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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Environmentalist Attack On Environmental Law, John Copeland Nagle Oct 2016

The Environmentalist Attack On Environmental Law, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

This essay reviews two books written by leading scholars that express profound dissatisfaction with the ability of environmental law to actually protect the environment. Mary Wood’s “Nature’s Trust: Environmental Law for a New Ecological Age” calls for “deep change in environmental law,” emphasizing the roles that agency issuance of permits to modify the environment and excessive deference to agency decisions play in ongoing environmental destruction. Wood proposes a “Nature’s Trust” built on the public trust doctrine to empower courts to play a much more aggressive role in overseeing environmental decisionmaking. In “Green Governance: Ecological Survival, Human Rights, and the Law …


Site-Specific Laws, John Copeland Nagle Oct 2016

Site-Specific Laws, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


The Idea Of Pollution, John C. Nagle Oct 2016

The Idea Of Pollution, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

Pollution is the primary target of environmental law. During the past forty years, hundreds of federal and state statutes, administrative regulations, and international treaties have established multiple approaches to addressing pollution of the air, water, and land. Yet the law still struggles to identify precisely what constitutes pollution, how much of it is tolerable, and what we should do about it. But environmental pollution is hardly the only type of pollution. Historically, the idea of pollution referred to a host of effects upon human environments. This remains evident in contemporary anthropological literature, which studies the pollution beliefs of cultures throughout …


Pope Francis, Environmental Anthropologist, John Copeland Nagle Oct 2016

Pope Francis, Environmental Anthropologist, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

In June 2015, after much anticipation and a few leaks, Pope Francis released his encyclical entitled “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. “Laudato si’” means “praise be to you,” a phrase that appears repeatedly in Saint Francis’ Canticle of the Sun poem. The encyclical itself has been widely praised and widely reported, far more than one would expect from an explicitly religious document. The encyclical is breathtakingly ambitious. Much of it is addressed to “every person living on this planet,” while specific parts speak to Catholics and others to religious believers generally. It surveys a sweeping range of …


Pornography As Pollution, John C. Nagle Oct 2016

Pornography As Pollution, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

Pornography is often compared to pollution. But little effort has been made to consider what it means to describe pornography as a pollution problem, even as many legal scholars have concluded that the law has failed to control internet pornography. Opponents of pornography maintain passionate convictions about how sexually-explicit materials harm both those who are exposed to them and the broader cultural environment. Viewers of pornography may generally hold less fervent beliefs, but champions of free speech and of a free internet object to anti-pornography regulations with strong convictions of their own. The challenge is how to address the widespread …


The Evangelical Debate Over Climate Change, John Copeland Nagle Oct 2016

The Evangelical Debate Over Climate Change, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

In 2006, a group of prominent evangelicals issued a statement calling for a greater response to climate change. Soon thereafter, another group of prominent evangelicals responded with their own statement urging caution before taking any action against climate change. This division among evangelicals concerning climate change may be surprising for a community that is usually portrayed as homogenous and as indifferent or hostile toward environmental regulation. Yet there is an ongoing debate among evangelicals regarding the severity of climate change, its causes, and the appropriate response. Why? The answer to this question is important because of the increasing prominence of …


Cercla's Mistakes, John C. Nagle Oct 2016

Cercla's Mistakes, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) confounds every theory of statutory interpretation. Congress hurriedly enacted CERCLA during the lame-duck period following the election of President Reagan and a Republican Senate majority in November 1980 but before they took office in January 1981. The resulting statute has been criticized for its apparently textual mistakes, sparse legislative history, conflicting purposes, and questionable public policy. Courts routinely complain about the difficulty of interpreting CERCLA under those circumstances. This article reviews several of the interpretive challenges presented by CERCLA, and suggests some broader implications for statutory interpretation more generally. CERCLA, hazardous …


Wilderness Exceptions, John Copeland Nagle Mar 2015

Wilderness Exceptions, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

This Article considers when activities that are inconsistent with wilderness are nonetheless allowed in it. That result happens in four different ways: (1) Congress decided not to designate an area as “wilderness” even though the area possesses wilderness characteristics; (2) Congress draws the boundaries of a wilderness area to exclude land that possesses wilderness characteristics because Congress wants to allow activities there that would be forbidden by the Act; (3) Congress specifically authorizes otherwise prohibited activities when it establishes a new wilderness area; or (4) Congress acts to approve contested activities in response to a controversy that arises after a …


How National Park Law Really Works, John Copeland Nagle Mar 2015

How National Park Law Really Works, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

This article provides the first explanation of the relationship between the three overlapping sources of national park law. It first explains how the Organic Act affords the National Park Service substantial discretion to manage the national parks, including deciding the proper balance between enjoyment and conservation in particular instances. It next shows how federal environmental statutes push national park management toward preservation rather than enjoyment. Third, Congress often intervenes to mandate particular management outcomes at individual parks, typically but not always toward enjoyment rather than preservation. The result is that the NPS has substantial discretion to manage national parks in …


Newt Gingrich, Dynamic Statutory Interpreter, John Copeland Nagle Jun 2014

Newt Gingrich, Dynamic Statutory Interpreter, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


Cercla's Mistakes, John Copeland Nagle Feb 2014

Cercla's Mistakes, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


Site-Specific Laws, John Copeland Nagle Dec 2013

Site-Specific Laws, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


The Appearance Of Election Law, John Nagle Dec 2013

The Appearance Of Election Law, John Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

The recent attention to election law implies that questions of reapportionment, voting rights, campaign finance, and the counting of votes belong to the same category of legal questions. In each instance, the evolving Supreme Court jurisprudence emphasizes appearances. The appearance of legislative districts, the appearance of corruption, and the appearance of partisanship are just some of the distinct ways in which the Court has concluded that appearance matter. As with other appearances, what looks to some observers like a gerrymandered district or a corrupting contribution is seen by others as a legitimate apportionment or an innocent expression of political support. …


Pornography As Pollution, John Copeland Nagle Nov 2013

Pornography As Pollution, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


Severability, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

Severability, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

When a court holds a provision of a statute unconstitutional, a question remains regarding the validity of the remainder of the statute. The court may find that the unconstitutional provision may be severed from the statute and leave the remainder of the statute in effect. Alternatively, the court may hold that the unconstitutional provision cannot be severed and invalidate the entire statute. This article argues that the jurisprudence surrounding the issue of severability is confusing and inconsistent. After explaining the concept of severability and its ramifications for statutes, I trace the development of the current judicial test for determining when …


Why Chinese Wildlife Disappears As Cites Spreads, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

Why Chinese Wildlife Disappears As Cites Spreads, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


Endangered Species Wannabees, John Copeland Nagle Nov 2013

Endangered Species Wannabees, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


Corrections Day, John Copeland Nagle Nov 2013

Corrections Day, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

In July 1995, the House of Representatives established a Corrections Day procedure for fixing statutory mistakes. This article traces the history of the corrections day idea, beginning with suggestions offered by Justices Cardozo and Ginsburg many years apart. The article also recounts the early applications of Correction Day by the House. This article describes the problem of statutory mistakes: what they are, and who makes them. It explains that statutory mistakes do exist, regardless of how one defines mistake. Congress, agencies, and the courts all make mistakes, though the responsibility for them ultimately resides with Congress, the author of the …


See The Mojave!, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

See The Mojave!, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

This article examines how the law is being asked to adjudicate disputed sights in the context of the Mojave Desert. The Mojave is the best known and most explored desert in the United States. For many people, though, the Mojave is missing from any list of America’s scenic wonders. The evolution in thinking about the Mojave’s aesthetics takes places in two acts. In the first act, covering the period from the nineteenth century to 1994, what began as a curious voice praising the desert’s scenery developed into a powerful movement that prompted Congress to enact the CDPA. The second act …


How Not To Count Votes, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

How Not To Count Votes, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Samuel Tilden by one electoral vote in the presidential election of 1876. In Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876, Roy Morris, Jr. concludes that the election was stolen from Tilden by Republican partisans serving on the canvassing boards in the three Southern states - Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina - that were still under the control of Republican governments backed by the federal army. But in Centennial Crisis: The Disputed Election of 1876, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist defends the integrity and the actions of the Supreme …


Delaware & Hudson Revisited, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

Delaware & Hudson Revisited, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


The Lame Ducks Of Marbury, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

The Lame Ducks Of Marbury, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

The election of 1800 was one of the most contested - and important - in American history. After it became clear that neither President John Adams nor a Federalist majority in Congress had been reelected, they acted during the lame-duck period to preserve their influences far into the future. They did so by appointing John Marshall as Chief Justice, ratifying the Treaty with France, creating numerous new federal judicial positions, and filling many of those positions with friends, family, and Federalists (including William Marbury). Not surprisingly, Jefferson and his supporters protested these actions as contrary to the will of the …


Direct Democracy And Hastily Enacted Statutes, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

Direct Democracy And Hastily Enacted Statutes, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


A Twentieth Amendment Parable, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

A Twentieth Amendment Parable, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

The twentieth amendment receives virtually no attention in modern American constitutional law. Adopted in 1933, the primary purpose of the amendment was to eliminate lame-duck Congresses. The proponents of the amendment argued that lame-ducks were subject to nefarious influences and that allowing lame-duck legislation contradicted the voice of the people in the most recent election. But the text of the twentieth amendment simply moved the date on which the newly elected President and Congress took office from March to January, and does not expressly prohibit lame-duck legislation. The framers of the amendment could not conceive of Congress meeting during the …


The Recusal Alternative To Campaign Finance Legislation, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

The Recusal Alternative To Campaign Finance Legislation, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

Typical campaign finance proposals focus on limiting the amount of money that can be contributed to candidates and the amount of money that candidates can spend. This article suggests an alternative proposal that places no restrictions on contributions or spending, but rather targets the corrupting influence of contributions. Under the proposals, legislators would be required to recuse themselves from voting on issues directly affecting contributors. I contend that this proposal would prevent corruption and the appearance of corruption while remedying the first amendment objections to the regulation of money in campaigns.


Green Harms Of Green Projects, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

Green Harms Of Green Projects, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

This article describes the recent development of renewable energy to examine environmental law’s three contrasting approaches to the green harms of green projects. Sometimes the law allows the green benefit regardless of the green harm. Sometimes the law prohibits the green harm regardless of the green benefit. And sometimes the law allows a balancing of all of the harms and benefits, green or not. Given these options, I argue that the law should not ignore or understate green harms even if they are caused by green projects. There are some types of green harms that no benefit can justify. But …


Voluntary Campaign Finance Reform, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

Voluntary Campaign Finance Reform, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


The Evangelical Debate Over Climate Change, John Copeland Nagle Nov 2013

The Evangelical Debate Over Climate Change, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


Discounting China's Cdm Dams, John Copeland Nagle Nov 2013

Discounting China's Cdm Dams, John Copeland Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.


Cercla, Causation, And Responsibility, John C. Nagle Nov 2013

Cercla, Causation, And Responsibility, John C. Nagle

John Copeland Nagle

No abstract provided.