Law Commons^™

Knowing Killing And Environmental Law, Lisa Heinzerling

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

My goal here is modest: I simply wish to defend the view that the moral commitment against knowing killing should play a role in decisions about environmental problems. In recent years, economic analysis has substantially succeeded in de-ethicizing environmental issues; this paper is part of an effort to re-ethicize them. In previous work, I have criticized the use of cost-benefit analysis in making decisions about the environment. One source of my criticism has been the mismatch between moral values and economic valuation. I have, however, tended to leave the moral values I have defended rather vaguely defined. In this paper, …

Ecosystem Services And The Public Trust Doctrine: Working Change From Within, James Salzman, J.B. Ruhl

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Domesticating The Exotic Species: International Biodiversity Law In Canada, Natasha Affolder

All Faculty Publications

While a significant body of international and regional agreements now addresses habitat preservation, wildlife protection, and biological diversity, these advances on the international level often fail to be effectively translated into domestic law. In this article, the author argues that international biodiversity law is being treated in Canada as "exotic". It is peppered into parties' submissions without a principled explanation of its role in Canadian law, receives little consideration from the courts, and must ultimately rely on non-legal means of enforcement. The author examines the jurisprudence dealing with four major biodiversity treaties. She notes that the judicial treatment of these …

Tourism In Antarctica: History, Current Challenges And Proposals For Regulation, Juan Y. Harcha

LLM Theses and Essays

Tourism in the Antarctic has experienced rapid growth throughout the last fifteen years with over 30,000 people visiting the white continent during the 2005 - 2006 season. Such expansion offers a host of new activities for visitors to explore this immense wilderness, yet it brings considerable unease over the future of Antarctica. As of 1961, issues concerning the white continent have been dealt with under the Antarctic Treaty System, which has provided the forum for the discussion of numerous measures. This paper looks into the history of tourism, analyzes the main challenges such industry poses, and attempts an assessment of …

Katrina's Lament: Reconstructing Federalism, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The subject of stormwater management raises threshold questions about the federal system. Is the regulation of stormwater runoff and the environmental pollution it causes within the federal government's legal jurisdiction? Is it a matter reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment? Or is it a joint responsibility and, if so, precisely how is federal and state authority shared? How does the delegation of power by states to local governments to regulate the use of privately owned land affect the federal-state division of power? What limits should there be on local control of land uses that cause “nonpoint source” pollution, …

Crimes Against Nature, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

It is a pleasure for me to be here at St. Thomas and to see so many great legal heroes ensconced in this university, including the president and so many others. As I was signing some copies of my book Crimes Against Nature, it occurred to me that the word “environment” does not appear in the book. I thought I would talk about that today. To me, the environment is the most critical battle because it is the most critical issue in our democracy. Democracy, really all government, is about how we distribute the goods of the land. The best …

Training Manual On International Environmental Law, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Without analyzing each of the hundreds of agreements and instruments in the field, this Training Manual seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the current body of environmental law. It is aimed at legal stakeholders from all backgrounds including government representatives, judges, university professors and students from both developed and developing countries, to enable them to more effectively participate in the global, regional and national efforts to preserve our Earth for future generations. Specific topics are first presented at the international level and then followed by extracts of national legislation showcasing real life examples of how national law today reflects …

Shifting Science, Considered Costs, And Static Statutes: The Interpretation Of Expansive Environmental Legislation, Jason J. Czarnezki

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Congress often passes expansive legislation, frequently environmental and public health regulatory statutes, where both the definition of those items being regulated and the mandate have significant breadth. How should these provisions be construed? While it is difficult to establish a model which determines whether to broadly or narrowly construe an expansive statutory provision, factors that impact this choice include the existence of express limitations on the mandate, understandings of congressional intent, the need to avoid regulation that might do more harm than good, the nature of the regulated item, and intervening circumstances such as new understandings in law, policy, or …

Bridging The Divide: Examining The Role Of The Public Trust In Protecting Coastal And Wetland Resources, Kim Diana Connolly

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Reflections On Air Capture: The Political Economy Of Active Intervention In The Global Environment; An Editorial Comment, Edward A. Parson

Articles

When global climate change came onto domestic and international policy agendas in the late 1980s, only two types of response were initially considered: reducing emissions by improving efficiencies or switching to lower or non-carbon energy sources; and adapting to the anticipated changes. Since that time the agenda of potential responses has been progressively expanded, principally by adding various ways to intervene in the global carbon cycle or the climate to break the connection between emissions of greenhouse gases and the resultant climate changes. Three types of these “intervening” responses are now, to varying degrees, present in policy debate: biological sequestration …

Regulation Of Emission Of Greenhouse Gases And Hazardous Air Pollutants From Motor Vehicles, Steven A.G. Davison

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Emergence Of Exacted Conservation Easements, Jessica Owley Lippmann

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The First Half Century Of Western Water Reform: Have We Kept Faith With The Rivers Of The West?, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Listening To All The Voices, Old And New: The Evolution Of Land Ownership In The Modern West, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

When Is Two A Crowd: The Impact Of Federal Action On State Environmental Regulation, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

This article seeks to identify the ways in which federal actions can influence state regulatory choices in the context of environmental policy. The federal government may directly influence state policy choices by preempting state policies or by inducing state cooperation through the use of various incentives and penalties for state action. The federal government may indirectly, and perhaps unintentionally, influence state policy choices as well. Federal policies may encourage greater state regulation by reducing the costs of initiating regulatory action or by placing issues on state policy agendas. Federal regulation may also discourage or even "crowd-out" state-level regulatory action by …

Monetizing The Benefits Of Risk And Environmental Regulation, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Should the benefits of risk and environmental regulations be monetized? For economists, this question is not controversial. Benefits of government policies have a value given by society's willingness to pay for these benefits, which by its very nature poses the valuation issue in monetary terms. Government agencies have likewise not shied away from monetizing these benefits. A contrary school of thought, however, has recently emerged, as reflected in the book by Frank Ackerman and Lisa Heinzerling, Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing. As the title of the book suggests, the authors oppose economists' attempts …

Rethinking The Great Lakes Compact, Mark Squillace

Publications

On December 13, 2005, the Governors and Premiers of the Great Lakes states and provinces signed a Compact and Agreement that commits the parties to a rigorous program to regulate individual water uses, with citizen suits to enforce the requirements. While the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact and companion Agreement are commendable in many respects, this Article argues that people who care about the future of the Great Lakes should urge policymakers to reject the current proposals and rethink the entire approach. The proposed compact is fundamentally flawed and will not achieve the ultimate stated goal of …

International Environmental Law: 2006 Annual Report, Jane C. Luxton, Lakshman Guruswamy, Kevin L. Doran

Publications

No abstract provided.

Management-Based Strategies For Improving Private Sector Environmental Performance, Cary Coglianese, Jennifer Nash

All Faculty Scholarship

Improvements in environmental quality depend in large measure on changes in private sector management. In recognition of this fact, government and industry have begun in recent years to focus directly on shaping the internal management practices of private firms. New management-based strategies can take many forms, but unlike conventional regulatory approaches they are linked by their distinctive focus on management practices, rather than on environmental technologies or emissions targets. This article offers the first sustained analysis of both public and private sector initiatives designed specifically to improve firms' environmental management. Synthesizing the results of a conference of leading scholars and …

Statutory Interpretation In The Era Of Oira, Lisa Heinzerling

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In recent years, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has asserted a remarkable degree of authority over administrative agencies' rulemaking processes. One of the ways in which OIRA has exercised power over agencies has been to foist upon them its own views about the requirements of the statutes under which they operate. The most notable trend in this area has been OIRA's insistence on converting technology-based environmental laws into cost-benefit laws. In OIRA's hands, for example, the Clean Water Act ("the Act") is being transformed from a technology- based regime …

Emergency Exemptions From Environmental Laws After Disasters, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Many environmental statutes had their origins in disasters. And when disasters strike, the environmental laws come into play in the response. Some have urged Congress to adopt emergency exemptions so that the environmental laws do not interfere with rescue and recovery.

This article explains how disasters helped create our current statutes, and then describes the role that environmental laws played in the immediate response to the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. It catalogs the multiple exemptions that already exist in the current environmental statutes and regulations and then summarizes the exemptions that were proposed after Hurricane Katrina.

Tierra Y Libertad: The Social Function Doctrine And Land Reform In Latin America, Thomas T. Ankersen, Thomas Ruppert

UF Law Faculty Publications

Latin America has been caught for centuries in a vicious cycle of land consolidation and land reform; the issue perennially resurfaces since concentration of land and associated resources results in conflict.' Latin American nations are among the world's leaders when it comes to the inequality of land distribution.

Land reform, or agrarian reform, as it is more commonly referred to in Latin America, is hardly a new phenomenon. As we will show, the need to develop a policy to redress the consolidation of lands by a powerful few and redistribute it in the name of equity and development has its …

The Law Of The Lakes: From Protectionism To Sustainability, Christine A. Klein

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article has a practical goal: to convince state lawmakers of the need to regulate in a comprehensive and evenhanded manner, avoiding short-sighted fixes or politically appealing shortcuts. To accomplish that goal, Part I focuses upon another region of the country-the Colorado River Basin-where residents have also undertaken the task of managing a water system that includes two nations(The United States and Mexico) and numerous states. Learning from the successes and failures of the resultant Law of the River, this Article derives guiding principles for the emerging Law of the Lakes. Part II makes a crucial distinction between protectionism and …

Embracing Uncertainty, Complexity, And Change: An Eco-Pragmatic Reinvention Of A First-Generation Environmental Law, Mary Jane Angelo

UF Law Faculty Publications

Recent scientific reports demonstrate that despite more than thirty years of environmental regulation, bird and wildlife species as well as ecosystem services, are in unprecedented decline. Pesticides are at least in part to blame for these profound declines. U.S. pesticide law has failed to carry out its mission of environmental protection. A number of recently-filed lawsuits assert that the registration of certain pesticides violates the federal Endangered Species Act. One of the great ironies of environmental law is that the ecological consequences of pesticide use, which fueled the environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely have been …

International Decisions–Guatemala Genocide Case, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.