Digital Commons Network^™

What Happens When The Green New Deal Meets The Old Green Laws?, J. B. Ruhl, James Salzman

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The multi-faceted infrastructure goals of the Green New Deal will be impossible to achieve in the desired time frames if the existing federal, state, and local siting and environmental protection statutory regimes are applied. Business, labor, property rights, environmental protection, and social justice interests will use them to grind the Green New Deal to a snail's pace. Using the renewable energy transition as the infrastructure case study, this Essay is a call to arms for the need to design New Green Laws for the Green New Deal. Part I briefly summarizes what we are learning about the pace and magnitude …

Not Yet America's Best Idea: Law, Inequality, And Grand Canyon National Park, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Even the nation’s most cherished and protected public lands are not spaces apart from the workings of law, politics, and power. This Essay explores that premise in the context of Grand Canyon National Park. On the occasion of the Park’s 100th Anniversary, it examines how law — embedded in a political economy committed to rapid growth and development in the southwestern United States — facilitated the violent displacement of indigenous peoples and entrenched racialized inequalities in the surrounding region. It also explores law’s shortcomings in the context of sexual harassment and discrimination within the Park. The Essay concludes by suggesting …

Environmental Law, Jocelyn Stacey

All Faculty Publications

In commemoration of their 50th anniversary, this chapter examines the Federal Courts’ role in shaping environmental law in Canada. The chapter uses well-known environmental principles – the precautionary principle, sustainable development and access to (environmental) justice – as focal points for examining environmental law as well as the legal culture of the Federal Courts. The chapter identifies four distinct interpretive roles that the Federal Courts have ascribed to the precautionary principle and it argues that three of these roles have the potential to generate more coherent and transparent doctrine that upholds the rule of law in the environmental context. In …

Fighting On Behalf Of The Salish Sea, Cloie M. Chapman

American Indian Law Journal

Despite the wealth of data that suggests climate change will disrupt our ecosystems, key political actors have declined to take action to mitigate the anticipated effects. Further, we have seen deeper investment into the fossil fuel industry, an industry that has been a substantial contributor to climate change. Community-led movements have proven more successful in engaging with these issues on the ground. Creative legal strategies could aid in this movement and allow for strengthened enforcement of rights that are closely dependent on the health of the environment.

The Salish Sea is a body of water that reaches from Western Canada …

Nothing Is Over: Ftca Claims For Toxic Torts On Native Lands, Jessica Ditmore

American Indian Law Journal

In 1976, Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”) to curtail the growing problem of disposing of hazardous waste and toxic substances generally. Decades prior, Congress established the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”) to hold the federal Government liable for tortious conduct the same way a private citizen would be. The federal government assumed the responsibility to ensure the wellbeing of Native Nations (“NN”). This is commonly referred to the “Trust Doctrine.” This duty stems from the settlement of Native American lands, and a recognition of the treaties entered into by the United States with a “moral [obligation] …

The Hard Look Doctrine: How Disparate Impact Theory Can Inform Agencies On Proper Implementation Of Nepa Regulations, Monica Mercola

Journal of Law and Policy

Executive Order 12898—Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations—was issued to achieve “environmental protection for all communities” by drawing federal agencies’ attention to the environmental and human health effects brought about by their actions. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) sets forth a detailed process which aims to ensure that each agency will have available, and will consider, a carefully detailed compilation of information concerning significant environmental impacts resulting from federal actions before taking those actions. Realizing the Executive Order’s goal, however, is rendered problematic, in part because of the difficulty in challenging an Environmental …

Raping Indian Country, Sarah Deer, Elizabeth Kronk Warner

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

In this article, we have examined the policies of the Trump Administration as they relate to extractive development on and near Indian country, and policies related to the protection of Native people from rape and sexual assault. As demonstrated above, the Administration’s policies are likely to increase both the environmental and physical vulnerabilities of Native people. Native people will not only likely face exasperated physical insecurity, but their environments will likely be increasingly stripped on natural resources. As a result, the raping of Indian county continues. But, this article is not without hope. At least two ways forward, improvements upon …

Federal Environmental Exemptions For Natural Disasters And The Case For Ecosystem Resilience, Morgan Drake

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Environmental Injustice: How Treaties Undermine The Right To A Healthy Environment, Lisa E. Sachs, Lise Johnson, Ella Merrill

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Our planet faces unprecedented threats, including irreversible global warming, loss in biodiversity, and water pollution and water scarcity. The impacts of these environmental crises also threaten human rights and exacerbate inequality. Slowing these worsening environmental trends – and addressing the impacts of environmental change on populations – will require cumulative policy responses at the national and international level.

The Human Right To A Healthy Environment: Pushing The Boundaries In The Inter-American System, Sarah Dávila-Ruhaak

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

The connection between the environment and human rights is not a surprising one. The enjoyment of human rights depends on a person’s ability to live free from interference and to have his or her rights protected. The interdependence of human rights and the protection of the environment is manifested in the full and effective enjoyment of the rights to life, highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, adequate standard of living, adequate food, clean water and sanitation, housing, culture, freedom of expression and association, information and education, participation, effective remedies, and the rights of indigenous peoples. Without adequate access …

The Second International Conference On Climate, Nature, And Society: Selected Conference Excerpts, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Transnational Perspectives On The Paris Climate Agreement Beyond Paris: Redressing American Defaults In Caring For Earth’S Biosphere, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Anxiety about the fate of human civilization is rising. International Law has an essential role to play in sustaining community of nations. Without enhancing International Environmental Law, the biosphere that sustains all nations is imperiled. Laws in the United States can either impede or advance global environmental stewardship. What is entailed in such a choice?

The biosphere is changing. At a time when extraordinary technological prowess allows governments the capacity to know how deeply they are altering Earth's biosphere, nations experience a perverse inability to cooperate together. The Arctic is melting rapidly, with knock on effects for sea level rise …

Federal Funding Programs: Benefit-Cost Analyses And Low To Moderate Income Communities, Kelsey Mcneill, Alyssa Glass

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

“Global average sea level has risen by about 7-8 inches (about 16-21cm) since 1990, with about 3 of those inches (about 7 cm) occurring since 1993.” Since both the ocean and the atmosphere are getting warmer, global sea levels are projected to rise at an increased rate over the coming centuries. Unsurprisingly, rise in sea level disproportionately negatively impacts coastal communities. For instance, a combination of high magnitude storms and sea level rise causes dangerous flooding to occur farther inland than in the past. Higher sea levels will also cause communities to flood more frequently around high tide even in …

Bounding Forward, Robert L. Fischman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the race to save the planet from climate change, resilience has been misconstrued as sustaining historic conditions. But some of them are undesirable and others no longer feasible. Adaptive governance can promote transformation to help communities frustrated with current conditions.

Tpp And Environmental Regulation, Errol E. Meidinger

Contributions to Books

Published as Chapter 8 in Megaregulation Contested: Global Economic Ordering After TPP, Benedict Kingsbury, David M. Malone, Paul Mertenskötter, Richard B. Stewart, Thomas Streinz & Atsushi Sunami, eds.

This article examines the environment-related provisions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) to assess how and how much they contribute to a larger megaregulatory program for the Asia-Pacific region. The TPP calls for ‘high levels’ of environmental protection and effective enforcement; incorporates duties from several multilateral environmental agreements; adds new provisions addressing several important environmental problems; mandates administrative best practices; promotes corporate social responsibility and the use of voluntary certification systems; and …

Reconceptualizing Entrenched Notions Of Common Law Property Regimes: Maori Self-Determination And Environmental Protection Through Legal Personality For Natural Objects, Bridget Williams

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Enforcement Or Fiction? Considering Grants Of Authority Under The California Global Warming Solutions Act Of 2006 And An Alternative To Compel Enforcement, Jessica Kirshner

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

California has long established itself as a leader in climate change policy, with a deeply entrenched and ever-developing regulatory framework. The state is home to some of the earliest research on, and regulations targeted at, mitigating the severe implications of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, like carbon dioxide (CO2), on Earth’s atmosphere. It is therefore unsurprising that California’s regulatory approaches for climate change mitigation and GHG emissions reductions influence local and national climate change law and policies. This influence also notably percolates international climate policy. However, before California may definitively proclaim itself as a global model for successful climate change efforts, …

Mask Off - The Coloniality Of Environmental Justice, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Perceptions Of Infrastructure, Flood Management, And Environmental Redevelopment In The University Area, Hillsborough County, Florida, Kris-An K. Hinds

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The University Area (UA), a low-income, unincorporated neighborhood in Hillsborough County, Florida, is a site of sustainable redevelopment by the local government and nonprofit organizations. Throughout the past decade, the transitions in local and state political climates have significantly impacted the residents’ ability to advocate for infrastructural and environmental improvement to the site. This thesis discusses the findings of a research project dedicated to exploring resident perspectives of stormwater management, infrastructure, and the redevelopment currently occurring the University Area. Drawing from theoretical concepts in political ecology, environmental justice, and the interplay of agency and structure, this research investigates the impacts …

Still Melting: How Climate Change And Subsistence Laws Constrain Alaska Native Village Adaptation, E. Barrett Ristroph

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Campaign To Make Ecocide An International Crime: Quixotic Quest Or Moral Imperative?, Anastacia Greene

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Teacher Perceptions Of Environmental Science In Rural Northwestern New Mexico Public Schools, Marie Quiahuitl Julienne

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

In this study, I explored what teachers perceive as the factors that impact their teaching of environmental science in rural secondary level schools in northwestern New Mexico. I adapted Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) ecological systems model, based on four environmental subsystem levels (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem), as the conceptual framework to address the major research question of this study, and developed 18 interview questions to explore teachers’ perceptions of factors that influence their teaching of environmental science. I investigated the perspectives science teachers have about environmental science topics and the influences they perceive that affect how they teach environmental science, and …

Under Coyote’S Mask: Environmental Law, Indigenous Identity, And #Nodapl, Danielle Delaney

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article studies the relationship between the three main lawsuits filed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and the Yankton Sioux Tribe against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DaPL) and the mass protests launched from the Sacred Stone and Oceti Sakowin protest camps. The use of environmental law as the primary legal mechanism to challenge the construction of the pipeline distorted the indigenous demand for justice as U.S. federal law is incapable of seeing the full depth of the indigenous worldview supporting their challenge. Indigenous activists constantly re-centered the direct actions and protests within indigenous culture …

The Federal Government Has An Implied Moral Constitutional Duty To Protect Individuals From Harm Due To Climate Change: Throwing Spaghetti Against The Wall To See What Sticks, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The continuing failure of the federal government to respond to the growing threat of climate change, despite affirmative duties to do so, creates a governance vacuum that the Constitution might help fill, if such a responsibility could be found within the document. This Article explores textual and non-textual constitutional support for that responsibility, finding that no single provision of the Constitution is a perfect fit for that responsibility. However, the document as a whole might support constitutionalizing an environmental protection norm as an individual right or affirmative government obligation given the norm's importance to the enjoyment of other constitutional rights …

Clean Energy Equity, Felix Mormann

Utah Law Review

Solar, wind, and other clean, renewable sources of energy promise to mitigate climate change, enhance energy security, and foster economic growth. But many of the policies in place to promote clean energy today are marred by an uneven distribution of economic opportunities and associated financial burdens. Tax incentives for renewables cost American taxpayers billions of dollars every year, yet the tax code effectively precludes all but the largest banks and most profitable corporations from reaping the benefits of these tax breaks. Other policies, such as renewable portfolio standards that set minimum quota to create demand for renewable electricity require such …

Consumer Power To Change The Food System? A Critical Reading Of Food Labels As Governance Spaces: The Case Of Acai Berry Superfoods, Christine Parker, Hope Johnson, Janine Curll

Journal of Food Law & Policy

This article argues that the marketing claims on food labels are a governance space worthy of critical examination. We use a case study of superfood açaí berry products to illustrate how marketing claims on food labels encapsulate dominant neoliberal constructions of global food systems. These marketing claims implicitly promise that by making careful choices consumers can resist and redress the ravages of unbridled global capitalism. Food labels suggest that consumers can use market signals to simultaneously govern our own selves and the market to ensure sustainable, fair, and healthy consumption. In response, this article develops, justifies and applies a socio-legal …

State-Level Legislation To Address Global Warming: A Recommendation That Washington Join The Cap And Trade Movement, Monique Saysana

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

This article discusses climate change and the impacts of fossil fuels. In doing so, two approaches are outlined to deal with fossil fuels in Washington: a gas tax and a cap and trade system. There are pros and cons of both systems and a review of recent legislation in Washington. This author recommends a cap and trade system for Washington State.

Food Aid To The Developing World: The Subversive Effects Of Modern-Day Neo-Colonialism, Shreya Ahluwalia

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

The United States has the power and resources to benefit citizens across the world. Many politicians have embodied this goal. Now it is time to move away from this approach. This article exposes the harm surrounding foreign aid from the United States, poses questions related to the foreign policy decisions of the United States and other world powers, and proposes unique solutions through the lens of environmental racism.

The Shortcomings Of Regulating Pesticides Internationally And How Disadvantaged Communities Pay The Price, Alex Sauerwein

UC Law Environmental Journal

Glyphosate is a toxic pesticide heavily used in food production. As a result, glyphosate ends up in the air we breathe and the water we drink. The increasing spread and use of glyphosate have many negative impacts on public and environmental health. Researchers are finding links between the use of glyphosate and cancer, Parkinson disease, and lower IQ rates in humans. Researchers have also linked glyphosate to environmental harms, like decreased biodiversity and unintended killing of fish near farms. International law has attempted to limit the use of toxic chemicals through hard law principles like the Rotterdam Convention and soft …

Tribes, Cities, And Children: Emerging Voices In Environmental Litigation, Nina A. Mendelson

Articles

an environmental nongovernmental organization ("NGO") on behalf of a neighbor or hiker.1 The NGO would allege that the individual faced health risks, that her property was contaminated, or that she could no longer hike, fish, swim, or view wildlife such as the endangered Nile crocodile, as in the well-known case of Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife.