Environmental 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 …

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 …

Private Governance And The New Private Advocacy, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Benjamin Raker

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Environmentat governance today involves more than just actions by government. It involves new standards by retailers that restrict the toxic chemicals in thousands of products and private certification and standards programs directed at fish, forests, and many agricultural products. It also includes investor-driven organizations that create pressure for carbon disclosure, tender-driven requirements for environmental assessments, and private-sector initiatives that drive demand for renewable power. This is the world of private environmental governance. Private environmental governance (PEG) occurs when private organizations perform the environmental protection functions traditionally assigned to government. See Michael Vandenbergh, Private Environmental Governance, 99 Cornell L. Rev. 129, …

The Behavioral Wedge: Reducing Greenhouse Gas By Individuals And Households, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Jonathan Gilligan, Gerald T. Gardner, Paul C. Stern

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

When nations fail to agree, can individual citizens make a difference? The third of our post-Copenhagen features is by Jonathan Gilligan, Thomas Dietz, Gerald T. Gardner , Paul C. Stern, and Michael P. Vandenbergh. They look at the effects that voluntary actions by individuals can have, and at the policies that can best encourage such actions.

The Individual As Polluter, Michael P. Vandenbergh

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Individuals are the largest source ofdioxin emissions, contribute almost one-third ofall ozone precursor emissions, and are afar larger source of several other air toxics than all large industrial sources combined. Thus, after more than 30 years ofregulation largely directed at industry, individual behavior has emerged as a leading source ofpollution. Prof Michael P. Vandenbergh argues that treating individual behavior as a discrete source of pollution can lead to the development of viable, innovative regulatory instruments that have the prospect of achieving pollution reductions at a relatively low cost. The creation ofan individual toxic release inventory, for example, is one such …

Is The Endangered Species Act Ecopragmatic?, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Article evaluates the Endangered Species Act using Dan Farber's theory of eco-pragmatism. Eco-pragmatism employs environmental baselines, a moderated precautionary principle, and adaptive management to mediate environmental policy issues. I conclude that the ESA reflects some of these attributes, but does not coherently assemble a truly eco-pragmatic framework.

"Not In My State's Indian Reservation"-- A Legislative Fix To Close An Environmental Law Loophole, Roger R. Martella, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

For hundreds of years, this continent's Indians shared a spiritual belief that they must respect and protect their Mother Earth above all else. Today, however, many tribes no longer view the environment as a bank of natural resources that they must shield and shelter at any cost. Instead, the economic pressures of the twentieth century-particularly underdevelopment, unemployment, and poverty -are forcing a growing number of Indian tribes to exchange the spiritual view of their once pristine environment for a commercial one. This shift from nurturing nature to exploiting the environment on a growing number of reservations results largely from a …

International Environmental Bankruptcy: An Overview Of Environmental Bankruptcy Law, Including A State's Claims Against The Multinational Polluter, Rick M. Reznicsek

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note focuses on current environmental bankruptcy law in the United States. It analyzes the claims of a state against a corporate polluter when the corporation discharges a toxic substance in violation of the state's environmental laws, refuses to clean up the waste, and then files bankruptcy in lieu of paying for the cleanup.

This Note analyzes the court decisions subsequent to the United States Supreme Court opinions in Ohio v. Kovacs and Midlantic National Bank v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to evaluate the current status of United States bankruptcy law on the issues of the automatic stay; …

Vessel-Source Pollution And The Law Of The Sea, John W. Kindt

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On March 16, 1978, history's worst oil spill occurred when the tanker Amoco Cadiz lost her steering and drifted onto rocky shoals off the French coast. Approximately 223,000 tons of oil were spilled, polluting and ruining over 100 miles of the Brittany coast, an area that previously had supplied one-third of France's seafood and had attracted tourists from all over Europe. Despite all this damage, only thirty million dollars was available for cleanup--none to repair the ecological devastation. Although this well-publicized accident shocked the world, it was only one of many oil spills that occurred during 1978.

By definition, "vessel-source …

Judicial Protection Of The Environment: A New Role For Common-Law Remedies, Frank E. Maloney

Vanderbilt Law Review

There is a tendency today to look to the legislatures to provide the cure for all environmental maladies,' and to overlook or underrate the potential of common-law remedies to assist in the proper solution of these problems. Although it is undoubtedly true that in some jurisdictions the common-law remedies have been interpreted so restrictively as to make them practically useless as tools for environmental protection, a number of forward-looking courts are developing and applying the law in a way much more favorable to the environment. Other courts that have remained uncommitted may be in a position to follow current trends …