Law Commons^™

The Walking Dead Or Weekend At Bernie’S? How The Public Trust Doctrine Threatens Alternative Energy Development, Michael Julius Motta Jr.

Washington and Lee Journal of Energy, Climate, and the Environment

One of the oldest doctrines of environmental law, the public trust doctrine, is sufficiently ambiguous that it risks threatening widespread adoptions of alternative energy sources such as wind energy. Because of this, the public trust doctrine threatens the protection of the environment in the name of protection of the environment. Yet, the public trust doctrine and future energy policy should be complementary and not exclusionary of each other. In light of this, whether an agency has public trust authority should be determined based on six factors: the legal authority of state fiduciaries; due diligence by state fiduciaries in determining if …