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Full-Text Articles in Environmental Law
Regulatory Fracture Plugging: Managing Risks To Water From Shale Development, Caroline Cecot
Regulatory Fracture Plugging: Managing Risks To Water From Shale Development, Caroline Cecot
Texas A&M Law Review
Debates about the desirability of widespread shale development have highlighted outstanding uncertainty about its health, safety, and environmental impacts—most prominently, its water-contamination risks—and the ability of current institutions to deal with these impacts. States, the primary regulators of oil and gas extraction, face pressure from the energy industry, local communities, and, in some cases, the federal government to strike the right balance between energy production and the health and safety of individuals and the environment—an elusive balance given the ongoing risk uncertainty. This dynamic is not especially unique to fracking, or even oil and gas extraction; instead, this dynamic, characterized …
Payments For Ecosystem Services: Past, Present And Future, James Salzman, Genevieve Bennett, Nathaniel Carroll, Allie Goldstein, Michael Jenkins
Payments For Ecosystem Services: Past, Present And Future, James Salzman, Genevieve Bennett, Nathaniel Carroll, Allie Goldstein, Michael Jenkins
Texas A&M Law Review
While we don’t tend to think about it, healthy ecosystems provide a variety of critical benefits. Ecosystem goods, the physical items an ecosystem provides, are obvious. Forests provide timber; coastal marshes provide shellfish. While less visible and generally taken for granted, the services underpinning these goods are equally important. Created by the interactions of living organisms with their environment, ecosystem services provide the conditions and processes that sustain human life.1 If you doubt this, consider how to grow an apple without pollination, pest control, or soil fertility. Once one realizes the importance of ecosystem services, three points quickly emerge: (1) …