not only to indicate how the cases should be decided, but also to clarify the issues sufficiently to guide parties' behavior so that they may avoid litigation over exhaustion's …

Compensation For Victims Of Hazardous Substance Exposure, J. David Prince

Faculty Scholarship

Hazardous wastes, threatening environmental and human safety, are being generated at an alarming rate. In this Article, J. David Prince discusses the threats posed by hazardous wastes and the remedies that are available in Minnesota for dealing with those threats. Professor Prince analyzes a proposed compensation scheme for victims of hazardous waste exposure in Minnesota and suggests that a modification of that scheme be adopted by the Minnesota Legislature.

Animal Feedlot Regulation In Minnesota, Marcia R. Gelpe

Faculty Scholarship

Animal feedlots frequently are the subject of dispute between operators and surrounding landowners. In this Article, Professor Gelpe identifies the environmental problems created by animal feedlots and discusses the common-law remedies. In addition, Professor Gelpe provides valuable insights into the application and Interpretation of feedlot regulations recently enacted by Minnesota.

In Order To Have Water: Legal, Economic And Institutional Barriers To Water Reuse In Northern New England, Michael S. Baram, J. Raymond Miyares

Faculty Scholarship

The maintenance of adequate water supplies to meet increasing demand upon residential and industrial users in New England is now an urgent concern. Encouragement of water reuse is one of the ways in which water conservation can be implemented. This Article, synthesized by the authors from their technical report, examines current legal and institutional methods of promoting water reuse and conservation. They analyze their effectiveness and argue that legal and political reform is needed to achieve the ends of water conservation. I

Annual Report Of The Electric Power Committee, J. David Prince

Faculty Scholarship

This is the annual report of the Electric Power Committee for 1980. It reports on legislative and judicial developments, and issues relevant to the Electric Power Committee.

One Year's Environmental Litigation: 1977-78, Oscar S. Gray

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Annual Report Of The Electric Power Committee, J. David Prince

Faculty Scholarship

This is the annual report of the Electric Power Committee for 1979. It reports on legislative and judicial developments, and issues relevant to the Electric Power Committee. This report is in four parts. Part I reviews the extensive developments during 1978 under the federal air and water pollution laws. Part II briefly considers other federal developments of significance to the electric power industry. Part III is an update of last year's review of developments concerning solar energy. Part IV consists of the 1978 reports from selected states.

Special Report On Endangered Species And New Life Forms: Conversation With A Cockroach, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

On June 15, 1978, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Endangered Species Act of 1973 required the enjoining of the operation of a virtually completed dam, the Tellico Dam in Tennessee, because of a determination by the Secretary of the Interior that its operation would eradicate the snail darter, an endangered species.

The Fox In The Chicken Coop: The Regulatory Program Of The U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers, Garrett Power

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Interlocutory Injunctive Relief In Environmental Cases: A Primer For The Practitioner, John D. Leshy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Disclosure Of Hidden Energy Demands: A New Challenge For Nepa, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The specialization of the American economy obscures the identity of the ultimate users of energy, even from themselves. As a result consumers remain ignorant of the amount of energy which they use, and of the efficiency of that usage. Direct personal use of energy in the United States, such as electricity and natural gas for home heating, cooking and lighting, and gasoline for private automobiles, accounts for only about one-third of national energy use. Usage by industry and government to provide for the intermediate and final goods and services, for which we as individuals ultimately pay through our purchases and …

Some Regulatory Implications Of Technology Assessment, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

To conclude this wide-ranging panel discussion, I want to briefly address two aspects of regulation which have been troublesome, and for which Technology Assessment may be particularly useful.

The first aspect, which relates to radiation and other hazardous substances in general, is the increasingly important regulatory function of forcing the development and application of appropriate control technologies on industry-normally, the development and application of devices and techniques to protect public and worker health and safety. The question becomes: Is the regulatory program appropriately forcing and guiding necessary advances in control techniques and their timely use?

The Uses Of Scientific Information In Environmental Decision Making, Marcia R. Gelpe

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the response of the legal system to the uncertainty which is inherent in the scientific analysis of environmental impact. The first principle of due process is that the assignment of responsibility correspond with the actor who did in fact cause the injury. We argue that existing concepts of cause-in-fact, the foundation of liability, place potentially severe constraints on the ability of the legal system to respond to the need to minimize the risks of future environmental injury. Further, these constraints exist to some degree regardless of whether the prohibitions or restrictions take the form of adjudication, administrative …

Environmental Law And Construction Project Management, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Construction project management generally proceeds through sequential stages of project conception, planning, site acquisition, design and construction. Traditionally, citizens and public officials have relied on various elements of American common law to prevent, abate or get compensation for injuries resulting from the final construction stage of project management. Common law concepts of nuisance, negligence and trespass have been applied by the courts to situations where essentially private rights have been infringed by debris, runoff, noise, vibrations, structural damage and other byproducts of the construction process. The common law has therefore indirectly served as an environmental control on construction activities in …

Section 4(F) Of The Department Of Transportation Act, Oscar S. Gray

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Legal And Regulatory Framework For Thermal Discharge From Nuclear Power Plants, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

As the rate of electricity generation increases, and as more nuclear power plants-in contrast to fossil fuel and hydro-electric facilities-are built to meet power needs, the use of cooling water and its subsequent discharge in heated states into the environment is expected to rise to massive levels. Estimates of future cooling water use vary and are subject to technical and economic developments, but by 1990, between 640 and 850 billion gallons per day are expected to be required. This range of water use can be roughly equated to one-half to three fourths of the average daily run-off of fresh water …

More About Oysters Than You Wanted To Know, Garrett Power

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.