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Articles 1 - 30 of 203
Full-Text Articles in Environmental Law
Biopiracy: Using New Laws And Databases To Protect Indigenous Communities, Cleo-Symone Scott
Biopiracy: Using New Laws And Databases To Protect Indigenous Communities, Cleo-Symone Scott
Law Student Publications
Indigenous people have a historical link to those who inhabited a country or region at the time when people of different cultures or origins arrived. Traditionally, indigenous people have a special relationship with their ancestral environments. But their way of living has long been under threat. The land that indigenous people live on is home to over 80% of our planet’s biodiversity, but it continues to be appropriated and plundered due to bioprospecting or, as some call it, biopiracy. Bioprospecting is defined as “the exploration and information gathering of genetic and biochemical material to develop commercial products.” While innovation is …
Rural Bashing, Kaceylee Klein, Lisa R. Pruitt
Rural Bashing, Kaceylee Klein, Lisa R. Pruitt
University of Richmond Law Review
Anti-rural sentiment is expressed in the United States in three major threads. The first is a narrative about the political structure of our representative democracy—an assertion that rural people are over-represented thanks to the structural features of the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College. Because rural residents are less than a fifth of the U.S. population, complaints about this situation are often framed as “minority rule.”
The second thread is related to the first: rural people and their communities get more than their fair share from federal government coffers. The argument, often expressed in terms of “subsidies,” is that rural …
Rural America As A Commons, Ann M. Eisenberg
Rural America As A Commons, Ann M. Eisenberg
University of Richmond Law Review
With many ready to dismiss non-urban life as a relic of history, rural America’s place in the future is in question. The rural role in the American past is understandably more apparent. As the story of urbanization goes in the United States and elsewhere, the majority of the population used to live in rural places, including small towns and sparsely populated counties. A substantial proportion of those people worked in agriculture, manufacturing, or extractive industries. But trends associated with modernity—mechanization, automation, globalization, and environmental conservation, for instance—have reduced the perceived need for a rural workforce. Roughly since the industrial revolution …
With A Wink And A Nod: How Politicians, Regulators, And Corrupt Coal Companies Exploited Appalachia, Patrick C. Mcginley
With A Wink And A Nod: How Politicians, Regulators, And Corrupt Coal Companies Exploited Appalachia, Patrick C. Mcginley
University of Richmond Law Review
Environmental regulators treated America’s leading coal companies like Wall Street’s mismanaged banks leading to the “Great Recession”—big coal companies that produced millions of tons of coal were simply too big to fail. With a wink and a nod, federal and state regulators ignored a core provision of federal law that was intended to prevent coal companies from continuing their past practices of plundering Appalachia’s mineral wealth while ravaging her environment.
This Article examines how the coal industry successfully evaded compliance with that law. The consequences of this evasion include mass bankruptcies, thousands of acres of mined land laying unclaimed, …
On The Horns Of A Dilemma: Climate Adaption And Legal Profession, Mark S. Davis
On The Horns Of A Dilemma: Climate Adaption And Legal Profession, Mark S. Davis
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
Few aspects of life will be spared disruptions attributed to climate change,
but those disruptions will not be evenly distributed or borne. While much
attention is being given to large-scale plans and programs aimed at effectively
and equitably coping with those disruptions, the fact is the burdens and
responsibility of planning and acting are falling mostly on individual families,
businesses, and communities. Those with access to resources and professional
assistance, specifically legal services, will stand a better chance of
adapting and prospering. Those without will likely fare worse—and already
are. In order to get better and more equitable outcomes, it …
Deconstructing Inequality: Cumulative Impacts, Environmental Justice, And Interstate Redevelopment, Lemir Teron
Deconstructing Inequality: Cumulative Impacts, Environmental Justice, And Interstate Redevelopment, Lemir Teron
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
The siting and development of Interstate 81 in Syracuse, New York, similar
to highway projects across the nation, lead to the displacement of Black
Syracusans
and has exposed thousands of remaining residents at heightened
environmental harm. As the interstate is slated to be redeveloped due to age
and safety issues, national attention has focused on the highway as a potential
exemplar for similar projects across the United States. Federal law mandates
that environmental impact analysis be conducted, and due to the prevalence
of marginalized populations, environmental justice impacts are a
critical feature in this assessment. This article evaluates both the …
Forty Years Of Environmental Justice: Where Is The Justice?, Jon A. Mueller, Taylor Lilley
Forty Years Of Environmental Justice: Where Is The Justice?, Jon A. Mueller, Taylor Lilley
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
Environmental Justice (or“EJ”) has been recognized as a concept since
at least 1982. After decades of incremental and ineffective efforts by the federal
government, it has become clear that EJ must evolve beyond the concept
stage if it is to be an effective vehicle for social and legal change. At its heart,
EJ is a function of social inequities and environmental harms, and the disproportionate
correlation between those components can no longer be ignored
by state and federal actors. The way forward must be paved with practical
legal solutions and affirmative application of regulatory authority. This
article examines the history …
Incorporating Environmental Justice Into Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Federal Rulemakings, John D. Graham
Incorporating Environmental Justice Into Benefit-Cost Analysis Of Federal Rulemakings, John D. Graham
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
President Biden proposes to revise the federal rulemaking process to advance
the values of justice and equity. This analysis offers a practical path
forward by adding an equity test to the efficiency test applied to new federal
regulations by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. This article explores
the feasibility of the proposal with applications to regulation of hazardous
air pollutants and drinking water contaminants. The proposal seeks
to advance the interests of low-income Americans in federal rulemaking, a
subgroup that has received little historical priority in the regulatory impact
analyses prepared by federal regulatory agencies.
Armoring The Just Transition Activist, Abigail Fleming, Catherine Dremluk
Armoring The Just Transition Activist, Abigail Fleming, Catherine Dremluk
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
The fossil fuel energy system, reinforced by oppressive policies and practices,
has disproportionately harmed poor people, Indigenous people, and
Brown and Black people and driven the global climate crisis. A just transition,
which displaces fossil fuels and redistributes renewable energy resources,
requires policies that are rooted in equity and shift power back to
the hands of the most vulnerable. Just Transition Activists, leaders, organizers,
and changemakers in the just transition movement, must develop transformative
skillsets necessary to radically reimagine our world and dismantle
the current unequal system of law and policy. This analysis explores the
skills, attributes, beliefs, and attitudes …
Expanding American Indian Land Stewardship: An Environmental Solution For A Country In Crisis, Haley Edmonds
Expanding American Indian Land Stewardship: An Environmental Solution For A Country In Crisis, Haley Edmonds
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
Land is the central foundation around which all life is formed. Therefore,
societies must have a stable connection with the land in order to be structurally
sound. If this connection is weak or inflexible, every building-block of
civilization laid on top of it will inevitably crumble. Some societies have established
stable relationships with the land by working around and responding
to nature’s rhythms in order to satisfy their needs. Whereas other societies
have ignored nature’s intricacies and instead have tried to strong-arm
nature into yielding to their whims. These two diametrically
opposed approaches to conceiving of humans’ relationship with the …
Examining The Relationship Between Environmental Justice And The Lack Of Diversity In Environmental Organizations, Haley Walter
Examining The Relationship Between Environmental Justice And The Lack Of Diversity In Environmental Organizations, Haley Walter
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
This article highlights the ongoing lack of diversity in each of the
three major types of environmental organizations—conservation and
preservation organizations, governmental agencies, and environmental
grantmaking foundations—and assesses how this lack of diversity
has historically marginalized people of color. Assessing the history of
how the environmental movement has marginalized people of color is
key because from this marginalization grew the rise of the environmental
justice movement and recognition from the legal system of environmental
issues that disproportionately impacted people of color. Last,
this article presents solutions on how environmental organizations can
increase and retain diversity in their staff and leadership …
A Legal Update On Environmental Justice In Virginia: Where Are We Now?, Jasdeep S. Khaira, Patrice Lewis, Abigail Thompson, Scott Foster
A Legal Update On Environmental Justice In Virginia: Where Are We Now?, Jasdeep S. Khaira, Patrice Lewis, Abigail Thompson, Scott Foster
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
Environmental justice (“EJ”) is rapidly evolving in Virginia while people
are still trying to understand what EJ actually means. As a result, regulators
are unsure of how to incorporate environmental justice in their decisionmaking
process while the regulated are uncertain of how to proceed in the
ever-changing political, social, and regulatory landscape. This article gives
an overview of EJ’s evolution in Virginia, synthesizing notable environmental
justice legal decisions; providing supplementary research on environmental
justice studies, workgroups, and reports; and offering several predictions
on EJ’s fate in the Commonwealth.
Expanding American Indian Land Stewardship: An Environmental Solution For A Country In Crisis, Haley Edmonds
Expanding American Indian Land Stewardship: An Environmental Solution For A Country In Crisis, Haley Edmonds
Law Student Publications
Land is the central foundation around which all life is formed. Therefore, societies must have a stable connection with the land in order to be structurally sound. If this connection is weak or inflexible, every building-block of civilization laid on top of it will inevitably crumble. Some societies have established stable relationships with the land by working around and responding to nature’s rhythms in order to satisfy their needs. Whereas other societies have ignored nature’s intricacies and instead have tried to strong-arm nature into yielding to their whims. These two diametrically opposed approaches to conceiving of humans’ relationship with the …
Examining The Relationship Between Environmental Justice And The Lack Of Diversity In Environmental Organizations, Haley Walter
Examining The Relationship Between Environmental Justice And The Lack Of Diversity In Environmental Organizations, Haley Walter
Law Student Publications
This article highlights the ongoing lack of diversity in each of the three major types of environmental organizations—conservation and preservation organizations, governmental agencies, and environmental grantmaking foundations—and assesses how this lack of diversity has historically marginalized people of color. Assessing the history of how the environmental movement has marginalized people of color is key because from this marginalization grew the rise of the environmental justice movement and recognition from the legal system of environmental issues that disproportionately impacted people of color. Last, this article presents solutions on how environmental organizations can increase and retain diversity in their staff and leadership …
Covid-19'S Impact On Renewable Energy, Joel B. Eisen
Covid-19'S Impact On Renewable Energy, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
"In keeping with this Symposium's focus on accelerating clean energy growth and nations' ability to meet climate goals, this Article examines recent trends during the COVID-19 pandemic that at least temporarily set back the pace of growth, although conditions have rebounded somewhat since a disastrous spring of 2020. This Article supports several near-term policy prescriptions aimed at promoting a speedier return to the upward trajectory renewable energy enjoyed before the pandemic. These include extending the tax policies that support renewables beyond their short-term extensions in pandemic relieflegislation and establishing robust programs to help workers in renewable energy industries who have …
Toxic Floodwaters: Strengthening The Chemical Safety Regime In The Climate Change Era, Noah M. Sachs
Toxic Floodwaters: Strengthening The Chemical Safety Regime In The Climate Change Era, Noah M. Sachs
Law Faculty Publications
Extreme flooding linked to climate change has caused toxic chemical spills across the United States, yet policymakers are not prioritizing industrial chemical safety in planning for climate change. Many scholars and industry executives have argued that existing private law mechanisms, such as insurance and tort-based deterrence, can adequately manage the risk of flood-induced chemical releases from industrial sites. But private law mechanisms have failed to prevent past incidents of mass contamination, and there is little evidence that tort law deters industrial firms from the practices that put communities at risk. In this Article, I engage in a comparative analysis of …
Clean Energy Justice: Charting An Emerging Agenda, Joel B. Eisen, Shelley Welton
Clean Energy Justice: Charting An Emerging Agenda, Joel B. Eisen, Shelley Welton
Law Faculty Publications
The rapid transition to clean energy is fraught with potential inequities. As clean energy policies ramp up in scale and ambition, they confront challenging new questions: Who should pay for the transition? Who should live next to the industrial-scale wind and solar farms these policies promote? Will the new “green” economy be a fairer one, with more widespread opportunity, than the fossil fuel economy it is replacing? Who gets to decide what kinds of resources power our decarbonized world? In this article, we frame these challenges as part of an emerging agenda of “clean energy justice.” Mapping this agenda highlights …
Judge Merhige's Environmental Decisions: Expert Handling Of Groundbreaking Environmental Rulings And Complex Federal Jurisdictional Questions, Jim Vines
University of Richmond Law Review
It is a special privilege for me to contribute to this edition of the University of Richmond Law Review honoring Judge Robert R. Merhige, Jr. Here, I seek to highlight his contributions to United States environmental law. In 1988 and 1989, I was one of two recent law school graduates who clerked for Judge Merhige (“please call me by my first name; it’s ‘Judge’”). The Judge was a larger than life figure. As a federal trial judge, historically important and intellectually challenging cases seemed to find their way into his court in a volume not matched in many other federal …
The New(Clear?) Electricity Federalism: Federal Preemption Of States’ “Zero Emissions Credit” Programs, Joel Eisen
The New(Clear?) Electricity Federalism: Federal Preemption Of States’ “Zero Emissions Credit” Programs, Joel Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
This Article proposes and applies a “conscious disregard” test for resolving the upcoming appellate litigation that involves the conflict between federal authority over the electric grid and state laws providing subsidies to nuclear power plants in the form of “zero emissions credits” (ZECs). This test draws upon principles of conflict preemption, as elaborated in three recent Supreme Court decisions on the intersection of state and federal jurisdiction over the electric grid under the Federal Power Act. It provides that if a state law explicitly aims to directly affect wholesale electricity market prices, terms or conditions, its subsidy program is impermissible …
Free Trade In Electric Power, Joel Eisen
Free Trade In Electric Power, Joel Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
This Article develops the core legal framework of a new electricity-trading ecosystem in which anyone, anytime, anywhere, can trade electricity in any amount with anyone else. The proliferation of solar and other distributed energy resources, business model innovation in the sharing economy, and climate change present enormous challenges — and opportunities — for America’s energy economy. But the electricity industry is ill equipped to adapt to and benefit from these transformative forces, with much of its physical infrastructure, regulatory institutions, and business models a relic of the early days of electrification. We suggest a systematic rethinking to usher in a …
Why The World Should Act Like Children: Using The Building Blocks Method To Combat Climate Change, Beginning With Methane, Eileen Waters
Why The World Should Act Like Children: Using The Building Blocks Method To Combat Climate Change, Beginning With Methane, Eileen Waters
University of Richmond Law Review
No abstract provided.
Book Review, The Electric Battery: Charging Forward To A Low-Carbon Future, Joel Eisen
Book Review, The Electric Battery: Charging Forward To A Low-Carbon Future, Joel Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
The Electric Battery is the product of a Vermont Law School team led by Kevin Jones, the school’s Director of the Institute for Energy and the Environment. It is an essential resource for scholars, policymakers and others interested in the future for storage technologies in transportation and electricity, the sectors of the economy that produce the most greenhouse gases. Professor Jones brings considerable expertise to the project, having produced well-regarded reports on smart grid issues, and some projects mentioned in the book – such as the partnership between Tesla and Green Mountain Power – are located in the authors’ home …
Dual Electricity Federalism Is Dead, But How Dead And What Replaces It?, Joel B. Eisen
Dual Electricity Federalism Is Dead, But How Dead And What Replaces It?, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
The Supreme Court decided three cases in the past year involving the split of jurisdiction between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the states in the energy sector: FERC v. Electric Power Supply Association, Hughes v. Talen Energy Marketing and ONEOK v. Learjet. This Article concludes that these watershed decisions herald a new approach to governing the rapid evolution of the modern electric grid. Discussing the decisions, the analysis demonstrates that they mark the end of “dual federalism” in electricity law that treated federal and state regulators as operating within separate and distinct spheres of authority, and proposes that …
Demand Response’S Three Generations: Market Pathways And Challenges In The Modern Electric Grid, Joel Eisen
Demand Response’S Three Generations: Market Pathways And Challenges In The Modern Electric Grid, Joel Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
Through a historical analysis spanning nearly five decades, this Article provides a comprehensive discussion of how demand response (reductions in electricity consumption in response to grid emergencies or price signals) has become both a growing resource on the electric grid and a policy trailblazer in the grid’s ongoing transformation. The discussion centers on three separate generations of efforts to promote demand-side measures in the electric grid, dating to the 1960s and oriented chronologically around important events in the electric power industry.
Demand response has been a test bed of important regulatory principles like frameworks for interactivity with the grid, the …
Our Oceans Need Sharks: A Comparative Analysis Of Shark And Turtle Conservation Law In Australia And The United States, Gabrielle Stiff Heim
Our Oceans Need Sharks: A Comparative Analysis Of Shark And Turtle Conservation Law In Australia And The United States, Gabrielle Stiff Heim
Law Student Publications
The model used for turtle conservation and recovery would be an accurate model for conserving and recovering the endangered shark species, as well. As sharks are crucial to the marine environment, action needs to be taken in the form of policies that parallel those that protect turtles. Specifically, the models of protection for turtles in both Australia and the United States can serve as examples for shark conservation and recovery policies. As sharks are migratory species like turtles, international efforts and treaties are also crucial to providing boundaries and regulations for sharks in the global arena. The future of sharks …
The Supreme Court’S New Electricity Federalism, Joel B. Eisen
The Supreme Court’S New Electricity Federalism, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
This Insights piece is excerpted from the article, Dual Electricity Federalism Is Dead: But How Dead And What Replaces It?, in the George Washington Journal of Energy and Environmental Law.
In a remarkable burst of activity, the U.S. Supreme Court decided three cases in the past year involving the split of jurisdiction between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the states in the energy sector. FERC v. Electric Power Supply Association and Hughes v. Talen Energy Marketing dealt with the relationship between FERC and the states in governing the electric grid under the Federal Power Act (FPA). ONEOK …
Equity And Feasibility Regulation, Dov Waisman
Equity And Feasibility Regulation, Dov Waisman
University of Richmond Law Review
No abstract provided.
Ferc V. Epsa And The Path To A Cleaner Electricity Sector, Joel B. Eisen
Ferc V. Epsa And The Path To A Cleaner Electricity Sector, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
This article analyzes the impact of FERC v. Electric Power Supply Association, in which the Supreme Court upheld FERC’s demand response rule (Order 745) and confirmed FERC’s authority over “practices” “directly affecting” wholesale rates for electricity. It contends that the Supreme Court made a definitive pronouncement on FERC’s authority over end users of electricity who also provide resources back to the electric grid. It also contends that FERC v. EPSA marks the end of “dual federalism” in electricity law that treated federal and state jurisdiction as separate and distinct spheres of authority. Instead, it posits a new era of concurrent …
Should The United States Create Trading Markets For Energy Efficiency?, Noah M. Sachs
Should The United States Create Trading Markets For Energy Efficiency?, Noah M. Sachs
Law Faculty Publications
This Comment examines whether the vision for energy efficiency markets matches the reality. It explains how energy efficiency markets work, examines the handful of energy efficiency markets that have been established to date, and explores the policy challenges inherent in commodifying energy efficiency and making it a tradable good.