Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Legal, Policy, And Environmental Scholars Discuss Global Food Systems At Indiana Law Symposium, James Owsley Boyd

Keep Up With the Latest News from the Law School (blog)

The Indiana University Maurer School of Law and its Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies are hosting scholars from around the country Friday and Saturday (Jan. 19-20) for an interdisciplinary discussion on one of the world’s most prevalent problems—food insecurity.

Data from the World Bank estimate more than 780 million people around the world suffered from chronic hunger in 2022. As climate change affects agricultural production and water accessibility, the problem could worsen in coming years.

“A Fragile Framework: How Global Food Systems Intersect with the International Legal Order, the Environment, and the World’s Populations” will bring together legal, policy, …

Centrality And Compliance: Unitary Vs. Federalist Political Systems In The Implementation Of The Kyoto Protocol In Argentina And Uruguay, Aidan Homan

Baker Scholar Projects

When Uruguay and Argentina first gained their respective independence in the early 1800s, they appeared to be following the same path of development As countries that came from the same Spanish colonization, share almost identical agricultural economies, and retain a close relationship, it is logical that they would follow similar trajectories. This assumption proves to be inaccurate in more ways than one, but most prominently within the environmental sphere. One way to analyze this difference in policy implementation lies in compliance with international environmental treaties which contain specific goals and limits for all parties involved. The Kyoto Protocol presents a …

Flint Michigan Drinking Water Crisis, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

Briefly covers the Flint, Michigan drinking water crisis including providing some background, a timeline of events, and key takeaways from the perspective of public policy.

This article was originally prepared for distribution to students in Aiken's AECN 357 environmental and natural resources law course.

Scotus Invalidates Obama Clean Power Plan, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

On June 30, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled in the case of West Virginia v. EPA that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not implement the 2016 Obama administration Clean Power Plan (CPP). This article briefly discusses the CPP, the CPP litigation, the Court's opinion in West Virginia v. EPA, and what the decision means for Biden administration climate policy.

Regulatory Agency Capture: How The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Approved The Mountain Valley Pipeline, Aakshi Agarwal

Harvey M. Applebaum ’59 Award

The FERC’s history of approving nearly 100% of pipelines and divisive pipeline cases like the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Mountain Valley Pipeline have driven landowners’ long-standing claims of regulatory agency capture of the FERC. The present research substantiates the claim of capture with a case study of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and uncovers that the FERC is both culturally and corrosively captured. This research also suggests that the capture of the FERC began at its conception during the natural gas crisis and subsequent natural gas bubble, which caused the FERC to follow the industry’s lead. These findings indicate that the …

The Costs Of Critical Habitat Or Owl’S Well That Ends Well, Jonathan Klick, J.B. Ruhl

All Faculty Scholarship

When the Fish and Wildlife Service designated land in four counties of Arizona as “critical habitat” necessary for the protection of the endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy‐owl, property values dropped considerably. When the owl was later delisted, property values jumped back up. We use difference-in-difference and synthetic control designs to identify this effect with Zillow property value data. The results provide an estimate of the costs of this critical habitat designation, and they are considerable, contrary to the regulators’ position that critical habitat protection imposes no incremental costs beyond the original endangered species listing.

Environmental Soft Law As A Governance Strategy, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

Soft law governance relies on nongovernmental institutions that establish and implement voluntary standards. Compared with traditional hard law solutions to societal and economic problems, soft law alternatives promise to be more politically feasible to establish and then easier to adapt in the face of changing circumstances. They may also seem more likely to be flexible in what they demand of targeted businesses and other entities. But can soft law actually work to solve major problems? This Article considers the value of soft law governance through the lens of three major voluntary, nongovernmental initiatives that address environmental concerns: (1) ISO 14001 …

Litigating Epa Rules: A Fifty-Year Retrospective Of Environmental Rulemaking In The Courts, Cary Coglianese, Daniel E. Walters

All Faculty Scholarship

Over the last fifty years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found itself repeatedly defending its regulations before federal judges. The agency’s engagement with the federal judiciary has resulted in prominent Supreme Court decisions, such as Chevron v. NRDC and Massachusetts v. EPA, which have left a lasting imprint on federal administrative law. Such prominent litigation has also fostered, for many observers, a longstanding impression of an agency besieged by litigation. In particular, many lawyers and scholars have long believed that unhappy businesses or environmental groups challenge nearly every EPA rule in court. Although some empirical studies have …

Whither The Regulatory “War On Coal”? Scapegoats, Saviors, And Stock Market Reactions, Cary Coglianese, Daniel E. Walters

All Faculty Scholarship

Complaints about excessive economic burdens associated with regulation abound in contemporary political and legal rhetoric. In recent years, perhaps nowhere have these complaints been heard as loudly as in the context of U.S. regulations targeting the use of coal to supply power to the nation’s electricity system, as production levels in the coal industry dropped by nearly half between 2008 and 2016. The coal industry and its political supporters, including the president of the United States, have argued that a suite of air pollution regulations imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration seriously undermined coal companies’ …

Getting Past Possession: Subsurface Property Disputes As Nuisances, Joseph A. Schremmer

Faculty Scholarship

Property rights in the subsurface of land are adapting to accommodate modern activities like massive hydraulic fracturing (fracing). Property rights will need to continue adapting if they are to accommodate other developing activities like large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS). Courts and commentators rarely approach the nature of subsurface property directly. They tend instead to discuss appropriate standards for tort liability when disputes arise—for example when artificial fissures from a frac treatment extend into and drain oil or gas from a neighbor’s land. The case law and literature generally approach unauthorized subterranean invasions as trespasses. Because the tort of trespass …

The Niobrara National Scenic River: Exploring Co-Management Through A Case Study Of The Niobrara Council, Melissa M. Mosier

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In recent decades, government staff and local citizens have increasingly employed cooperative schemes of natural resource management, in lieu of more conventional, top-down approaches of addressing user conflicts as they relate to water resources. The focus of this project was on the Niobrara Council, a partnership of local, state, and federal representatives charged with cooperatively managing the reach of the Niobrara River that was federally designated under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act in 1991. The project's purpose was to explore the cooperative framework of the Council, using the methodology outlined by Carlsson and Berkes (2005). This methodology involved investigating …

Oil Wealth And Gender In Political And National Belonging, Caroline M. Bosworth

Student Publications

Oil-based economies drive a connection between national identity and support for patriarchal belonging. Oil wealthy nations ensure that both men and women are excluded from political participation, and thus have a weak civil society. Through entrenching the population in the benefits of the oil economy, rentier states affirm that there is a high level of national identity. A weak civil society and the patriarchal nature of the oil wealth disenfranchises men and women, thus increasing women’s belief in the effectiveness of a male leader.

Polar Opposites: Assessing The State Of Environmental Law In The World’S Polar Regions, Mark Nevitt, Robert V. Percival

All Faculty Scholarship

Climate change is fundamentally transforming both the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions. Yet they differ dramatically in their governing legal regimes. For the past sixty years the Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), a traditional “hard law” international law treaty system, effectively de-militarized the Antarctic region and halted competing sovereignty claims. In contrast, the Arctic region lacks a unifying Arctic treaty and is governed by the newer “soft law” global environmental law model embodied in the Arctic Council’s collaborative work. Now climate change is challenging this model. It is transforming the geography of both polar regions, breaking away massive ice sheets in …

Getches-Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Fall 2017, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

No abstract provided.

Risk And Regulatory Calibration: Wto Compliance Review Of The U.S. Dolphin-Safe Tuna Labeling Regime, Cary Coglianese, André Sapir

All Faculty Scholarship

In a series of recent disputes arising under the TBT Agreement, the Appellate Body has interpreted Article 2.1 to provide that discriminatory and trade-distortive regulation could be permissible if based upon a “legitimate regulatory distinction.” In its recent compliance decision in the US-Tuna II dispute, the AB reaffirmed its view that regulatory distinctions embedded in the U.S. dolphin-safe tuna labeling regime were not legitimate because they were not sufficiently calibrated to the risks to dolphins associated with different tuna fishing conditions. This paper analyzes the AB’s application of the notion of risk-based regulation in the US-Tuna II dispute and finds …

Immovable-Associated Equipment Under The Draft Mac Protocol: A Sui Generis Challenge For The Cape Town Convention, Benjamin Von Bodungen, Charles W. Mooney Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

UNIDROIT is in the process of adopting a fourth Protocol under the umbrella of the Cape Town Convention, the MAC Protocol, which will cover mining, agricultural and construction equipment. This article addresses a challenge faced by the MAC Protocol that was not encountered in the development of the previous Protocols - the potential for MAC equipment to be associated with immovable property in ways that result in the holder of an interest in the immovable property acquiring an interest in the associated MAC equipment under the law of the State in which the immovable property is located. The article first …

Agenda: Flpma Turns 40, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

FLPMA Turns 40 (October 21)

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers approximately 245 million acres of our public lands and yet, for most of our nation's history, these lands seemed largely destined to end up in private hands. Even when the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 ushered in an important era of better managing public grazing districts and "promoting the highest use of the public lands," such use of our public lands still was plainly considered temporary, "pending its final disposal." It was not until 1976 with the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) that congress adopted a policy that …

Slides: Flpma In Its Historical Context, John D. Leshy

FLPMA Turns 40 (October 21)

Presenter: John D. Leshy, Sunderland Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, U.C. Hastings College of the Law

36 slides

This session traces the history of FLPMA including, among other things, its legislative, administrative, and historical antecedents, including for example, the Public Land Law Review Commission’s 1970 report, One Third of Our Nation’s Lands. It then considers FLPMA’s unique public lands policies and requirements and how they are reflected in the BLM’s management of public lands today.

See: https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/blm/history/contents.htm

Agenda: Winter, Wilderness & Climate: Threats & Solutions, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment, The Wilderness Society, Protect Our Winters

Winter, Wilderness, and Climate--Threats and Solutions (October 12)

In partnership with the Getches-Wilkinson Center, join The Wilderness Society and Protect Our Winters for an interactive presentation about energy development and climate impacts on public lands.

This event was held on Wednesday, October 12, 2016, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m., in the University of Colorado Law School, Wolf Law Building, Wittemyer Courtroom.

Slides: Winter, Wilderness & Climate: Threats & Solutions, Jim Ramey, Lindsay Bourgoine

Winter, Wilderness, and Climate--Threats and Solutions (October 12)

Presenters:

Jim Ramey, The Wilderness Society

Lindsay Bourgoine, Protect Our Winters

56 slides

Getches-Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Fall 2016, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

No abstract provided.

Human Survival, Risk, And Law: Considering Risk Filters To Replace Cost-Benefit Analysis, John William Draper

Librarian Scholarship at Penn Law

Selfish utilitarianism, neo-classical economics, the directive of short-term income maximization, and the decision tool of cost-benefit analysis fail to protect our species from the significant risks of too much consumption, pollution, or population. For a longer-term survival, humanity needs to employ more than cost-justified precaution.

This article argues that, at the global level, and by extension at all levels of government, we need to replace neo-classical economics with filters for safety and feasibility to regulate against significant risk. For significant risks, especially those that are irreversible, we need decision tools that will protect humanity at all scales. This article describes …

Getches-Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Spring 2016, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

No abstract provided.

Agenda: A Celebration Of The Work Of Charles Wilkinson: Served With Tasty Stories And Some Slices Of Roast, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

A Celebration of the Work of Charles Wilkinson (Martz Winter Symposium, March 10-11)

Conference held at the University of Colorado, Wolf Law Building, Wittemyer Courtroom, Thursday, March 10th and Friday, March 11th, 2016.

Conference moderators, panelists and speakers included University of Colorado Law School professors Phil Weiser, Sarah Krakoff, William Boyd, Kristen Carpenter, Britt Banks, Harold Bruff, Richard Collins, Carla Fredericks, Mark Squillace, and Charles Wilkinson

"We celebrate the work of Distinguished Professor Charles Wilkinson, a prolific and passionate writer, teacher, and advocate for the people and places of the West. Charles's influence extends beyond place, yet his work has always originated in a deep love of and commitment to particular places. We …

Thawing Out: The Role Of The Arctic Council Service In A Melting Arctic, Taylor J. Enos

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

With the changing natural and political climate of the Arctic, conflicts over resource extraction and navigation will become inevitable. Empowering an intergovernmental institution like the Arctic Council Service may be the only solution. This paper analyzes the importance and history of the Arctic as a political environment, which is prone to abuse in the very near future at the hands of Russia and the United States.

Beyond Baby Steps An Empirical Study Of The Impact Of Environmental Justice Executive Order 12898, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman, Gunwant Gill, Miriam Jovanovic

Publications and Research

This study evaluated the impact of Executive Order (EO) 12898 to advance environmental justice. We conducted a review evaluating the frequency and effective use of EO 12898 since execution with particular focus following President Obama’s Plan EJ 2014. We found that both EO 12898 and Plan EJ 2104 had little, if any, impact on federal regulatory decision making. To the extent federal agencies discussed EO 12898, most did so in boilerplate rhetoric that satisfied compliance but was devoid of detailed thought or analysis. In the 21st year, with the exception of the Environmental Protection Agency, very little federal regulatory activity …

Drilling For Common Ground: How Public Opinion Tracks Experts In The Debate Over Federal Regulation Of Shale Oil & Gas Extraction, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman

Publications and Research

Public interest in environmental and health impacts from shale oil and gas extraction (what the public calls “fracking”) is growing. Industry claims the public outcry against the new technology is not grounded in science. In February 2013, Resources for the Future (“RFF”) published a list of high priority “risk pathways” that experts from NGOs, academia, government, and industry all agreed were real concerns about fracking. This article used the risk matrix to evaluate whether public comments in dockets of federal agencies that proposed regulation concerning hydraulic fracturing tracked expert concern. The article found that the public tracked many of the …

Towards A New International Law Of The Atmosphere?, Peter H. Sand, Jonathan B. Wiener

Faculty Scholarship

Inclusion of the topic ‘protection of the atmosphere’ in the current work programme of the UN International Law Commission (ILC) reflects the long overdue recognition of the fact that the scope of contemporary international law for the Earth’s atmosphere extends far beyond the traditional discipline of ‘air law’ as a synonym for airspace and air navigation law. Instead, the atmospheric commons are regulated by a ‘regime complex’ comprising a multitude of economic uses including global communications, pollutant emissions and diffusion, in different geographical sectors and vertical zones, in the face of different categories of risks, and addressed by a wide …

Comments On Public Lands: Title Transfer Proposals, Chuck Howe

Challenging Federal Ownership and Management: Public Lands and Public Benefits (October 11-13)

3 pages.

Getches-Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Fall 2015, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

No abstract provided.