Digital Commons Network^™

Symbolic Politics For Disempowered Communities: State Environmental Justice Policies, Tonya Lewis, Jessica Owley

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No abstract provided.

Rethinking Sustainability To Meet The Climate Change Challenge, Jessica Owley, Michael Burger, Elizabeth Burleson, Rebecca M. Bratspies, Robin Kundis Craig, David M. Driesen, Alexandra R. Harrington, Keith H. Hirokawa, Sarah Krakoff, Katrina Fischer Kuh, Stephen R. Miller, Patrick Parenteau, Melissa Powers, Shannon M. Roesler, Jonathan Rosenbloom

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A group of environmental law professors formed the Environmental Law Collaborative with the goal of engaging environmental law scholars in the thorny issues of the day. The members of the Collaborative gathered in the summer of 2012 to produce an intensive and collective assessment of sustainability in the age of climate change. Their writings examine the process of adapting the principles and application of sustainability to the demands of climate change, including framing the term sustainability in climate change discussions; coordinating sustainable practices across disciplines such as law, economics, ethics, and the hard sciences; and conceptualizing the role of sustainability …

Community Education And Access To Justice In A Time Of Scarcity: Notes From The West Grove Trolley Garage Case, Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

Takings And Transmission, Alexandra B. Klass

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Ever since the Supreme Court's controversial 2005 decision in Kelo v. City of New London, courts, state legislatures, and the public have scrutinized eminent domain actions like never before. Such scrutiny has focused, for the most part, on the now-controversial “economic development” or “public purpose” takings involved in Kelo. By contrast, until recently, there has been little change in law or public opinion with regard to takings involving publicly owned projects such as schools, post offices, and other government buildings, or “use by the public” takings that condemn land for railroad lines, electric transmission lines, or other infrastructure projects. However, …

Dynamic Energy Federalism, Hari M. Osofsky, Hannah J. Wiseman

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U.S. energy law and the scholarship analyzing it are deeply fragmented. Each source of energy has a distinct legal regime, and limited federal regulation in some areas has resulted in divergent state and local approaches to regulation. Much of the existing energy law literature reflects these substantive and structural divisions, and focuses on particular aspects of the energy system and associated federalism disputes. However, in order to meet modern energy challenges — such as reducing risks from deepwater drilling and hydraulic fracturing, maintaining the reliability of the electricity grid in this period of rapid technological change, and producing cleaner energy …

Litigation's Role In The Path Of U.S. Federal Climate Change Regulation: Implications Of Aep V. Connecticut, Hari M. Osofsky

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This symposium analyzes the role of litigation in climate change regulation, with a particular focus on the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2011 decision in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut ("AEP"). 1 This Essay adds to that conversation by exploring the significance of AEP for U.S. federal legal approaches to regulating climate change.

Environmental Justice And The Bp Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Hari M. Osofsky, Kate Baxter-Kauf, Bradley Hammer, Ann Mailander, Brett Mares, Amy Pikovsky, Andrew Whitney, Laura Wilson

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This Article analyzes the environmental justice implications of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill and proposes ways to better address these concerns currently and in the future. It explores the justice problems that have arisen with respect to the spill response, compensation, and employment and workers. The Article argues that these problems result from a mix of inadequate information, failure to incorporate environmental justice into planning, and statutory provisions that favor oil companies and limit protections for vulnerable populations. It proposes ways in which to address these causes in the context of this disaster and more broadly.

Neoliberal Land Conservation And Social Justice, Jessica Owley

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No abstract provided.

Centennial Reflections On The California Law Review's Scholarship On Race: The Structure Of Civil Rights Thought Centennial Tribute Issue, Richard Delgado

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No abstract provided.

Concrete Private Interest In Regulatory Enforcement: Tradable Environmental Resource Rights As A Basis For Standing, Danieli Evans

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This Note proposes a novel solution to standing problems faced by environmental plaintifs seeking to enforce, or to compel agencies to enforce, environmental regulation. It argues that environmental plaintifs should be able to obtain standing to bring an Administrative Procedure Act (APA) review action or a citizen suit based on ownership of private tradable environmental resource rights, created by increasingly popular environmental privatization programs. These rights should operate as a basis for standing even for plaintifs who would otherwise be unable to meet standing requirements of individual injury, causation, and redressability. Relying on tradable rights to environmental resources as a …

How Much Clinic For How Many Students?: Examining The Decision To Offer Clinics For One Semester Or An Academic Year, Kele Stewart

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Many law schools are engaged in curricular reform aimed at more effectively preparing students for practice. Two publications that have influenced these reform efforts, Best Practices for Legal Education and the Carnegie Foundation's report Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law, suggest that there should be more clinical opportunities. With limited resources, there is an apparent tension between providing live-client clinics to as many students as possible versus a deeper clinical experience over an academic year. This Article examines the questions raised by a law school's decision to offer a clinic for one semester or two. In designing …

Diagonal Federalism And Climate Change: Implications For The Obama Administration, Hari M. Osofsky

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The Obama Administration’s efforts on climate change continue to face daunting challenges domestically and internationally. This Article makes a novel contribution by exploring how the Obama Administration can meet these challenges more effectively though systematically addressing the multiscalar character of climate change in the areas where it has greater regulatory control. Mitigating and adapting to climate change pose complex choices at individual, community, local, state, national, and international levels. The Article argues that these choices lead to many diagonal regulatory interactions: that is, dynamics among a wide range of public and private actors which simultaneously cut across levels of government …

The Environmental Laws Of The 1970s: They Looked Good On Paper, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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This article looks at the "top ten" environmental laws enacted in the 1970s, including the Clean Air Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. It asks: What were the pin-up qualities that made these laws look good on paper? What were the features sponsors bragged about or critics deplored? How were they understood and described at the time of legislative birth? What was thought to be new, different, and better?

We know some of these things about all of these laws. I’ll exercise editorial judgment and declare four common features …

Competition: The Next Generation Of Environmental Regulation?, Stephen M. Johnson

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Risk. In the environmental arena, when determining whether to regulate or how to regulate activities or products, policymakers must begin by assessing the level of risk presented by the activity or product. Although essential information about the level of risk is often in the hands of the actors or producers, they may be reluctant to provide this information to policymakers, unless they are compelled to do so, because the disclosure of information about the risk presented by their activity or product could reduce demand for their activity or product, increase potential liability for harm caused by their activity or product, …

Is Religion The Environment’S Last Best Hope? Targeting Change In Individual Behavior Through Personal Norm Activation, Stephen M. Johnson

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This Article explores the important role that religious organizations have played, and can play, in personal norm activation to influence change in individuals’ environmentally destructive actions. Part I of the Article describes the need for regulating or targeting individuals, in addition to industrial sources, in order to address many of the remaining significant environmental problems. Part II examines the advantages and disadvantages of targeting individual actions through command-and-control regulation, economic-based alternatives, and information disclosure programs. Part III outlines the concept of norm activation and details the manner in which information disclosure programs can be used to activate personal norms to …

Public Access To Spatial Data On Private-Land Conservation, Jessica Owley, Amy Wilson Morris, Adena R. Rissman

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No abstract provided.

Ossification’S Demise? An Empirical Analysis Of Epa Rulemaking From 2001-2005,, Stephen M. Johnson

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For more than a decade, academics have suggested agencies are increasingly avoiding notice and comment rulemaking because the process has become “ossified” by procedures imposed by Congress, courts and the Executive Branch, and because the rules ultimately issued by agencies are frequently challenged. This article reviews the rules the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued between 2001 and 2005 to determine the validity of those criticisms. With regard to judicial challenges, 75% of EPA’s most important (“economically significant”) rules issued between 2001 and 2005 were challenged in court. This is consistent with the anecdotal claims of former EPA Administrators …

Faith In Community: Representing "Colored Town", Anthony V. Alfieri

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No abstract provided.

The Competitive Global City 2030: A Futures Approach, Ruth Kelly, John Ratcliffe, Julie Gannon

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In an increasingly globalising and competitive world, cities are facing unparalleled challenges relating to such forces as economic restructuring and fiscal stress, national security, institutional relationships and the changing role of governance, environmental degradation, social and cultural transformation and rising exclusion. In May 2005, The Futures Academy, Technological University Dublin, in collaboration with the Urban Land Institute (ULI), embarked on a joint initiative to stimulate thinking and encourage informed discussions concerning the future trajectory and sustainable development of the competitive ‘global city’. As part of this study, The Academy undertook in-depth background research including a comprehensive questionnaire survey; an interactive …

Modern Public Trust Principles: Recognizing Rights And Integrating Standards, Alexandra B. Klass

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The public trust doctrine has a long history from its beginnings as an obligation on states to hold lands submerged under navigable waters in trust for the public, to its resurgence in the 1970s as a protector of natural resources, to its influence on state statutory and constitutional law as the public embraced environmental protection principles. However, many have argued that the public trust doctrine has not lived up to its potential as a major player in environmental and natural resources law. This article proposes a new framework for the public trust doctrine as a state tool for environmental protection …

Segregation And Environmental Justice, Myron Orfield

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No abstract provided.

Terrorism, Security, And Environmental Protection, Stephen M. Johnson

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Part I of this Article examines the post-September 11 trend of reduced access to environmental, health, and safety information. Part II introduces the tools that governments might use to protect the environment while protecting homeland security, including planning and information disclosure, command and control measures, and pollution prevention measures. Part II also criticizes the reliance on command and control measures as the primary means of addressing the security issues created by businesses that engage in activities that could harm the environment, health, or safety. Part III explores the advantages of planning and information disclosure programs over command and control programs …

Shout From Taller Rooftops: A Response To Deborah L. Rhode's Access To Justice Colloquium: Deborah L. Rhode's Access To Justice, Steven H. Hobbs

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No abstract provided.

Improving Laws, Declining World: The Tort Of Contamination, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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This article considers nature's "baseline" through the lens of modern environmental laws. We measure this "baseline" like never before and are proud of our databases on fish advisories, beach closures, and impaired water bodies, to mention a few. The ubiquitous legal response to these measures of environmental decline is the public warning "Don't Eat the Fish" and "Don't Drink the Water."

This article assesses the function, utility, and purpose of these public warnings and finds them wanting. Their principal value is that they serve as measures of lost natural capital and harbingers of shifting baselines.

Our descriptive journey leaves us …

Transfer Regulations And Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, Eric A. Posner

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Recent scholarship on regulatory oversight has focused on cost-benefit analysis of prescriptive regulations--regulations that restrict behavior such as pollution-and their use to cure market failures, and has overlooked the vast number of transfer regulations. Transfer regulations are regulations that channel funds to beneficiaries. These regulations are authorized by statutes that establish entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, pay one-time distributions to victims of misfortunes such as natural disasters and the 9/11 terrorist attack, and fund pork barrel spending. Cost-benefit analysis cannot be used to evaluate transfer regulations because all transfer regulations fail cost-benefit analysis; cost-effectiveness analysis, however, can be …

Harnessing Information Technology To Improve The Environmental Impact Review Process, Michael B. Gerrard, Michael Herz

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No abstract provided.

Commentary: Convergence As Movement: Toward A Counter-Hegemonic Approach To Corporate Governance, Kellye Y. Testy

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No abstract provided.

Defeating Environmental Law: The Geology Of Legal Advantage, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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My talk today will: (1) introduce the metaphor of geology, (2) suggest to you that complexity has "gainers" as well as "losers," and (3) show you how environmental laws can be defeated by these twin engines of complexity and clever human adversaries.

[Third Annual Lloyd K. Garrison Lecture on Environmental Law, Pace University School of Law.]

Growth And Form: Indian Tribes, Terrorism, And The Durability Of Environmental Law, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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My target audience is the body of extraordinary law students here at the Vermont Law School who will define the shape and direction of tomorrow's environmental law. My plan is to derive five virtues of significant achievement—genius, high-leveraging, symbolism, optimism, and courage—and to convince you that the Indian tribes of the United States are fortuitously blessed with these capacities for positive change.

I am obliged to defend my five virtues against the charge that they are "gray" virtues, mere tactics of opportunity open to use by the forces of hatred and destruction as freely as those of nurturing and protection. …

Linking Progressive Corporate Law With Progressive Social Movements, Kellye Y. Testy

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Professor Testy critically assesses what has been termed a "new" corporate social responsibility project After noting the hegemony of shareholder primacy in corporate law, she critiques four major counter-hegemonic discourses: team production theory, corporate social accountabiity, stakeholder theory, and corporate social responsibility (or progressive corporate law). Finding the first three ineffective foils for the problems of corporate power that have spurred calls for reform, she turns to an examination of the progressive corporate law project. That project, presently poised at a defining juncture as it attempts to use the "master's tools" to "dismantle the master's house," nonetheless holds promise for …