Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Environmental policy is about solving problems, not creating them. Policy frameworks are meant to be supportive of policy initiatives. Most environmental initiatives are impacted by new information, and as such, policy frameworks should be responsive to new information. Often existing policy frameworks limit the ability of information that suggests a change in policy direction. This article discusses some of the causes for this phenomenon and suggests that new policy frameworks should be considered in supporting new policy directions, rather than relying on the manipulation of existing policy frameworks.

The purpose of this article is to highlight some of the roles government can take on that exist outside the traditional regulatory powers of government. Two such nonregulatory roles include the rights of government as the property owner of submerged lands, and the rights/ obligations of government as trustee of the public trust under the public trust doctrine that exists at common law and also statutorily in many coastal states. The reasons these nonregulatory roles are important considerations is because of the reasonable argument that a government that is not acting in a regulatory capacity cannot be said to be …

The goal of this article is to provide the reader with a kind of historical case study on how fisheries law and policy evolution has brought management of the resource to a more ‘systems-centered’ approach. In addition to this historical rendition, another goal of this article is to identify some areas of potential growth, specifically the development of legal instruments that are more adapted to systems principles.

The purpose of this article is to identify the contrasting policy approaches being undertaken at the state and federal levels with respect to climate change and offshore resource development respectively, noting how these respective approaches are leading to a divergence between state and federal priorities in the marine environment. The divergent approaches identified will be placed in the context of the CZMA, particularly the federal consistency requirement of that act, which helps to define the relationship between state and federal actions in ocean waters. Legal issues that arise from this divergence will be identified and analyzed. We begin with identification …

As climate change impacts are realized at the governance level, states and local governments are moving towards adaptation strategies that include increasing restrictions on how land is used in coastal zones. The purpose of this article is to review state regulatory strategies that are attempting to adapt to climate change in light of limits placed on those strategies by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution: the prohibition against the taking of private property by government action without a public purpose and just compensation. This article highlights the importance in identifying the roles governments can take beyond the role …