Law Commons^™

Responsibility And Liability For Environmental Damage Under International Law, Sompong Sucharitkul

Publications

Replies to a questionnaire.

The Warning Game: Evaluating Warnings Under California's Proposition 65, Clifford Rechtschaffen

Publications

In 1986, California voters overwhelmingly approved the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, an initiative better known as Proposition 65. Voters passed the initiative to address the failure of government institutions to protect Californians from health threats posed by hazardous chemicals. Specifically, voters declared their rights to safe drinking water, to information about chemical exposures, and to strict enforcement of toxics laws. The statute has received extraordinary national attention for its innovative regulatory approaches, and has been alternatively labeled revolutionary and wildly irresponsible.

This Article analyzes how Proposition 65's warning requirement has fared in practice. Proposition 65 …

Uproar At Dancing Rabbit Creek: Battling Over Race, Class & The Environment, Colin Crawford

Publications

For the first five years of the 1990's, Noxubee County, Mississippi experienced a deeply divisive battle over the proposed siting there of one of the nation's biggest toxic waste dump and incineration facilities. Noxubee County, which is nearly 70% African-American, is also desperately poor. The fight over the proposed waste facility was in part a question of jobs versus environmental protection yet, as the selection below suggests, the waste fight was also influenced by long-standing animosities and social divisions-factors that, in my view, have been insufficiently appreciated by environmental justice activists and environmental lawyers alike.

Analyzing Evidence Of Environmental Justice: A Suggestion For Professor Been, Colin Crawford

Publications

One effect of the environmental justice movement has been to draw attention to the prejudices inherent in some modem environmental policies. These prejudices are most apparent when analyzing the location of hazardous waste facilities throughout the country. Several recent environmental justice studies have debated whether the location of these facilities has a direct correlation to the percentage of minorities in the surrounding areas.

This article critiques some of the methodology of these recent studies, most notably that of Professor Vicki Been, to determine the rationale governing the placement of hazardous waste facilities. Furthermore, this article suggests that researchers should expand …

Medical Monitoring And The Future Of Cercla: Reinvigorating The Superfund Law's Consequential Purpose, Colin Crawford

Publications

The Article advances in three main parts. Part II gives a brief overview of the reasons why most of the legal and transactional time, attention, and money spent during CERCLA's first fifteen years focused on who should pay for hazardous waste cleanup, and how much parties should pay once identified. The section briefly examines some of the understandable reasons why this occurred, but then argues that a revised CERCLA will be more effective if it concentrates instead on what costs should be covered. Part II concludes by demonstrating that such a re-focus would reflect CERCLA's original, radically consequentialist design. Part …

Community Guide To Environmental & Occupational Safety Laws - Part I - Right To Know Laws: How To Obtain Information About Environmental Hazards In Your Community & Workplace

Environmental Law and Justice Clinic

The Environmental Law and Justice Clinic ("ELJC") and the Women's Employment Rights Clinic ("WERC") of Golden Gate University School of Law developed this community guide to assist you and your community in addressing environmental pollution and occupational safety concerns. It explains several state and federal environmental and workers' safety laws, and provides an overview of several governmental agencies responsible for enforcing these laws. We hope you will find this community guide useful, such as when you want to identify and contact a governmental agency, obtain information about an environmental hazard in your neighborhood or workplace, participate in an environmental decision-making …

Africa And The Environment, Christian N. Okeke

Publications

No abstract provided.

Regulatory Reinvention And Project Xl: Does The Emperor Have Any Clothes?, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unfunded Environmental Mandates And The "New (New) Federalism": Devolution, Revolution, Or Reform, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Resource Law Notes Newsletter, No. 36, Winter Issue, Jan. 1996, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Resource Law Notes: The Newsletter of the Natural Resources Law Center (1984-2002)

No abstract provided.

The Mescalero Apache Indians And Monitored Retrievable Storage Of Spent Nuclear Fuel: A Study In Environmental Ethics, Noah M. Sachs

Law Faculty Publications

The proposal of the Mescalero Apache Indians of New Mexico to host a nuclear waste storage facility raised difficult questions about political sovereignty, environmental justice, and democratic consent. While the proposal had numerous drawbacks and deserved to be opposed, many of the arguments used against it were conceptually flawed and paternalistic. Arguments decrying bribery of a poor community were particularly weak, while those criticizing targeting of Indian tribes by the United States government and coercion of tribal members by the Mescalero leadership had more merit. The core ethical arguments should be separated from the rhetoric so that policy makers, Native …

The Proposal To Split The Ninth Circuit, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Individuals and organizations concerned about natural resources should be aware of the recent controversial proposal to divide the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. During the first session of the 104th Congress in the fall of 1995, the United States Senate Judiciary Committee approved Senate Bill 956, a measure that would establish a new Twelfth Circuit consisting of Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, and that would leave California, Hawaii, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Ninth Circuit. The Judiciary Committee vote was important for two reasons: the circuit's division could substantially affect …

Summary Of The United States Seminar On Our National Environmental Laws, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

My objective today is to summarize the discussion that took place at a seminar we held in the United States which described and evaluated our nation's environmental protection laws. The purpose of that seminar was to draw from that experience lessons that should help us, and perhaps Argentina, as we both consider how to improve the laws that affect natural resource use and conservation in our countries.

Solid And Hazardous Waste Management And Remediation: Prospects For The Future, David L. Markell

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Preliminary Thoughts On Future Policy Directions For The Management Of Solid And Hazardous Waste, David L. Markell

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Environmental Law At Maryland, No. 4, Winter 1996

Environmental Law at Maryland

No abstract provided.

Malpractice And Environmental Law: Should Environmental Law "Specialists" Be Worried?, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article examines the field of environmental law as a potential minefield for malpractice claims given its complex and dynamic nature. The article outlines principles for malpractice law applied to environmental law, based on malpractice principles applied in the tax and patent fields.

Symposium Introduction: 25th Anniversary Of The New York State Department Of Environmental Conservation: Past And Future Challenges And Directions, David L. Markell

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Lessons From The New York City Watershed Agreement, David L. Markell

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Square Pegs And Round Holes: Does Sentencing For Environmental Crimes Fit Within The Guidelines?, Lucia A. Silecchia, Michael J. Malinowski

Scholarly Articles

This article presents an overview of the Proposed Guidelines and assesses their potential to improve both the existing sentencing scheme and, more importantly, the environmental behavior of corporate citizens. This analysis concludes that, while the Proposed Guidelines improve current haphazard sentencing practices, it is difficult to predict their efficacy in furthering environmental policy. The fundamental problem is that traditional criminal sanctions are not easily applied to non-traditional offenders committing non-traditional offenses. Rather than expressing optimism about the Proposed Guidelines, this paper suggests that the behavior of corporations could be modified more efficiently through non-criminal incentives coupled with increased criminal prosecution …

Ounces Of Prevention And Pounds Of Cure: Developing Sound Policies For Environmental Compliance Programs, Lucia A. Silecchia

Scholarly Articles

In the 1990s, when criminal enforcement of American environmental statutes became more widespread, and the consequences of violations potentially more severe, the creation of effective environmental compliance programs became a priority for the regulated community. In previous years, creation of such programs could have been viewed merely as a responsible option to assist corporations in achieving or maintaining reputations as good corporate citizens.

However, when the 1990s ushered in increased criminal prosecution of environmental violators, the stakes were raised significantly and the motives for creating environmental compliance plans changed. Such plans became important not only as a way to prevent …

The Supreme Court And The Endangered Species Act (Symposium: The Supreme Court And Local Government Law: 1994-95 Term), Leon D. Lazer

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Green Helmets: A Conceptual Framework For Security Council Authority In Environmental Emergencies, Linda A. Malone

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Fitness Of Law: Using Complexity Theory To Describe The Evolution Of Law And Society And Its Practical Meaning For Democracy, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article is the second in my series of articles exploring the application of complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory to legal systems. Building on the model outlined in the first installment (in the Duke Law Journal), this work develops an evolutionary theory of legal systems as CAS. It suggests that long-term fitness of the legal system will require use of innovative, adaptive legal institutions and instruments.

Fusing Economic And Environmental Policy: The Need For Framework Laws In The United States And Argentina, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In an effort to discover the best legal strategies to respond to these new challenges, seminars were conducted among experts in economic development and environmental protection in both the United States and Argentina. The observations and recommendations of these experts have been summarized and published and will be referenced as appropriate. This article attempts to synthesize what was learned in these two seminars, the research conducted in preparation for them, and the ongoing discussion among the participants. It begins with a summary of the forces in both countries that call for a change in the legal system, shows how these …

The National Land Use Policy Act, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Professor Miller talked about a particular road that we traveled beginning in the 1970s. Professor Robinson discussed a different road that we traveled when we adopted the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1969. I would like to talk about the road not traveled, a road that led in the direction that Professor Miller just charted. We considered a different more comprehensive approach in the early 1970s when our national environmental policies were being formed. The time may be right to reconsider what we then narrowly rejected, both here and in Argentina.

Legal Issues Presented By A Pilot International Greenhouse Gas (Ghg) Trading System, Jonathan B. Wiener, Richard B. Stewart, Philippe Sands

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"Brownfields Of Dreams?": Challenges And Limits Of Voluntary Cleanup Programs And Incentives, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

As one of the most important current topics in environmental law, the redevelopment of abandoned or underutilized urban properties, better known as brownfields, continues to generate much discussion and debate. Because most agree that abandoned sites located in aging areas and the accompanying exodus of industry to the suburbs are undesirable, the federal government and many state governments have created programs to encourage the redevelopment of these industrial properties. But often overlooked by the advocates of such programs are the difficult political, scientific, and moral questions associated with redevelopment. In this insightful article, Professor Eisen provides the most comprehensive discussion …

Tax Deduction Of Hazardous Waste Cleanup Costs: Harmonizing Federal Tax And Environmental Policies, Jeffrey M. Gaba

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The issue of the deductibility of environmental cleanup costs involves the complex and painful intersection of tax and environmental law. The basic issue is whether environmental remediation costs may be immediately deducted as ordinary and necessary expenses or whether they must they be capitalized as improvements to land. A recent revenue ruling by the IRS, Rev. Rul. 94-38, addresses a relatively simple situation but basically leaves the most difficult issues unresolved.

This article discusses whether cleanup expenses may be immediately deducted when the payments were made by the current landowner and 1) the contamination was caused and cleaned up by …

The Attraction And Limits Of Textualism: The Supreme Court Decision In Pud No. 1 Of Jefferson County V. Washington Dep't Of Ecology, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

During its 1993 Term, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to consider the interaction between two federal statutory schemes: the Federal Power Act (FPA), which provides that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has the authority to regulate and license hydropower projects, and the Clean Water Act (CWA), which provides that states have the authority to adopt water quality standards and that federal law will impose and enforce those standards in regulating emissions into, and the quality of, waters of the United States. The tension created by these two statutes lies not only between federal agencies, but more importantly, between …