Natural Resources Law Commons^™

Cool Lawsuits: Is Climate Change Litigation Dead After Kivalina V. Exxonmobil?, Mark L. Belleville

Mark L. Belleville

Can emitters of greenhouse gases (“GHGs”) ever be held liable for harms caused by climate change? That is the limited question this Article addresses. While many commentators saw the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA (“Mass. v. EPA”) as an indication that such claims may receive favorable review, recent decisions suggest that there may be no theory under which the ExxonMobils of the world can be held liable for the effects of climate change. Specifically, in September 2012, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a native Alaskan village on the tip of a barrier reef, whose …

Anatomy Of Industry Resistance To Climate Change: A Familiar Litany, Robert L. Glicksman

Robert L. Glicksman

The industries that generate environmental risks in the United States have long been hostile to regulatory programs that increase their costs of operation and reduce their profits. While industry may have been unprepared for, and thus poorly organized to resist, the first wave of federal environmental legislation enacted during the “environmental decade” of the 1970s, it quickly marshaled its forces. Regulated or potentially regulated entities, their trade associations, and their lobbyists began a concerted effort to defeat, delay, and weaken environmental regulation.

This book chapter describes the process by which regulatory opponents successfully relied on free market ideology to couch …