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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Taxing Endeavor: Local Government Protection Of Our Nation's Coasts In The "Wake" Of Climate Change, Simone Savino
A Taxing Endeavor: Local Government Protection Of Our Nation's Coasts In The "Wake" Of Climate Change, Simone Savino
Simone Savino
A storm is brewing, and not just in our nation’s coastal waters. The effects of climate change are becoming alarmingly apparent: sea levels are rising, storm surges are intensifying and ocean temperatures are warming at increasing speeds. Higher storm surges have led to increased flooding in coastal zones and nearby low-lying regions. The need for greater disaster preparedness in areas vulnerable to storm surges is evident, not just in the United States, but worldwide. As a direct result, coastal towns and cities have been left with the daunting task, and cost, of implementing littoral adaptation measures such as beach renourishment …
Functional Government In 3-D, Robert L. Glicksman, Alejandro E. Camacho
Functional Government In 3-D, Robert L. Glicksman, Alejandro E. Camacho
Robert L. Glicksman
The creation of new administrative agencies and the realignment of existing governmental authority are commonplace and high-stakes events, as illustrated by the recent creation of the Department of Homeland Security after 9/11 and of new financial regulatory agencies after the global recession of 2009. Scholars and policymakers have not devoted sufficient attention to this subject, failing to clearly identify the different dimensions along which government authority may be structured or to consider the relationships among them. Analysis of these institutional design issues typically also gives short shrift to whether authority should be allocated differently based on agency function. These failures …
You Are Living In A Gold Rush, Richard Delgado
You Are Living In A Gold Rush, Richard Delgado
Richard Delgado
This article argues that our times, characterized as they are by dreams of vast wealth, environmental destruction, and growing social inequality, resemble nothing so much as earlier get-rich-quick periods like the Gilded Age and the California gold rush. I put forward a number of parallels between those earlier periods and now and suggest that the current fever is likely to end soon. This will come as a relief to those of you who, like me, deplore the regressive social policies, bellicose foreign relations, and coarsening of public taste that we have been living through—even if some of our more libertarian …
Legitimacy, Accountability, And Partnership: A Model For Advocacy On Third World Environmental Issues, David A. Wirth
Legitimacy, Accountability, And Partnership: A Model For Advocacy On Third World Environmental Issues, David A. Wirth
David A. Wirth
To date, there has been little effort to define the characteristics of responsible environmental reform efforts by private citizens and organizations in the United States on foreign environmental problems, such as the quality of foreign aid. Moreover, there have been virtually no attempts to identify a principled role for American lawyers in Third World environmental issues. This Essay will respond to these lacunae by articulating a new approach to advocacy based on a partnership model. In Part I, this Essay identifies the need for American public interest advocates to establish partnerships with directly affected groups on Third World environmental issues. …
At War With The Environment, David A. Wirth
At War With The Environment, David A. Wirth
David A. Wirth
In this Article, Professor Wirth reviews the book National Defense and the Environment by Stephen Dycus, a recognized expert in both environmental and national security law. The emphasis of the book is on containing and remediating the environmental excesses of the American defense-industrial complex, with a domestic policy focus. While Professor Wirth considers Dycus’ work an intellectually rewarding and refreshing new entry into the ongoing environment-as-security colloquy, he does not consider the book to be accessible to a general audience given the book’s fundamentally legalistic nature.
The Embattled Social Utilities Of The Endangered Species Act - A Noah Presumption And Caution Against Putting Gasmasks On The Canaries In The Coalmine, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The Embattled Social Utilities Of The Endangered Species Act - A Noah Presumption And Caution Against Putting Gasmasks On The Canaries In The Coalmine, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is once again poised at the brink of what could become an illuminating national debate. The Act’s congressional reauthorization process is likely to provide the first major indicator of what the 105th Congress will or won’t do to environmental law generally. From the turbulent past and present of the ESA, this essay offers some reminders for the impending battles over the Act.
Dealing With Dumb And Dumber: The Continuing Mission Of Citizen Environmentalism, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Dealing With Dumb And Dumber: The Continuing Mission Of Citizen Environmentalism, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Surveying the history of citizen environmentalism in the context of environmental law and politics over the past fifty years, this essay hypothesizes five different categories of corporate, governmental, political, and individual actions that deserve to be called “dumb,” and the societal lessons that have been or could be learned from each. If there is truth to the wistful aphorism that “we learn from our mistakes,” then our society is in position to learn a great deal about our world and how it works, which perhaps provides some ground for hope for the years to come. Environmentalism embodies fundamentally rational and …
Law, Media, & Environmental Policy: A Fundamental Linkage In Sustainable Democratic Governance, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Law, Media, & Environmental Policy: A Fundamental Linkage In Sustainable Democratic Governance, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The functional linkages between law and media have long been signficant in shaping American democratic governance. Over the past thirty-five years, environmental analysis has similarly become essential to shaping international and domestic governmental policy. Environmentalism—focusing as it does on realistic interconnected accounting of the full potential negative consequences as well as benefits of proposed actions, policies, and programs, over the long term as well as the short term, with careful consideration of all realistic alternatives— provides a legal perspective important for societal sustainability. Because environmental values and norms are often in tension with established industrial interests that resist public interest …
Environmental Law In The Political Ecosystem - Coping With The Reality Of Politics, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Environmental Law In The Political Ecosystem - Coping With The Reality Of Politics, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
In this Essay, the proposition the author draws from the narrative of the endangered species litigation is derivatively Aristotelian – that we must consciously, actively, and explicitly integrate an informed consideration of human politics into what we teach and do in environmental law. The proposition is not that we should steep ourselves in party politics, although there are interesting observations aplenty that could be made on the direct consequences that the two major parties (and occassionally their wistful smaller incarnations) have on the evolution of environmental law. The proposition offered here operates at two different levels: practical politics and political …
Facing A Time Of Counter-Revolution: The Kepone Incident And A Review Of First Principles, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Facing A Time Of Counter-Revolution: The Kepone Incident And A Review Of First Principles, Zygmunt J.B. Plater
Zygmunt J.B. Plater
The Kepone contamination episode of 1966-75 was a milestone that focused an entire nation’s attention on environmental hazards and our need to do better in recognizing and avoiding them. We have learned a great deal from that unfortunate story. The evolution of American environmental law since the Kepone debacle has repeatedly used the incident as a touchstone in identifying environmental pollution’s causes, effects, and potential solutions. This essay offers four propositions, about two things that have changed, and two things that have not, in the years since Kepone, taking account of where we are, and seeking some points of consensus.
Much Ado About Pluralities: Pride And Precedent Amidst The Cacophy Of Concurrences, And Re-Percolation After Rapanos, Donald J. Kochan, Melissa M. Berry, Matthew J. Parlow
Much Ado About Pluralities: Pride And Precedent Amidst The Cacophy Of Concurrences, And Re-Percolation After Rapanos, Donald J. Kochan, Melissa M. Berry, Matthew J. Parlow
Donald J. Kochan
Conflicts created by concurrences and pluralities in court decisions create confusion in law and lower court interpretation. Rule of law values require that individuals be able to identify controlling legal principles. That task is complicated when pluralities and concurrences contribute to the vagueness or uncertainty that leaves us wondering what the controlling rule is or attempting to predict what it will evolve to become. The rule of law is at least handicapped when continuity or confidence or confusion infuse our understanding of the applicable rules. This Article uses the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rapanos v. United States to …
Runoff And Reality: Externalities, Economics, And Traceability Issues In Urban Runoff Regulation, Donald J. Kochan
Runoff And Reality: Externalities, Economics, And Traceability Issues In Urban Runoff Regulation, Donald J. Kochan
Donald J. Kochan
It has long eluded regulators and private enforcers how to control the imposition of negative externalities. This paper will examine: (1) Whether existing authorities (like the Clean Water Act) are capable of providing regulation of urban runoff; (2) Whether, in light of economic controls, regulation of these activities are necessary; (3) A summary of recent runoff litigation; and (4) What is next; what should be next? Although each of these questions form background, the primary emphasis currently anticipated for this presentation is on traceability, collective action, and free rider problems that motivate regulation in this area. Often runoff is described …
Polluting Environment, Polluted Constitution: Is A 'Polluted' Constitution Worse Than A Polluted Environment?, Shubhankar Dam (Co-Author)
Polluting Environment, Polluted Constitution: Is A 'Polluted' Constitution Worse Than A Polluted Environment?, Shubhankar Dam (Co-Author)
Shubhankar Dam
The Indian Supreme Court has been praised as one of the most socially active courts in the world, especially so in the environmental field. Yet it is arguable that many of the benefits claimed for judicial involvement are far from real. Three phases of activism are identified. In the 1970s, the Court developed the concept of environmental rights based on ensuring that the directive principles of state policy and the fundamental right to life contained the Constitution worked in mutual support. This was followed by a period when the Court extended liability principles. The most recent and most controversial phase …