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Full-Text Articles in Law
Community Empowerment In Decarbonization: Nepa’S Role, Wyatt G. Sassman
Community Empowerment In Decarbonization: Nepa’S Role, Wyatt G. Sassman
Washington Law Review
This Article addresses a potential tension between two ambitions for the transition to clean energy: reducing regulatory red-tape to quickly build out renewable energy, and leveraging that build-out to empower low-income communities and communities of color. Each ambition carries a different view of communities’ role in decarbonization. To those focused on rapid build-out of renewable energy infrastructure, communities are a potential threat who could slow or derail renewable energy projects through opposition during the regulatory process. To those focused on leveraging the transition to clean energy to advance racial and economic justice, communities are necessary partners in the key decisions …
Held V. State, Alec D. Skuntz
Held V. State, Alec D. Skuntz
Public Land & Resources Law Review
On March 13, 2020, a group of 16 Montana children and teenagers filed a complaint in the First Judicial District, Lewis and Clark County against the State of Montana and several state agencies. These young Plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief against Defendants for their complicity in continuing to extract and release harmful amounts of greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change. Plaintiffs premised their argument on the Montana Constitution’s robust environmental rights and protections. The Defendants filed a motion to dismiss which the District Court granted in-part and denied in-part. Held provides a roadmap for future litigation by elucidating …
Highway Culverts, Salmon Runs, And The Stevens Treaties: A Century Of Litigating Pacific Northwest Tribal Fishing Rights, Ryan Hickey
Public Land & Resources Law Review
Isaac Stevens, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs and Governor of Washington Territory, negotiated a series of treaties with Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest during 1854 and 1855. A century and a half later in 2001, the United States joined 21 Indian tribes in filing a Request for Determination in the United States District Court for the District of Washington. Plaintiffs alleged the State of Washington had violated those 150-year-old treaties, which remained in effect, by building and maintaining culverts under roads that prevented salmon passage. This litigation eventually reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which held in favor …
Collaboration Through Nepa: Achieving A Social License To Operate On Federal Public Lands, Temple Stoellinger, L. Steven Smutko, Jessica M. Western
Collaboration Through Nepa: Achieving A Social License To Operate On Federal Public Lands, Temple Stoellinger, L. Steven Smutko, Jessica M. Western
Public Land & Resources Law Review
As demand and consumption of natural gas increases, so will drilling operations to extract the natural gas on federal public lands. Fueled by the shale gas revolution, natural gas drilling operations are now frequently taking place, not only in the highly documented urban settings, but also on federal public lands with high conservation value. The phenomenon of increased drilling in sensitive locations, both urban and remote, has sparked increased public opposition, requiring oil and gas producers to reconsider how they engage the public. Oil and gas producers have increasingly deployed the concept of a social license to operate to gain …
Public-Private Conservation Agreements And The Greater Sage-Grouse, Justin R. Pidot
Public-Private Conservation Agreements And The Greater Sage-Grouse, Justin R. Pidot
Public Land & Resources Law Review
In 2015, the Obama Administration announced its conservation plans for the greater sage-grouse, an iconic bird of the intermountain west.Political leadership at the time described those plans as the “largest landscape-level conservation effort in U.S. history,”and they served as the foundation for a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) that a listing of the bird was not warranted under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). The Trump Administration appears poised to substantially amend the plans, although an array of interested parties have urged that the plans be left intact. Regardless of the outcome of this debate, conservation of …
Streamlining The Production Of Clean Energy: Proposals To Reform The Hydroelectricity Licensing Process, Travis Kavulla, Laura Farkas
Streamlining The Production Of Clean Energy: Proposals To Reform The Hydroelectricity Licensing Process, Travis Kavulla, Laura Farkas
Public Land & Resources Law Review
Hydroelectric power is an efficient and clean source of power. In an era when air emissions dominate public concern about the environmental effects of the energy sector, it is a paradox that among the most highly regulated energy projects are hydroelectric dams, which do not combust fuel. This is partly due to a failure of successive statutory enactments,which have transformed hydroelectric licensing from a regulatory “one-stop shop” with a single regulator, to a process chained to a bewilderingnumber of often conflicting regulatory agencies, often riven with delay. Hydroelectric licensing has also failed because its capacious standard of review encourages special-interest …
Anaerobic Digestion As A Renewable Energy Source And Waste Management Technology: What Must Be Done For This Technology To Realize Success In The United States?, Blake Anthony Klinkner
Anaerobic Digestion As A Renewable Energy Source And Waste Management Technology: What Must Be Done For This Technology To Realize Success In The United States?, Blake Anthony Klinkner
University of Massachusetts Law Review
Anaerobic digestion technology uses microorganisms to consume waste and produce methane gas, which serves as a source of clean renewable energy. Although anaerobic digestion is widely used for both purposes throughout the rest of the world, it is rarely applied in the United States. This Article explains the scientific processes of anaerobic digestion. It then discusses how anaerobic digestion has been used throughout history and among societies as a waste management technology and source of renewable energy. The Article continues by addressing the legal aspects of anaerobic digestion, examining the reasons why it is not widely used in the United …
Power To The People: Why We Need Full Federal Preemption Of Electrical Transmission Regulation, Max Hensley
Power To The People: Why We Need Full Federal Preemption Of Electrical Transmission Regulation, Max Hensley
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
State and federal governments have made significant investments in the development and installation of renewable energy technology. However, further increases in renewable power use have been stymied by the continued mismatch between the national interest in connecting consumers with utility-scale wind and solar installations and state and local control over the siting of electrical transmission lines. Because renewable power potential is often located far from consumers, transmission lines must cross multiple jurisdictions whose local interests have tended to prevent or significantly delay development. This Note analyzes that disconnect, reviews academic and legislative proposals to overcome it, and proposes a way …
Energy Subsidies, Market Distortion, And A Free Market Alternative, Hans Biebl
Energy Subsidies, Market Distortion, And A Free Market Alternative, Hans Biebl
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat
Gas and coal are cheap. They are cheap because the U.S. government subsidizes their production. The result is that the marketplace does not recognize the true cost of fossil fuels. Without the subsidies, Americans—for the first time in nearly a hundred years—would experience the cost of unsubsidized fossil fuels. In a newly competitive marketplace, renewable sources of energy would be in a better position to compete. Without gas and coal subsidies, clean energy producers, who have not been able to compete with the low price of fossil fuels, might be more willing to invest in “clean, renewable, and more energy …
New Energy Geopolitics?: China, Renewable Energy, And The "Greentech Race", Joel B. Eisen
New Energy Geopolitics?: China, Renewable Energy, And The "Greentech Race", Joel B. Eisen
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Commentators believe that programs in China promoting development of new renewable energy capacity have produced astonishing achievements in a short period of time. Evoking the "space race" between the United States and the U.S.S.R. after the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957, observers contend that the United States and China are in a "greentech race" to secure international leadership in the development and deployment of renewable energy. As U.S. Energy Secretary Chu has put it, many believe this is a modern "Sputnik moment." This Article finds that China's programs and initiatives are indeed leading to considerable success, but, using …
The Legal-Political Barriers To Ramping Up To Hydro, Dan Tarlock
The Legal-Political Barriers To Ramping Up To Hydro, Dan Tarlock
Chicago-Kent Law Review
Hydroelectric energy is the oldest major source of non-carbon, renewable energy and is the only conventional renewable resource in the current energy mix. Increased hydro capacity would seem to be a key element of any United States energy policy designed to promote the greater use of renewable resources. However, for several decades hydro has been perceived as a mature, fully developed technology. This article argues that any effort to stimulate substantial new hydro capacity will face a series of environmental legal and policy constraints. Efforts to adapt to global climate change will further complicate efforts to increase hydro electric generation. …
State Efforts To Promote Renewable Energy: Tripping The Horse With The Cart?, Benjamin K. Sovacool, Christopher Cooper
State Efforts To Promote Renewable Energy: Tripping The Horse With The Cart?, Benjamin K. Sovacool, Christopher Cooper
Sustainable Development Law & Policy
No abstract provided.