Law Commons^™

The Environmental Citizen: Participant And Problem, Monika U. Ehrman

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Citizen participation is a cornerstone of modern American environmental governance. Public participation in decision-making, monitoring, and enforcement increases regulatory transparency, community engagement, and ensures policymakers are informed at the local level. To William D. Ruckelshaus, the first (and fifth) Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there was no role as powerful or indispensable. In his inspiring essay, The Citizen and the Environmental Regulatory Process, Ruckelshaus championed the role of the participant citizen, whose involvement in multifaceted environmental decision-making provided legitimacy to regulatory proceedings. Throughout his storied career, Ruckelshaus returned to this core ideology that public participation in …

When Uncle Sam Spills: A State Regulator’S Guide To Enforcement Actions Against The Federal Government Under The Clean Water Act, Ian M. Staeheli

Washington Law Review

The U.S. government is one of the largest polluters on the planet. With over 700 domestic military bases and countless more federal facilities and vessels operating within state borders, there exists an enormous potential for spills and discharges of pollutants into state waters. The regulatory burden for enforcing environmental laws against the federal government falls on the Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators. But enforcing laws and regulations against the federal government and its progeny is a daunting regulatory task.

Other scholarship addresses some of the vexing peculiarities involved when regulating Uncle Sam. Those works discuss the “confusing mess” that …

Privatizing Regulatory Enforcement: A Preliminary Assessment Of Citizen Suits Under Federal Environmental Laws, Barry Boyer, Errol Meidinger

Errol Meidinger

This article provides a preliminary assessment of the potential effects of the privatization of regulatory enforcement and speculates on what such a realignment might portend for the regulatory process. Based primarily on an indepth review of the first wave of citizen suits brought under the federal Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, it identifies four key problems that can undermine the citizen suit as a device for regulatory enforcement: (1) Citizen suits must surmount a series of doctrinal barriers that could make it difficult or impossible to mount an effective private enforcement campaign. Courts have generally been able to control …

Privatizing Regulatory Enforcement: A Preliminary Assessment Of Citizen Suits Under Federal Environmental Laws, Barry Boyer, Errol Meidinger

Journal Articles

This article provides a preliminary assessment of the potential effects of the privatization of regulatory enforcement and speculates on what such a realignment might portend for the regulatory process. Based primarily on an indepth review of the first wave of citizen suits brought under the federal Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, it identifies four key problems that can undermine the citizen suit as a device for regulatory enforcement: (1) Citizen suits must surmount a series of doctrinal barriers that could make it difficult or impossible to mount an effective private enforcement campaign. Courts have generally been able to control …