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- Federal Lands, Laws and Policies and the Development of Natural Resources: A Short Course (Summer Conference, July 28-August 1) (1)
- Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works (1)
- Getting a Handle on Hazardous Waste Control (Summer Conference, June 9-10) (1)
- Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law (1)
- Publications (1)
- Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6) (1)
- The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8) (1)
- The Public Lands During the Remainder of the 20th Century: Planning, Law, and Policy in the Federal Land Agencies (Summer Conference, June 8-10) (1)
- Washington and Lee Law Review (1)
- Water Quality Control: Integrating Beneficial Use and Environmental Protection (Summer Conference, June 1-3) (1)
- Water as a Public Resource: Emerging Rights and Obligations (Summer Conference, June 1-3) (1)
- Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5) (1)
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Articles 1 - 30 of 38
Full-Text Articles in Environmental Law
Litigating Epa Rules: A Fifty-Year Retrospective Of Environmental Rulemaking In The Courts, Cary Coglianese, Daniel E. Walters
Litigating Epa Rules: A Fifty-Year Retrospective Of Environmental Rulemaking In The Courts, Cary Coglianese, Daniel E. Walters
All Faculty Scholarship
Over the last fifty years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found itself repeatedly defending its regulations before federal judges. The agency’s engagement with the federal judiciary has resulted in prominent Supreme Court decisions, such as Chevron v. NRDC and Massachusetts v. EPA, which have left a lasting imprint on federal administrative law. Such prominent litigation has also fostered, for many observers, a longstanding impression of an agency besieged by litigation. In particular, many lawyers and scholars have long believed that unhappy businesses or environmental groups challenge nearly every EPA rule in court. Although some empirical studies have …
Environmental Law, Jocelyn Stacey
Environmental Law, Jocelyn Stacey
All Faculty Publications
In commemoration of their 50th anniversary, this chapter examines the Federal Courts’ role in shaping environmental law in Canada. The chapter uses well-known environmental principles – the precautionary principle, sustainable development and access to (environmental) justice – as focal points for examining environmental law as well as the legal culture of the Federal Courts. The chapter identifies four distinct interpretive roles that the Federal Courts have ascribed to the precautionary principle and it argues that three of these roles have the potential to generate more coherent and transparent doctrine that upholds the rule of law in the environmental context. In …
Maralex Resources, Inc. V. Barnhardt, Bradley E. Tinker
Maralex Resources, Inc. V. Barnhardt, Bradley E. Tinker
Public Land & Resources Law Review
In Maralex Resources v. Barnhardt, Maralex and property owners brought an action to protect private property from BLM inspections of oil and gas lease sites. The Tenth Circuit looked at the plain meaning of a congressional statute and held in favor of Maralex, finding that BLM lacked authority to require a private landowner to provide BLM with a key to inspect wells of their property. The Tenth Circuit held BLM has the authority to conduct inspections without prior notice on private property lease sites; however, it is required to contact the property owner for permission before entering the property.
Center For Biological Diversity V. Zinke, Ryan Hickey
Center For Biological Diversity V. Zinke, Ryan Hickey
Public Land & Resources Law Review
The oft-cited “arbitrary and capricious” standard revived the Center for Biological Diversity’s most recent legal challenge in its decades-long quest to see arctic grayling listed under the Endangered Species Act. While this Ninth Circuit decision did not grant grayling ESA protections, it did require the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its 2014 finding that listing grayling as threatened or endangered was unwarranted. In doing so, the court found “range,” as used in the ESA, vague while endorsing the FWS’s 2014 clarification of that term. Finally, this holding identified specific shortcomings of the challenged FWS finding, highlighting how …
Friends Of Animals V. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, Bradley E. Tinker
Friends Of Animals V. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, Bradley E. Tinker
Public Land & Resources Law Review
In Friends of Animals v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, the Ninth Circuit held that the plain language of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act allows for the removal of one species of bird to benefit another species. Friends of Animals argued that the Service’s experiment permitting the taking of one species––the barred owl––to advance the conservation of a different species––the northern spotted owl––violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The court, however, found that the Act delegates broad implementing discretion to the Secretary of the Interior, and neither the Act nor the underlying international conventions limit the taking of …
Energy-Water Nexus, The Clean Power Plan, And Integration Of Water Resource Concerns Into Energy Decision-Making, Sarah Ladin
Energy-Water Nexus, The Clean Power Plan, And Integration Of Water Resource Concerns Into Energy Decision-Making, Sarah Ladin
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Energy regulation in the United States is now at a crossroads. The EPA has begun the process to officially repeal the Clean Power Plan and currently has no plan to replace it with new rulemaking to regulate carbon emissions from the U.S. energy sector. Even though the Clean Power Plan is more or less at its end, its regulatory structure stands as a model of the way decision-makers in the United States regulate the energy sector and the environment. Since the beginning of the modern environmental legal system, decision-makers have chosen to silo the system. Statutes and agencies focus on …
The Underappreciated Role Of The National Environmental Policy Act In Wilderness Designation And Management, Michael Blumm, Lorena Wisehart
The Underappreciated Role Of The National Environmental Policy Act In Wilderness Designation And Management, Michael Blumm, Lorena Wisehart
Faculty Articles
On its 50th anniversary, the Wilderness Act owes much to the effect of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), both in terms of the number of acres in the national wilderness system and in the management of designated wilderness areas. Courts have closely scrutinized federal land management agency actions that threaten wilderness qualities — and this article maintains that the usual vehicle has been NEPA. Enacted a little over a half-decade after the Wilderness Act, NEPA was instrumental in the doubling of wilderness acres in the 1980s, as Congress added wilderness areas and released other areas to multiple uses in …
Investigating 40 C.F.R. Sec. 124.55(B): State-Court Review Of Npdes Permit Certifications, Tad Macfarlan
Investigating 40 C.F.R. Sec. 124.55(B): State-Court Review Of Npdes Permit Certifications, Tad Macfarlan
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note investigates the wisdom and validity of 40 CER. § 124.55(b), a Clean Water Act regulation promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program. The Clean Water Act provides affected states with an opportunity to certify federally administered NDES permits before issuance by EPA. State certification is a meaningful moment in water quality regulation, and judicial review of these critical decisions takes place in state courts. Unfortunately, 40 C.ER. § 124.55(b), designed to bring certainty and finality to permit-holders, effectively removes state courts from the process of …
Nepa In The Hot Seat: A Proposal For An Office Of Environmental Analysis, Aliza M. Cohen
Nepa In The Hot Seat: A Proposal For An Office Of Environmental Analysis, Aliza M. Cohen
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Judicial deference under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) can be problematic. It is a well-established rule of administrative law that courts will grant a high degree of deference to agency decisions. They do this out of respect for agency expertise and policy judgment. This deference is applied to NEPA lawsuits without acknowledging the special pressures that agencies face while assessing the environmental impacts of their own projects. Though there is a strong argument that these pressures undermine the reasons for deferential review, neither the statute nor the courts have provided plaintiffs with adequate means to remedy this problem. Agency …
Slides: Rethinking Western Water Law: Restoring The Public Interest In Western Water Law, Mark Squillace
Slides: Rethinking Western Water Law: Restoring The Public Interest In Western Water Law, Mark Squillace
Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)
Presenter: Mark Squillace, Director, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado Law School
20 slides
Chevron'S Two Steps, Kenneth A. Bamberger, Peter L. Strauss
Chevron'S Two Steps, Kenneth A. Bamberger, Peter L. Strauss
Faculty Scholarship
The framework for judicial review of administrative interpretations of regulatory statutes set forth in the landmark Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council decision prescribes two analytic inquiries, and for good reason. The familiar two-step analysis is best understood as a framework for allocating interpretive authority in the administrative state; it separates questions of statutory implementation assigned to independent judicial judgment (Step One) from questions regarding which the courts role is limited to oversight of agency decisionmaking (Step Two).
The boundary between a reviewing court's decision and oversight roles rests squarely on the question of statutory ambiguity. For while courts, …
On Capturing The Possible Significance Of Institutional Design And Ethos, Peter L. Strauss
On Capturing The Possible Significance Of Institutional Design And Ethos, Peter L. Strauss
Faculty Scholarship
At a recent conference, a new judge from one of the federal courts of appeal – for the United States, the front line in judicial control of administrative action-made a plea to the lawyers in attendance. Please, he urged, in briefing and arguing cases reviewing agency actions, help us judges to understand their broader contexts. So often, he complained, the briefs and arguments are limited to the particular small issues of the case. We get little sense of the broad context in which it arises – the agency responsibilities in their largest sense, the institutional issues that may be at …
Slides: Rethinking Western Water Law: Whatever Happened To The Public Interest?, Mark Squillace
Slides: Rethinking Western Water Law: Whatever Happened To The Public Interest?, Mark Squillace
Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)
Presenter: Mark Squillace, Director, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado Law School
15 slides
Historical Evolution And Future Of Natural Resources Law And Policy: The Beginning Of An Argument And Some Modest Predictions, Sally K. Fairfax, Helen Ingram, Leigh Raymond
Historical Evolution And Future Of Natural Resources Law And Policy: The Beginning Of An Argument And Some Modest Predictions, Sally K. Fairfax, Helen Ingram, Leigh Raymond
The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)
8 pages.
Includes bibliographical references
"Sally Fairfax, UC-Berkeley, Helen Ingram, UC-Irvine, and Leigh Raymond, Purdue University" -- Agenda
Massachusetts V. Epa: Breaking New Ground On Issues Other Than Global Warming, Amy J. Wildermuth, Kathryn A. Watts
Massachusetts V. Epa: Breaking New Ground On Issues Other Than Global Warming, Amy J. Wildermuth, Kathryn A. Watts
Articles
In this essay, we consider the long-term legal significance of the Supreme Court's decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, concluding that the case is likely to have a significant impact on two doctrinal areas of the law: (1) the standing of states; and (2) the standard of review applied to denials of petitions for rulemaking. First, although we have some questions about the Court's reasoning, we are encouraged to see the beginning of a framework for evaluating state standing based on the interest of the state in the litigation. Second, with respect to judicial review of agency inaction in the rulemaking …
Light From The Trees: The Story Of Minors Oposa And The Russian Forest Cases , Oliver Austin Houck
Light From The Trees: The Story Of Minors Oposa And The Russian Forest Cases , Oliver Austin Houck
ExpressO
This article describes two lawsuits in the late twentieth century that changed their countries in ways from which there will be no return. One took place in the Philippines, emerging from the reign of Fernando Marcos, and the other in Russia, following a near century of communist rule. They have two things in common. They declared the rights of their citizens to challenge, and reverse, government decisions. And they were about the environment, more particularly, trees. What we learn is that notions of environmental protection, citizen enforcement and judicial review have traveled the world and that, in differing legal systems, …
Facing A Hobson's Choice? The Constitutionality Of The Epa's Administrative Compliance Order Enforcement Scheme Under The Clean Air Act, Christopher M. Wynn
Facing A Hobson's Choice? The Constitutionality Of The Epa's Administrative Compliance Order Enforcement Scheme Under The Clean Air Act, Christopher M. Wynn
Washington and Lee Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Epa's Risky Reasoning, Cary Coglianese, Gary E. Marchant
The Epa's Risky Reasoning, Cary Coglianese, Gary E. Marchant
All Faculty Scholarship
Regulators must rely on science to understand problems and predict the consequences of regulatory actions, but science by itself cannot justify public policy decisions. We review the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to justify recent changes to its National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone and particulate matter, showing how the agency was able to cloak its policy judgments under the guise of scientific objectivity. By doing so, the EPA evaded accountability for a shifting and incoherent set of policy positions that will have major implications for public health and the economy. For example, even though EPA claimed to base …
Citizens To Preserve Overton Park V. Volpe, Peter L. Strauss
Citizens To Preserve Overton Park V. Volpe, Peter L. Strauss
Faculty Scholarship
This essay is one of a series destined to appear in a Foundation Press book, Administrative Law Stories, now set for publication in the fall of 2005. The decision in Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe represents a transition from political to judicial controls over decisions broadly affecting a wide range of community interests. Unmistakable and dramatic as it is, that transition is not universally applauded. But the transition was striking and quick. The late sixties and early seventies saw an explosion of new national legislation on social and environmental issues, that often provided explicitly or implicitly for citizen …
Supplemental Environmental Projects Have Been Effectively Used In Citizen Suits To Deter Future Violations As Well As To Achieve Significant Additional Environmental Benefits, Edward Lloyd
Faculty Scholarship
Supplemental Environmental Projects (SUPs) are environmentally benefical projects included in settlements of environmental law enforcement cases. Courts have addressed SEPs in two contexts: where proposed by parties in consent decrees and where courts have fashioned SEPs as apart of the relief ordered in an enforcement case. SEPs have been extensively used in both government and citizen enforcement cases despite the nearly universal absence of any explicit legislative authorization by Congress. Congress has tangentially recognized the place of SEPs in the penalty and deterrence scheme by giving the Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Attorney General …
Is The Clean Air Act Unconstitutional?, Cass R. Sunstein
Is The Clean Air Act Unconstitutional?, Cass R. Sunstein
Michigan Law Review
This Article deals with two linked questions. The first involves the future of the Clean Air Act. The particular concern is how the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") might be encouraged, with help from reviewing courts, to issue better ambient air quality standards, and in the process to shift from some of the anachronisms of 1970s environmentalism to a more fruitful approach to environmental protection. The second question involves the role of the nondelegation doctrine in American public law, a doctrine that shows unmistakable signs of revival. I will suggest that improved performance by EPA and agencies in general, operating in …
An American Perspective On Environmental Impact Assessment In Australia, Mark Squillace
An American Perspective On Environmental Impact Assessment In Australia, Mark Squillace
Publications
No abstract provided.
Administrative Appeal Reform: The Case Of The Forest Service, Robert L. Fischman, Bradley C. Bobertz
Administrative Appeal Reform: The Case Of The Forest Service, Robert L. Fischman, Bradley C. Bobertz
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.
Putting The Correct "Spin" On Lucas, Richard J. Lazarus
Putting The Correct "Spin" On Lucas, Richard J. Lazarus
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Part I describes and discusses the significance of the Lucas majority's desire to draft an opinion making environmental regulations more susceptible to takings challenges. Part II identifies the majority's antiquated notions of the physical and social function of real property as the source of the majority's misguided efforts. Finally, Part III describes how the majority's analytical framework may ultimately make it easier, rather than harder, for environmental protection measures to survive takings challenges.
A Proposal For An Outrageous, Albeit Effective, Strategy To Prevent Groundwater Pollution, George Cameron Coggins
A Proposal For An Outrageous, Albeit Effective, Strategy To Prevent Groundwater Pollution, George Cameron Coggins
Water Quality Control: Integrating Beneficial Use and Environmental Protection (Summer Conference, June 1-3)
14 pages.
Standards For Judicial Review Of Forest Plans: Will The Courts Not See The Forest For The Trees, Wells D. Burgess
Standards For Judicial Review Of Forest Plans: Will The Courts Not See The Forest For The Trees, Wells D. Burgess
The Public Lands During the Remainder of the 20th Century: Planning, Law, and Policy in the Federal Land Agencies (Summer Conference, June 8-10)
50 pages.
Contains 2 attachments.
Public Interest Review Of Water Right Allocation And Transfer In The West: Recognition Of Public Values, Douglas L. Grant
Public Interest Review Of Water Right Allocation And Transfer In The West: Recognition Of Public Values, Douglas L. Grant
Water as a Public Resource: Emerging Rights and Obligations (Summer Conference, June 1-3)
37 pages.
Contains references.
A New Approach To Review Of Nepa Findings Of No Significant Impact, Geoffrey Garver
A New Approach To Review Of Nepa Findings Of No Significant Impact, Geoffrey Garver
Michigan Law Review
This Note examines the confused array of judicial approaches for reviewing agency findings of no significant environmental impact and proposes a standardized, comprehensive approach that ensures compliance with both the procedural and substantive aspects of NEPA. Part I reviews agency procedures mandated by NEPA which ensure that agencies develop a detailed record for judicial scrutiny and constitute the legal basis against which to check agency threshold decisions. Part II examines the conflicting approaches of the lower courts, emphasizing their reliance on Supreme Court decisions, their characterization of the threshold decision as legal or factual, and the burden of proof each …
Review On The Administrative Record In Cercla Actions And Settlement Policy Summary, Stephen D. Ramsey
Review On The Administrative Record In Cercla Actions And Settlement Policy Summary, Stephen D. Ramsey
Getting a Handle on Hazardous Waste Control (Summer Conference, June 9-10)
50 pages.
Contains references.
Withdrawals Of Public Lands Under The Federal Land Policy And Management Act, David H. Getches
Withdrawals Of Public Lands Under The Federal Land Policy And Management Act, David H. Getches
The Federal Land Policy and Management Act (Summer Conference, June 6-8)
17 pages.