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Full-Text Articles in Natural Resources Law

The Commander In Chief's Authority To Combat Climate Change, Mark P. Nevitt Dec 2015

The Commander In Chief's Authority To Combat Climate Change, Mark P. Nevitt

Mark P Nevitt

Climate change is the world’s greatest environmental threat. And it is increasingly understood as a threat to domestic and international peace and security. In recognition of this threat, the President has taken the initiative to prepare for climate change’s impact – in some cases drawing sharp objections from Congress. While both the President and Congress have certain constitutional authorities to address the national security threat posed by climate change, the precise contours of their overlapping powers are unclear. As Commander in Chief, the President has the constitutional authority to repel sudden attacks and take care that the laws are faithfully …


Take It To The Limit: The Illegal Regulation Prohibiting The Take Of Any Threatened Species Under The Endangered Species Act, Jonathan Wood Aug 2015

Take It To The Limit: The Illegal Regulation Prohibiting The Take Of Any Threatened Species Under The Endangered Species Act, Jonathan Wood

Jonathan Wood

The Endangered Species Act forbids the “take” – any activity that adversely affects – any member of an endangered species, but only endangered species. The statute also provides for the listing of threatened species, i.e. species that may become endangered, but protects them only by requiring agencies to consider the impacts of their projects on them. Shortly after the statute was adopted, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service reversed Congress’ policy choice by adopting a regulation that forbids the take of any threatened species. The regulation is not authorized by the Endangered Species Act, but …


Downstream Inundations Caused By Federal Flood Control Dam Operations In A Changing Climate: Getting The Proper Mix Of Takings, Tort, And Compensation, Robert H. Abrams, Jacquiline Bertelsen Mar 2015

Downstream Inundations Caused By Federal Flood Control Dam Operations In A Changing Climate: Getting The Proper Mix Of Takings, Tort, And Compensation, Robert H. Abrams, Jacquiline Bertelsen

Robert H Abrams

The 2012 United States Supreme Court decision in Arkansas Game & Fish Commission v. United States (AG&FC) presented the Court with a claim that the property of a landowner downstream of a flood control dam was taken without compensation as a result of non-permanent inundations of low lying portions of that parcel caused by a change in the dam’s pattern of releases. The Court held that that “government-induced flooding temporary in duration gains no automatic exemption from Takings Clause inspection” and must instead be tested according to the Court’s usual precedents governing temporary physical invasions and regulatory takings.[1] On …


Revisiting Curd V. Mosaic Fertilizer, Llc. A Perversion Of Private Standing Under Section 376.313 Of Florida’S Pollution Discharge Prevention And Recovery Act, Levi L. Wilkes May 2014

Revisiting Curd V. Mosaic Fertilizer, Llc. A Perversion Of Private Standing Under Section 376.313 Of Florida’S Pollution Discharge Prevention And Recovery Act, Levi L. Wilkes

Levi L Wilkes

No abstract provided.


The Commons, Capitalism, And The Constitution, George Skouras Oct 2013

The Commons, Capitalism, And The Constitution, George Skouras

George Skouras

Thesis Summary: the erosion of the Commons in the United States has contributed to the deterioration of community and uprooting of people in order to meet the dynamic demands of capitalism. This article suggests countervailing measures to help remedy the situation.


Shifting Sands: A Meta-Theory For Public Access And Private Property Along The Coast, Melissa K. Scanlan Mar 2013

Shifting Sands: A Meta-Theory For Public Access And Private Property Along The Coast, Melissa K. Scanlan

Melissa K. Scanlan

Over half the United States population currently lives near a coast. As shorelines are used by more people, developed by private owners, and altered by extreme weather, competition over access to water and beaches will intensify, as will the need for a clearer legal theory capable of accommodating competing private and public interests. One such public interest is to walk along the beach, which seems simple enough. However, beach walking often occurs on this ambulatory shoreline where public rights grounded in the public trust doctrine and private rights grounded in property ownership intersect. To varying degrees, each state has a …


Collective Choice, Justin Schwartz Jan 2011

Collective Choice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

This short nontechnical article reviews the Arrow Impossibility Theorem and its implications for rational democratic decisionmaking. In the 1950s, economist Kenneth J. Arrow proved that no method for producing a unique social choice involving at least three choices and three actors could satisfy four seemingly obvious constraints that are practically constitutive of democratic decisionmaking. Any such method must violate such a constraint and risks leading to disturbingly irrational results such and Condorcet cycling. I explain the theorem in plain, nonmathematical language, and discuss the history, range, and prospects of avoiding what seems like a fundamental theoretical challenge to the possibility …


Federalism At The Cathedral: Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Inalienability Rules In Tenth Amendment Infrastructure, Erin Ryan Jan 2009

Federalism At The Cathedral: Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Inalienability Rules In Tenth Amendment Infrastructure, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

As climate change, war in the Middle East, and the price of oil focus American determination to move beyond fossil fuels, nuclear power has resurfaced as a possible alternative. But energy reform efforts may be stalled by an unlikely policy deadlock stemming from a structural technicality in an aging Supreme Court decision: New York v. United States, which set forth the Tenth Amendment anti-commandeering rule and ushered in the New Federalism era in 1992. This dry technicality also poses ongoing regulatory obstacles in such critical interjurisdictional contexts as stormwater management, climate regulation, and disaster response. Such is the enormous power …