Foiled By The Banks? How A Lender's Decision May Support Or Undermine A Jurisdiction's Environmental Policies That Promote Green Buildings, Darren Prum

Darren A. Prum

In a report from the United Nations Environmental Program that addressed climate change, the authors point out that the built environment in both emerging and developed countries accounts for more than forty percent of the global energy usage while also emitting at least one third of the world’s greenhouse gasses. They further assert that the built environment offers an unsurpassed opportunity to supply cost effective, lasting, and meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In response to such a call to action, many state and local governments turned to a variety of policies to ensure that the real estate developments within …

Gandhi’S Prophecy: Corporate Violence And A Mindful Law For Bhopal, Nehal A. Patel

Nehal A. Patel

AbstractOver thirty years have passed since the Bhopal chemical disaster began,and in that time scholars of corporate social responsibility (CSR) havediscussed and debated several frameworks for improving corporate responseto social and environmental problems. However, CSR discourse rarelydelves into the fundamental architecture of legal thought that oftenbuttresses corporate dominance in the global economy. Moreover, CSRdiscourse does little to challenge the ontological and epistemologicalassumptions that form the foundation for modern economics and the role ofcorporations in the world.I explore methods of transforming CSR by employing the thought ofMohandas Gandhi. I pay particular attention to Gandhi’s critique ofindustrialization and principle of swadeshi (self-sufficiency) …

Shared Sovereignty: The Role Of Expert Agencies In Environmental Law, Michael Blumm, Andrea Lang

Michael Blumm

Environmental law usually features statutory interpretation or administrative interpretation by a single agency. Less frequent is a close look at the mechanics of implementing environmental policy across agency lines. In this article, we offer such a look: a comparative analysis of five statutes and their approaches to sharing decision-making authority among more than one federal agency. We call this pluralistic approach to administrative decisionmaking “shared sovereignty.”

In this analysis, we compare implementation of the National Environmental Policy, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Federal Power Act. All of these statutes incorporate …

Vetoing Wetland Permits Under Section 404(C) Of The Clean Water Act: A History Of Inter-Federal Agency Controversy And Reform, Michael Blumm, Elisabeth D. Mering

Michael Blumm

For most of its four-decade history, section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act could have been considered to be a sleeper provision of environmental law. The proviso authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overrule permits for discharges of dredged or fill material issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) where necessary to ensure protection of fish and wildlife habitat, municipal water supplies, and recreational areas against unacceptable adverse effects. This authority of one federal agency to veto the decisions of another federal agency is quite unusual, perhaps unprecedented in environmental law. The exceptional nature of section 404(c) …

Green Building Geography Across The United States: Does Governmental Incentives Or Economic Growth Stimulate Construction?, Darren Prum, Tetsuo Kobayashi

Darren A. Prum

As green building activity continues to rise across the country, some state governments decided to create incentives that would motivate developers to voluntarily pursue third party certification for their real estate projects in order to assist in meeting sustainability and environmental goals. Despite the growing number of studies in green buildings, the geography of green buildings and sustainable construction only includes a few studies, which emphasize the lack of green building research from the spatial perspective and their relevance to public policies the lack of green building research from the spatial perspective and their relevance to public policies. This study …

The Commons, Capitalism, And The Constitution, George Skouras

George Skouras

Thesis Summary: the erosion of the Commons in the United States has contributed to the deterioration of community and uprooting of people in order to meet the dynamic demands of capitalism. This article suggests countervailing measures to help remedy the situation.

Local Governments As Modern Day Robin Hoods: Solving The Mortgage Crisis With Eminent Domain, Yasmany Barroso

Yasmany Barroso

Abstract

This article addresses one of the most critical, ongoing issues of the twenty-first century, the current mortgage crisis. This crisis is one of the worst disasters in American history, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. In response, the federal government has legislated fiercely, hoping to help struggling homeowners. However, many programs have failed to fix this problem.

This article flexes scholarly knowledge of the fifth amendment’s taking clause in proposing municipalities buy foreclosed homes to sell back to initial and prospective homeowners. The proposal is firmly rooted in reality, however, solving financing issues by further proposing that homeowners seek financing …

Something Rich And Strange: Progressive Land Use Regulation And The Takings Doctrine, Philip C. Dales

Philip C. Dales

ABSTRACT:

Something Rich and Strange: Progressive Zoning and the Takings Doctrine.

Philip Carter Dales

May, 2013

University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law

The list of municipalities adopting form-based codes continues to grow, with one study putting the number at over 250, including Miami, Denver, Cincinnati and other major cities around the United States. These codes represent land use regulation that is fundamentally different from traditional Euclidean zoning. Rather than prescribing allowable uses, FBCs focus on the governance of form, with the goal of ensuring predictable outcomes for the built environment and simplifying complex use-based zoning ordinances.

In …

Climate Change Adaptation And Coastal Property Rights: A Massachusetts Case Study, Lara D. Guercio

Lara D. Guercio

This Article examines how existing state laws, including coastal property law and public trust doctrines, are likely to create challenges for the implementation of adaptation strategies proposed to address the effects of climate change—specifically, accelerated sea level rise, increased coastal flooding and storm-related erosion—on coastlines and connected natural resource areas, such as beaches, coastal wetlands, and tidelands. The Article uses Massachusetts, with its highly evolved body of coastal property law and public trust doctrine, as a case study. Mindful of U.S. Supreme Court takings doctrine, the Article analyzes the likely legal challenges to climate change adaptation strategies recently proposed for …

Shifting Sands: A Meta-Theory For Public Access And Private Property Along The Coast, Melissa K. Scanlan

Melissa K. Scanlan

Over half the United States population currently lives near a coast. As shorelines are used by more people, developed by private owners, and altered by extreme weather, competition over access to water and beaches will intensify, as will the need for a clearer legal theory capable of accommodating competing private and public interests. One such public interest is to walk along the beach, which seems simple enough. However, beach walking often occurs on this ambulatory shoreline where public rights grounded in the public trust doctrine and private rights grounded in property ownership intersect. To varying degrees, each state has a …

Conserving A Place For Renewable Power, Jacob P. Byl

Jacob P. Byl

Promoting renewable power and conserving land are often conflicting goals because renewable power requires a lot of land. The conflict is becoming an important issue on lands encumbered by conservation easements. I argue that the current legal rule allowing oil and gas development, but not wind and solar development, on conserved land does not make sense in light of the threats of climate change. The best way to encourage renewable power while respecting the intent of landowners is to have the Internal Revenue Service promulgate rules that explicitly allow renewable power going forward and interpret existing easements with a set …

Regulatory Takings: Survey Of A Constitutional Culture, James Valvo

James Valvo

Fifth Amendment property protections under the Takings Clause have grown increasingly contentious as governing entities have used regulations to limit what property owners can do with their land. This paper profiles regulatory takings jurisprudence from Pennsylvania Coal, to Penn Central, to Nollan and Dolan, and Tahoe-Sierra. The paper also examines conceptual constructs that have shaped the field’s evolution, including: the doctrine’s origin, the nuisance exception, the changed circumstances argument, unconstitutional conditions, temporary takings and the denominator problem.

Greenbacks For Building Green: Does A Lender For Sustainable Construction Projects Need To Make Adjustments To Its Current Practices?, Darren Prum

Darren A. Prum

In the development of real property, the availability of money to secure construction resources becomes an important factor for success. The construction loan plays a central role in providing funds to erect a building on real property, but a lender faces numerous exposures that might result in a loss. In evaluating a project to determine its viability and to uncover any exposure it might present, a lender will conduct an extensive underwriting review process and will use mitigation techniques through the construction loan agreement and disbursement requirements to reduce the perceived risks to an acceptable business level, for those developments …

Our Own Private Sustainable Community: Are Green Covenants, Conditions, And Restrictions A Viable Alternative To A More Environmentally Sustainable Future For Homeowners?, Darren Prum, Robert Aalberts

Darren A. Prum

Residential and commercial property owners have sought for centuries to develop and enrich their physical environment through private land use planning. In more recent decades, residential owners residing in community interest communities have been particularly active in crafting an evolving array of deed restrictions contained in Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions( CC&R’s). CC&R’s, which are generally created by the CIC developer , are mutually binding and enforceable against all those who live or conduct business in self-selected residential subdivisions or commercial developments . Importantly, CC&R’s are monitored sometimes quite forcefully, under the watchful eye of an empowered planned development association.

Although …

The Next Green Issue: Considering Property Insurance For The Green Building, Darren A. Prum

Darren A. Prum

As government policies across the country try to encourage more environmentally friendly buildings, the next green issue facing the owners of the completed structure is obtaining the proper insurance coverage to protect their investment. A typical property insurance policy covers the costs to reconstruct or replace property damaged as the result of a casualty, so the Insurance Service Organization and other carriers offer specific green building endorsements in an effort to augment the underlying property policy. However, these buildings maintain unique characteristics, which becomes relevant to the owner and policy underwriter as well as other stakeholders like the holder of …

Which The Deader Hand? A Counter To The American Law Institute's Proposed Revival Of Dying Perpetuities Rules, Scott A. Shepard

Scott A. Shepard

Encouraged primarily by a fluke in federal estate and gift tax law, more than half of the states have either effectively or entirely abolished their rules against perpetuities in the past two decades. The American Law Institute, deeply troubled by this development, has adopted for its Third Restatement a proposed rule against perpetuities that would essentially prohibit conditional gifts to continue for the benefit of parties born more than two generations after the transferor.

The ALI’s efforts are misguided. The rule against perpetuities was the product of a legal, political and social age very different than our own. It was …

The Bonds That Tie: Will A Performance Bond Require That A Surety Deliver A Certified Green Building?, Darren Prum, Lorilee Medders

Darren A. Prum

In 2006, the city of Washington, D. C. passed landmark legislation that introduced green building requirements for various types of structures into the jurisdiction over a five-year period. A noteworthy aspect of the legislation directed construction projects within the district to purchase green performance bonds up to $3 million to guard against a privately owned project’s failure to meet its green building aspirations. In essence, this law placed the burden of guaranteeing compliance with the government’s policy upon the contractors and sureties of a green building project.

Following the passage of this act, confusion amongst the construction industry and sureties …

In Third Parties We Trust? The Growing Antitrust Impact Of Third-Party Green Building Certification Systems For State And Local Governments, Darren Prum, Robert Aalberts, Stephen Del Percio

Darren A. Prum

According to the American Institute of Architects, there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of municipalities with a green building program in place since 2007. And 24 of the country's 25 largest metropolitan areas are built around a city with green building legislation on its books. Reducing buildings' environmental impact is a noble - and critical - goal. But governments' reliance on private, third-party standard-setting organizations - and the rating systems that they promulgate - as the basis for that legislation may be legally problematic.

This Article reviews one of those potentially problematic bases: antitrust. In order …

Adverse Possession, Private-Zoning Waiver & Desuetude: Abandonment & Recapture Of Property And Liberty Interests, Scott A. Shepard

Scott A. Shepard

Adverse-possession doctrine labors under a pair of disabilities: a hesitancy by theorists to embrace the abandonment-and-recapture principle that informs the doctrine, and a substantial unwillingness of governments to abandon an antiquated and outmoded maxim shielding them from the doctrine’s important work. Removing these disabilities will allow a series of positive outcomes. First, it will demonstrate that all would-be adverse possessors, not just those acting “in good faith” or with possessory intent, should enjoy the fruits of the doctrine. Second, it will provide valuable additional means by which the public may monitor the performance of government employees, and additional discipline to …

Mitigating The Distributional Impacts Of Climate Change Policy, Tracey M. Roberts

Tracey M Roberts

Under both a cap-and-trade system and a greenhouse gas tax, the government will regulate energy suppliers and distributors, utility companies, and large manufacturers. These parties will bear the statutory incidence of the regulation. However, the financial impacts of regulating greenhouse gas emissions will be borne primarily by consumers. Consumers will bear the economic incidence of the regulation in the form of increased costs of gasoline, electricity, and home heating fuels and in increased consumer prices for all goods manufactured or distributed using fossil fuels. Greenhouse gas regulation will also generate significant revenue. This Article addresses the question of what should …

Federalism At The Cathedral: Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Inalienability Rules In Tenth Amendment Infrastructure, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

As climate change, war in the Middle East, and the price of oil focus American determination to move beyond fossil fuels, nuclear power has resurfaced as a possible alternative. But energy reform efforts may be stalled by an unlikely policy deadlock stemming from a structural technicality in an aging Supreme Court decision: New York v. United States, which set forth the Tenth Amendment anti-commandeering rule and ushered in the New Federalism era in 1992. This dry technicality also poses ongoing regulatory obstacles in such critical interjurisdictional contexts as stormwater management, climate regulation, and disaster response. Such is the enormous power …