Law Commons^™

Agenda: Opportunities And Obstacles To Reducing The Environmental Footprint Of Natural Gas Development In The Uintah Basin, Utah State University. Bingham Entrepreneurship And Energy Research Center, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center. Intermountain Oil And Gas Bmp Project, Houston Advanced Research Center. Environmentally Friendly Drilling Systems Program

Opportunities and Obstacles to Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Natural Gas Development in Uintah Basin (October 14)

A public workshop to discuss “Opportunities and Constraints to Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Natural Gas Development” was held in Vernal, Utah on October 14, 2010 at the Vernal campus of Utah State University. The workshop was sponsored by Utah State University, The Bingham Energy Research Center; The University of Colorado Natural Resources Law Center; and the Houston Advanced Research Center, Environmentally Friendly Drilling Program.

The meeting included presentations and panel discussions on:

• Trends and environmental issues related to natural gas development
• Examples of environmental innovations being used in the Uintah Basin
• Examples of innovation & tools from outside the …

Slides: Acts: Anadarko Completion Transport System, Jeff Dufresne

Opportunities and Obstacles to Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Natural Gas Development in Uintah Basin (October 14)

Presenter: Jeff Dufresne, Completions Manager, Anadarko Corporation

18 slides

Slides: A Working Model For Oil And Gas Produced Water Treatment, Lee Schafer

Opportunities and Obstacles to Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Natural Gas Development in Uintah Basin (October 14)

Presenter: Lee Schafer, Integrity Production Services, Inc., for Anticline Disposal LLC

11 slides

Slides: Assessing Opportunities And Barriers To Reducing The Environmental Footprint Of Oil And Gas Development In Utah, Douglas Jackson-Smith, Lorien Belton, Brian Gentry, Gene Theodori

Opportunities and Obstacles to Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Natural Gas Development in Uintah Basin (October 14)

Presenter: Dr. Douglas Jackson-Smith, Utah State University--Logan Campus

37 slides

Estamos Bien En El Refugio Los 33 Una Historia De Las Organizaciones Mineras Y Su Lucha Por La Seguridad En La Minería., Bram Sable-Smith

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This investigation focuses on the history of security in the mining sector of Chile, and attempts to do so from the perspective of the miners’ and workers’ unions. The aim of the investigation was to explore specifically the changes coming regarding security in mining in the aftermath of the accident in the San José mine of August 5, 2010; changes in the government, changes in the country’s legislation, and what role the workers’ organizations are playing in these changes, and what changes it is that they are asking for.

At the end of the investigation it still remained to be …

Environmental Law At Maryland, No. 30, Fall 2010

Environmental Law at Maryland

No abstract provided.

Evolving Regulation In The New Energy Boom States, Hannah J. Wiseman

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

The European Union And International Maritime Organization: Eu’S External Influence On The Prevention Of Vessel-Source Pollution, Nengye Liu, Frank Maes

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The European Union (EU), with its 27 Member States, has a coastline 70, 000 km along two oceans and four seas. Its well-being is therefore inextricably linked with the sea.' Europe plays a major role in today's shipping world, 41% of the world's total fieet (in dwt) is beneficially controlled by European companies.^ Ensuring that the use of the marine environment is genuinely sustainable is a prerequisite for the EU's sea-related industries to be competitive.

Brief Of Amici Curiae - Chamber Of Commerce V Epa, Helen H. Kang

Environmental Law and Justice Clinic

BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE CLIMATE SCIENTISTS JAMES HANSEN, MARK JACOBSON, MICHAEL KLEEMAN, BENJAMIN SANTER, AND JAMES ZACHOS IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENT ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY.

The Effect Of Allowing Pollution Offsets With Imperfect Enforcement, Hilary A. Sigman, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

Several pollution control regimes, including climate change policies, allow polluters in one sector subject to an emissions cap to offset excessive emissions in that sector with pollution abatement in another sector. The government may often find it more costly to verify offset claims than to verify compliance with emissions caps, and concerns about difficulties in enforcement may lead regulators to restrict the use of offsets. In this paper, we demonstrate that allowing offsets may increase pollution abatement and reduce illegal pollution, even if the government has a fixed enforcement budget. We explore the circumstances that may make it preferable to …

South/North Exchange Of 2009 - The Challenges Of Climate Change Regulation For Governments On The Political Left: A Comparison Of Brazilian And United States Promises And Actions, Colin Crawford, Solange Teles Da Silva, Kevin Morris

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.

International Greenhouse Gas Offsets Under The Clean Air Act, Nathan D. Richardson

Faculty Publications

Offsets, and in particular international offsets, have been advanced as an important tool in climate policy, capable of significantly reducing the costs of emissions reductions. As attention turns to the existing CAA as a potential vehicle for general reduction of GHG emissions, an important question is whether regulation under the statute is compatible with international offsets. Certain regulatory programs under the CAA are likely candidates for GHG regulation, but many of them are legally incompatible with international offsets. Those programs that might permit use of international offsets have other problems that make them unpopular choices for GHG regulation. To the …

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Potential Insurance Coverage Implications, Lynn K. Neuner, W. Nicholson Price

Articles

More than 300 lawsuits have already been filed in Louisiana, Florida, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama against BP and other corporations involved in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, including Transocean, Halliburton, and Cameron, with thousands more anticipated. This article briefly addresses the contours of the coverage lawsuit already filed against BP and other coverage disputes we may see in the future.

Taxation As Regulation: Carbon Tax, Health Care Tax, Bank Tax And Other Regulatory Taxes, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah

Law & Economics Working Papers

This paper addresses three questions: 1. Is regulation a legitimate goal for taxation? 2. Which tax is best suited for regulation? 3. Would it be better to allocate just one goal per tax among the major taxes (individual and corporate income tax and VAT)? It then analyzes the proposed bank tax and the enacted health care tax as regulatory taxes, and concludes that the first is desirable (as is a carbon tax) but the second is not.

The Icj And The Future Of Transboundary Harm Disputes: A Preliminary Analysis Of The Case Concerning Aerial Herbicide Spraying (Ecuador V. Colombia), Robert Esposito

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.

From Ship To Shore: Reforming The National Contingency Plan To Improve Protections For Oil Spill Cleanup Workers, Rebecca Bratspies, Alyson Flournoy, Thomas Mcgarity, Sidney A. Shapiro, Rena I. Steinzor, Matthew Shudtz

Faculty Scholarship

Eleven workers died on April 20, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform exploded beneath them. Since then, tens of thousands of workers have toiled under difficult conditions to stop the leak and clean up the mess. For these workers, the spill is more than an environmental and economic disaster; it poses straightforward and serious risks to their health and safety. Oil is toxic, as are the dispersants used liberally by BP to contain it. BP’s foul up is not the first significant oil spill in the nation’s history, nor even the first in the Gulf. The oil companies …

Peace Parks For Mountain Forests: The Law And Policy Of Transforming Conflict To Stewardship, Elaine C. Hsiao

Dissertations & Theses

Peace parks provide a land ethic that transcends borders and seeks to stabilize tensions between bordering States, honoring the unity of biosphere systems in its efforts to achieve peace, conservation and cooperation. In theory, peace parks recognize that humans and the biosphere are one and that natural resources, just as cultural resources, must be collaboratively protected. In the cases of inhabited border regions, peace park principles of holistic conservation, cooperation and peace require that local communities be incorporated into park management. I posit that this is all the more true for frontier communities in regions of conflict, weak governance or …

Re-Examining Acts Of God, Jill M. Fraley

Scholarly Articles

For more than three centuries, tort law has included the notion of an act of God as something caused naturally, beyond both man's anticipation and control. Historically, the doctrine applied to extraordinary manifestations of the forces of nature, including floods, earthquakes, blizzards, and hurricanes. Despite the significance of the doctrine, particularly in large-scale disasters, scholars rarely engage the act of God defense critically. However, recently, the doctrine has received more substantial criticism. Denis Binder argued that the doctrine should be repudiated as merely a restatement of existing negligence principles Joel Eagle criticized the doctrine, suggesting that it should not exclude …

Baselines Newsletter, No. 6, Summer/Fall 2010, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Baselines: The Natural Resources Law Center Newsletter (2007-2011)

No abstract provided.

Power, Exit Costs, And Renegotiation In International Law, Timothy L. Meyer

Scholarly Works

Scholars have long understood that the instability of power has ramifications for compliance with international law. Scholars have not, however, focused on how states’ expectations about shifting power affect the initial design of international agreements. In this paper, I integrate shifting power into an analysis of the initial design of both the formal and substantive aspects of agreements. I argue that a state expecting to become more powerful over time incurs an opportunity cost by agreeing to formal provisions that raise the cost of exiting an agreement. Exit costs - which promote the stability of legal rules - have distributional …

Implications Of A Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard: Will It Supplement Or Supplant Existing State Inititives?, James M. Van Nostrand, Anne Marie Hirschberger

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Conservation Easements And Adaptive Management, Jesse Richardson

Law Faculty Scholarship

The perpetual nature of conservation easements makes adaptive management difficult on easement property. Various easement provisions may be used to incorporate adaptive management principles into a conservation easement, but various factors, including state statutory requirements and Internal Revenue Code requirements for deductibility, limit the flexibility of management on conservation easement lands. Jesse Richardson discusses how conservation easements limit implementation of adaptive management principles on protected lands. Case studies of conservation easements that now fail to fulfill the original conservation purpose, but are locked into perpetual conservation, illustrate the limitations of conservation easements. Richardson also discusses likely future conflicts between conservation …

Ecosystem Services And Federal Public Lands: Start-Up Policy Questions And Research Needs, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Essay, based on my presentation at Duke Law School's 2009 symposium, Next Generation Conservation: The Government's Role in Emerging Ecosystem Service Markets, briefly examines this emerging policy front and proposes a set of key policy questions, research needs, and options for building on the policy work that has been done to date. Part I outlines the basic context for thinking about the role federal public lands might play in the management of ecosystem services, and why using the ecosystem services concept in public land policy is worth considering. Part II proposes several key research paths that must be addressed …

Design Principles For Carbon Emissions Reduction Programs, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Paul C. Stern, Gerald T. Gardner, Thomas Dietz, Jonathan M. Gilligan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The goal, articulated by President Obama in 2009, of reducing U.S. carbon emissions 17% from the 2005 level by 2020 iseminently achievable without new technology or appreciable sacrifice by energy users. However, achieving it will in part require sophisticated energy efficiency and conservation programs. To overcome institutional and behavioral barriers, these programs will need to implement six principles of effective design derived from 30 years of behavioral and social science research. We focus on the household sector, but believe our general conclusions likely apply to other sectors as well.

We recently developed an analysis for the household sector--energy use in …

See No Evil - Revisiting Early Visions Of The Social Responsibility Of Business: Adolf A. Berle's Contribution To Contemporary Conversations, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

This Article situates Adolf A. Berle's contribution to the field of corporate law in the context of current debates over the alleged complicity of multinational corporations in international human rights violations. Specifically, this Article revisits some central insights offered by Berle and Gardiner C. Means in The Modern Corporation and Private Property and reconsiders what conducting business consciously across borders requires in the context of a governance gap generated by economic globalization. Further, this Article considers how both ownership and control are well situated to ensure that business conduct becomes better aligned with a growing consciousness that business organizations must …

Invasive Species And Public Investment In The Green Economy, Invasive Species Advisory Committee

National Invasive Species Council

Invasive Species and Public Investment in the Green Economy, approved by ISAC on June 24, 2010

ISSUE

Invasive species are intricately linked to the economy. Trade, travel, and transport facilitate their spread. Invasive species management requires extensive human and financial resources. The impacts of invasive species can substantially undermine economic growth and sustainable development. United States Executive Order (EO) 13112 defines invasive species as “alien [non-native] species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health” and states that Federal agencies should …“not authorize, fund, or carry out actions that are likely …

Marine Bioinvasions And Climate Change, James T. Carlton, Sandra C. Lindstrom, Celia M. Smith, Jennifer E. Smith

National Invasive Species Council

BACKGROUND

Invasive species are second only to habitat destruction as the greatest cause of species endangerment and global biodiversity loss. Invasive species can cause severe and permanent damage to the ecosystems they invade. Consequences of invasion include competition with or predation upon native species, hybridization, carrying or supporting harmful pathogens and parasites that may affect wildlife and human health, disturbing ecosystem function through alteration of food webs and nutrient recycling rates, acting as ecosystem engineers and altering habitat structure, and degradation of the aesthetic quality of our natural resources. In many cases we may not fully know the native animals …

Investment Promotion Agencies And Sustainable Fdi: Moving Toward The Fourth Generation Of Investment Promotion, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment, World Association Of Investment Promotion Agencies

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In April and May 2010, CCSI supported WAIPA to conduct its annual survey. This report, Investment Promotion Agencies and Sustainable FDI: Moving toward the Fourth Generation of Investment Promotion, benchmarks the responses of IPAs regarding sustainable FDI and its four dimensions (economic development, environmental sustainability, social development, governance) and finds, among other things, that these are unevenly addressed by investment promotion strategies and investment incentives. The report also draws attention to the desirability of attracting sustainable FDI, rather than focusing on volume of investment alone.

In 2017, CCSI also helped the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA) to conduct …

Implementing The Behavioral Wedge: Designing And Adopting Effective Carbon Emissions Reduction Programs, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Paul C. Stern, Gerald T. Gardner, Thomas Dietz, Jonathan M. Gilligan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The limited progress of the recent Copenhagen climate negotiations and domestic legislative activity suggests that the time is ripe to identify additional politically viable, low-cost, nonintrusive strategies to reduce carbon emissions. Laws and policies that induce changes in household technology use and adoption are one such strategy. This "behavioral wedge" strategy can be pursued in the near term. The resulting emissions reductions will buy time for a stronger public consensus to emerge on the need for more costly carbon mitigation measures and will complement the addtional measures after they are adopted. In short, the case for the behavioral wedge is …

Global Warming Advocacy Science: A Cross Examination, Jason S. Johnston

All Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholarship has come to accept as true the various pronouncements of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other scientists who have been active in the movement for greenhouse gas (ghg) emission reductions to combat global warming. The only criticism that legal scholars have had of the story told by this group of activist scientists – what may be called the climate establishment – is that it is too conservative in not paying enough attention to possible catastrophic harm from potentially very high temperature increases. This paper departs from such faith in the climate establishment by comparing the …