Law Commons^™

A Balanced Prescription For More Effective Environmental Regulations, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Government agencies increasingly base the structure and approval of environmental regulations on a benefit-cost test. For regulations that pass this test, total benefits exceed total costs. Under a benefit-cost framework, the degree of regulatory stringency is set at an economically efficient level whereby the tightness of the regulation is increased up to the point where the incremental benefits equal the incremental costs. Setting regulatory standards to achieve the efficient degree of pollution control does not fully discourage entry into polluting industries, provide compensation to those harmed by pollution, or establish meaningful incentives for effective enforcement. This article proposes that the …

On Foxes And Hedgehogs, Roger P. Alford

Journal Articles

This Article is about John Nagle’s many means to one great end. It will outline the many themes of his scholarship: (i) environmental law, (ii) statutory interpretation, (iii) constitutional law, (iv) nuisance and pollution, (v) election law and campaign finance, (vi) Christianity and the environment, and (vii) national parks. It will offer conclusions on how he used his scholarly interests as a means to pursue his overarching worldview.

Same As It Ever Was : The Tijuana River Sewage Crisis, Non-State Actors, And The State, James M. Cooper

Faculty Scholarship

Sewage—a scary mixture of human waste and industrial toxins—flows into the Tijuana River Valley, an environmentally sensitive watershed that straddles the United Mexican States ("Mexico") and the United States of America. Treatment plants, a deteriorating one in Punta Bandera with limited capacity south of the border, and another in San Diego County completed in 1997, are inadequate to process the volume of sewage. So much sewage made its way into the Tijuana River that CBS 60 Minutes broadcast a special report on the binational environmental disaster in 2020.

Border factories and a population spike contribute to the sewage. Maquiladoras, …

Law Library Blog (March 2021): Legal Beagle's Blog Archive, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Principles Of International Law And The Adoption Of A Market-Based Mechanism For Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Shipping, Hillary Aidun, Daniel J. Metzger, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Emissions from shipping are a significant driver of human-induced climate change. International action to date has not succeeded in setting those emissions on a sustainable trajectory. The International Maritime Organization has committed to implementing an effective, international approach to tackle international shipping’s contribution to climate change.

This paper considers international law principles, exploring whether and how these principles may provide a basis for the IMO to address those contributions. The polluter pays principle, which counsels that whoever produces pollution should cover the costs their pollution imposes on others, is a doctrine of international law that offers strong support for the …

Back To The Future: Creating A Bipartisan Environmental Movement For The 21st Century, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

With a contentious presidential election looming amidst a pandemic, economic worries, and historic protests against systemic racism, climate action may seem less pressing than other challenges. Nothing could be further from the truth. To prevent greater public health threats and economic dislocation from climate disruption, which will disproportionately harm Black Americans, people of color, and indigenous people, this Comment argues that we need to restore the bipartisanship that fueled the environmental movement and that the fate of the planet—and our children and grandchildren—depends upon our collective action.

Climate Policy & Environmental Justice Recommendations For Colorado: Environmental Justice And The Climate Action Plan To Reduce Pollution, Kevin J. Lynch, Edwin Lamair, Evan Healey

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This report was primarily drafted in the Spring of 2019, as the Colorado Legislature considered, and ultimately enacted, HB 19-1261. Since that time, developments have only highlighted the critical importance of considering the justice impacts of any public health and environmental responses to the threat of climate change. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the stark racial and class disparities that environmental conditions have on the health of a community. The same facilities and mobile sources that emit climate pollution also typically emit particulate matter and smogforming pollution that cause respiratory illness in many communities. These underlying conditions are …

Building A National Ocean Policy Confronts Deconstruction Of The Administrative State, Brion Blackwelder

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Losses: The Cases For And Against Coverage, Christopher French

Journal Articles

The financial consequences of the government-ordered shutdowns of businesses across America to mitigate the COVID-19 health crisis are enormous. Estimates indicate that small businesses have lost $255 to $431 billion per month and more than 44 million workers have been laid off. When businesses have requested reimbursement of their business interruption losses from their insurers under business interruption policies, their insurers have denied the claims. The insurance industry also has announced that business interruption policies do not cover pandemic losses, so they intend to fight COVID-19 claims “tooth and nail.” More than 450 lawsuits throughout the country already have been …

Introduction: Governing Wicked Problems, J. B. Ruhl, J. Salzman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

“Wicked problems.” It just says it all. Persistent social problems—poverty, food insecurity, climate change, drug addiction, pollution, and the list goes on—seem aptly condemned as wicked. But what makes them wicked, and what are we to do about them? The concept of wicked problems as something more than a generic description has its origins in the late 1960s. Professor Horst Rittel of the University of California, Berkeley, Architecture Department posed the term in a seminar to describe “that class of social system problems which are ill-formulated, where the information is confusing, where there are many clients and decision makers with …

New Environmental Crimes Project Data Shows That Pollution Prosecutions Plummeted During The First Two Years Of The Trump Administration, David M. Uhlmann

Other Publications

The latest data from the Environmental Crimes Project at the University of Michigan Law School shows a dramatic drop in pollution prosecutions during the first two years under President Donald J. Trump. The data, which now includes 14 years of cases from 2005–2018, shows a 70 percent decrease in Clean Water Act prosecutions under President Trump, as well as a more than 50 percent decrease in Clean Air Act prosecutions. The data again shows that most defendants charged with pollution crime commit misconduct involving one or more of the aggravating factors identified in my previous scholarship, so prosecutors continue to …

Briefing For Civil Society Organizations – Understanding Commercial Eucalyptus Plantations: How Do They Work And What Are Their Environmental Impacts?, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

If a company wants to use a community’s land for eucalyptus plantations, the community should think carefully about whether this is a good idea. Civil society organizations that support communities can use this briefing to help communities understand the potential environmental impacts the community should be aware of. The briefing explains plantation forestry and the life-cycle of eucalyptus tree plantations. It also notes the different possible negative environmental impacts of eucalyptus plantations before exploring how this information can be factored into community decision-making about a proposed eucalyptus plantation. While the briefing focuses on eucalyptus plantations, a lot of it will …

Environmental Law In The United States, Howard J. Bromberg, Joshua I. Barrett

Book Chapters

Environmental law in the United States comprises a complex patchwork of federal, state, and local statutes and regulations, along with the traditions of common law. Most statutory environmental programs emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. In the 1960s, writings such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) fueled environmental awareness in the United States; the first Earth Day, celebrated on April 22, 1970, symbolized the birth of vironmental law entered a new era in 1970, when President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act and the 1970 Clean …

Environmental Justice And The Hesitant Embrace Of Human Rights, Dayna Nadine Scott

Articles & Book Chapters

This chapter explores some of the tensions inherent in employing ‘rights strategies’ in environmental justice movements. Using the example of a judicial review application brought by Indigenous environmental justice activists in Canada demonstrates the symbolic power of using rights-based language for environmental justice, but also underscores the serious procedural, logistical and resource barriers that frustrate these groups in their attempts to deploy litigation tactics. Legal scholars need to think critically about ‘rights-talk’ and confront the hard questions about its utility for advancing environmental justice. In working with communities, we must learn to listen to what communities want before we default …

Environmental Justice And The Possibilities For Environmental Law, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Climate change and extreme inequality combine to cause disproportionate harms to poor communities throughout the world. Further, unequal resource allocation is shot through with the structures of racism and other forms of discrimination. This Essay explores these phenomena in two different places in the United States, and traces law’s role in constructing environmental and economic vulnerability. The Essay then proposes that solutions, if there are any to be had, lie in expanding our notions of what kinds of laws are relevant to achieving environmental justice, and in seeing law as a possible tactic for instigating broader social change but not …

The Missing Element Of Environmental Cost-Benefit Analysis: Compensation For The Loss Of Regulatory Benefits, Karl S. Coplan

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Despite its critics, cost-benefit analysis remains a fixture of the environmental regulation calculus. Most criticisms of cost-benefit analysis focus on the impossibility of monetizing environmental and health amenities protected by regulations. Less attention has been paid to the regressive wealth-transfer effects of regulations foregone based on cost-benefit analysis. This regressive effect occurs as long as downwind communities that suffer health and harms from environmental contamination are generally less wealthy than the owners of pollution sources that avoid regulatory-compliance costs. The availability of compensation to pollution-victims has the potential to ameliorate this regressive effect. This Article recommends that the availability of …

Eating Is Not Political Action, Joshua Ulan Galperin, Graham Downey, D. Lee Miller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Food and environment are cultural stalwarts. Picture the red barn and solitary farmer toiling over fruited plains; or purple mountains majesty reflected in pristine waters. Agriculture and environment are core, distinct, American mythologies that we know are more intertwined than our stories reveal.

To create policy at the interface of such centrally important and overlapping American ideals, there are two options. Passive governance fosters markets in which participants make individual choices that aggregate into inadvertent collective action. In contrast, assertive governance allows the public, mediated through elected officials, to enact intentional, goal oriented policy.

American mythologies of food and environment …

Attaching Domestic Assets To Remedy High Seas Pollution: Rule B And Marine Debris, Jonathan M. Gutoff

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Guide To Land Contracts: Forestry Projects, International Senior Lawyers Project, Kaitlin Y. Cordes, Sam Szoke-Burke

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Agricultural investment contracts and forestry projects can be complex, with complicated provisions that are difficult to understand. To assist non-lawyers in better understanding agricultural investment contracts, such as those available on the Open Land Contracts repository, CCSI has developed a Guide to Land Contracts: Forestry Projects.

This Guide, prepared by International Senior Lawyers Project staff and volunteers in collaboration with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, aims to assist the Open Land Contracts repository users in unpacking the technical provisions and language typically found in forestry contracts in order to better understand the contracts and the potential implications of …

Eating Is Not Political Action, Joshua Galperin, Graham Downey, D. Lee Miller

Articles

Food and environment are cultural stalwarts. Picture the red barn and solitary farmer toiling over fruited plains; or purple mountains majesty reflected in pristine waters. Agriculture and environment are core, distinct, American mythologies that we know are more intertwined than our stories reveal.

To create policy at the interface of such centrally important and overlapping American ideals, there are two options. Passive governance fosters markets in which participants make individual choices that aggregate into inadvertent collective action. In contrast, assertive governance allows the public, mediated through elected officials, to enact intentional, goal oriented policy.

American mythologies of food and environment …

Eating For The Environment: The Potential Of Dietary Guidelines To Achieve Better Human And Environmental Health Outcomes, Margaret Sova Mccabe

Law Faculty Scholarship

Agriculture and food production contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. Shifting human dietary patterns has the potential to reduce such environmental harms while also promoting human health. Government policy, in the form of the United States Dietary Guidelines (USDG), recommends what Americans should eat and could play an important role in shifting the food system to one that is more sustainable. However, the USDG are an overlooked aspect of U.S. food policy. While many countries have moved to synthesize environmental goals with dietary guidance, the United States has taken the opposite approach. In 2015, despite recommendations from …

Agenda: Winter, Wilderness & Climate: Threats & Solutions, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, The Wilderness Society, Protect Our Winters

Winter, Wilderness, and Climate--Threats and Solutions (October 12)

In partnership with the Getches-Wilkinson Center, join The Wilderness Society and Protect Our Winters for an interactive presentation about energy development and climate impacts on public lands.

This event was held on Wednesday, October 12, 2016, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., in the University of Colorado Law School, Wolf Law Building, Wittemyer Courtroom.

Slides: Winter, Wilderness & Climate: Threats & Solutions, Jim Ramey, Lindsay Bourgoine

Winter, Wilderness, and Climate--Threats and Solutions (October 12)

Presenters:

Jim Ramey, The Wilderness Society

Lindsay Bourgoine, Protect Our Winters

56 slides

Slides: The Construction Of Water Scarcity And Its Management: Some Insights From South Africa's Vaal System 'Problemshed', Mike Muller

Coping with Water Scarcity in River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned from Shared Experiences (Martz Summer Conference, June 9-10)

Presenter: Mike Muller, School of Governance, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

31 slides

Slides: The Era Of River Anthropology: Social And Eco-Hydrological Science Connections And Capacity For Environmental Flows: Us Case Studies, Joseph E. Flotemersch, Lisa-Perras Gordon

Coping with Water Scarcity in River Basins Worldwide: Lessons Learned from Shared Experiences (Martz Summer Conference, June 9-10)

Presenter: Joe Flotemersch, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Research and Development

21 slides

Vol. 7 No. 2, Spring 2016; Muddy Waters: Why Polluted Groundwater Infiltrating Navigable Waters Should Not Be Excluded From National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permitting, Tad Juilfs

Northern Illinois Law Review Supplement

The debate over whether the Clean Water Act has jurisdiction over migratory groundwater in the same way that it does over navigable waters of the United States (regarding effluent standards) has left a wide split among courts attempting to interpret and apply the policy, goals, and language of the law. The problem lies in the difference between applying the law given its objectives and goals, or in a strict fashion using simply the language in the text of the Clean Water Act, while supplementing support from legislative and case law history. First in this Note, background information is provided regarding …

Environmental Law, Big Data, And The Torrent Of Singularities, William Boyd

Publications

How will big data impact environmental law in the near future? This Essay imagines one possible future for environmental law in 2030 that focuses on the implications of big data for the protection of public health from risks associated with pollution and industrial chemicals. It assumes the perspective of an historian looking back from the end of the twenty-first century at the evolution of environmental law during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The premise of the Essay is that big data will drive a major shift in the underlying knowledge practices of environmental law (along with other areas …

Clearing Up Questions On River Spill, Clifford J. Villa

Faculty Scholarship

What-are the impacts of mine contamination, and who is responsible for cleaning it up?

Stemming The Black Tide: Cooperation On Oil Pollution Preparedness And Response In The South China Sea And East Asian Seas, Robin M. Warner

Faculty of Law, Humanities and the Arts - Papers (Archive)

As global hydrocarbon resources on shore steadily decline, there has been an increase in offshore hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation. Some estimates suggest that there are over 6,000 offshore oil and gas installations worldwide. Notwithstanding simmering disputes over the territorial sovereignty and associated maritime zones of a number of island groups in the South China Sea and adjacent East Asian seas, exploration for offshore oil and gas resources under national and joint development regimes has become a prominent feature of these areas. It is estimated that there are now over 1,390 offshore oil and gas installations in the South China Sea …

Global Water Resources & Publications, Taryn L. Rucinski

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Before we as a society can begin crafting innovative legal solutions to help combat the global water crisis, researchers and experts in the field first need access to sound sources of scientific information. Despite the seeming simplicity of that goal, locating research about water, sanitation, and agricultural conditions, especially in developing countries, can be immensely challenging as it is complicated by issues of language, currency, scope, and accuracy. The purpose of this note is to provide practitioners with a list of free, high quality resources that should help make their research in this area a bit more accessible.