Land Use Law Commons^™

Environmental Federalism As Forum Shopping, Cale Jaffe

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Public policy advocates of all stripes—litigators, politicians, or newspaper columnists—invoke principles of federalism when they are imploring Congress to respect limits imposed by Article I, and when they are insisting that a state legislature accede to the supremacy of a duly enacted national law, invoking Article VI. Yet historically, application of the term, “federalism,” at least in the context of environmental law, has been driven far more by pragmatic considerations than constitutional ones.

This pragmatic approach should not be surprising because, at its core, federalism simply asks what is the right level of government to solve a given problem. After …

The Impact Of The Tobacco Buyout On The Commonwealth's Open Spaces: Protecting Open Land By Expanding The Scope Of Use Value Assessment, Mary Atkinson

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

The Land Use Stabilization Wedge Strategy: Shifting Ground To Mitigate Climate Change, John R. Nolon

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This article describes how local governments, through the clever application of existing land use techniques, can mitigate climate change. This strategic path follows one developed by Princeton professor Robert Socolow, who identified and described fifteen categories for organizing society's climate change mitigation efforts.1 Five of Socolow's strategic categories fall within the reach of local land use authority: reduced use of vehicles, energy efficient buildings, vegetative carbon sequestration, wind power, and solar power.2 Through the aggregation of these local land use techniques, significant energy savings and carbon dioxide ("C02") reduction can be achieved. After making some background points, this article describes …