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Columbia Law School

Faculty Scholarship

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Environmental protection

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Law

Making America A Better Place For All: Sustainable Development Recommendations For The Biden Administration, John C. Dernbach, Scott E. Schang, Robert W. Adler, Karol Boudreaux, John Bouman, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, Kimberly Brown, Mikhail Chester, Michael B. Gerrard, Stephen Herzenberg, Samuel Markolf, Corey Malone-Smolla, Jane Nelson, Uma Outka, Tony Pipa, Alexandra Phelan, Leroy Paddock, Jonathan D. Rosenbloom, William Snape, Anastasia Telesetsky, Gerald Torres, Elizabeth Ann Kronk Warner, Audra Wilson Jan 2021

Making America A Better Place For All: Sustainable Development Recommendations For The Biden Administration, John C. Dernbach, Scott E. Schang, Robert W. Adler, Karol Boudreaux, John Bouman, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, Kimberly Brown, Mikhail Chester, Michael B. Gerrard, Stephen Herzenberg, Samuel Markolf, Corey Malone-Smolla, Jane Nelson, Uma Outka, Tony Pipa, Alexandra Phelan, Leroy Paddock, Jonathan D. Rosenbloom, William Snape, Anastasia Telesetsky, Gerald Torres, Elizabeth Ann Kronk Warner, Audra Wilson

Faculty Scholarship

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. The SDGs are nonbinding; each nation is to implement them based on its own priorities and circumstances. This Article argues that the SDGs are a critical normative framework the United States should use to improve human quality of life, freedom, and opportunity by integrating economic and social development with environmental protection. It collects the recommendations of 22 experts on steps that the Biden-Harris Administration should take now to advance each of the SDGs. It is part of …


The Dynamics Of Secrecy In The Environmental Impact Statement Process, Michael B. Gerrard Jan 1993

The Dynamics Of Secrecy In The Environmental Impact Statement Process, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The environmental impact review laws – the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and its state counterparts – are premised on the idea of full and open disclosure. The notion underlying these laws is that if the government and the public are fully informed of the impacts of and alternatives to proposed actions, they will make wise decisions about whether and how to proceed. The Freedom of Information Act and its state counterparts even more explicitly seek to open up governmental deliberations to the public. Considered together, these two types of laws would lead one to believe that secrecy has little …


Chernobyl Fallout: Recent Iaea Conventions Expand Transboundary Nuclear Pollution Law, Michael A. Heller Jan 1987

Chernobyl Fallout: Recent Iaea Conventions Expand Transboundary Nuclear Pollution Law, Michael A. Heller

Faculty Scholarship

After releasing a radioactive cloud over Europe, the April 1986 nuclear power plant accident at Chernobyl in the USSR sparked a chain-reaction of diplomatic negotiation that culminated in two recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conventions on nuclear accidents. The Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident (Convention on Early Notification) and the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency (Convention on Assistance) were both opened for signature on September 26, 1986 at the end of a three-day IAEA special session on the lessons of the Soviet nuclear plant disaster. In the months …


Disclosure Of Hidden Energy Demands: A New Challenge For Nepa, Michael B. Gerrard Jan 1975

Disclosure Of Hidden Energy Demands: A New Challenge For Nepa, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The specialization of the American economy obscures the identity of the ultimate users of energy, even from themselves. As a result consumers remain ignorant of the amount of energy which they use, and of the efficiency of that usage. Direct personal use of energy in the United States, such as electricity and natural gas for home heating, cooking and lighting, and gasoline for private automobiles, accounts for only about one-third of national energy use. Usage by industry and government to provide for the intermediate and final goods and services, for which we as individuals ultimately pay through our purchases and …