Law Commons^™

Distributed Generation: How Localized Energy Production Reduces Vulnerability To Outages And Environmental Damage In The Wake Of Climate Change, Allyson Umberger

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

This Comment breaks down the working parts of America’s energy infrastructure, assessing how the current model could be converted into one that is more efficient, cost effective, and environmentally sustainable. It looks beyond general energy legislation, focusing specifically on chartered, proposed, and failed energy legislation in California. Part II of this Comment examines the weaknesses of America’s current energy infrastructure, looking at the history of the energy industry and the nation’s resulting reluctance to adopt renewable technologies despite the shortcomings of the current model. Part III presents DG and expands upon the potential it possesses to empower Americans in a …

Legitimate Protection Or Tactful Abandonment: Can Recent California Legislation Sustain The San Francisco Bay Area's Public Lands?, Cody Nesper

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

This Comment posits that parks that serve urban communities, such as the SF Bay Area state parks, are of particular importance due to the implications of open spaces for the health and well-being city dwellers. The consequences of legislation like AB 42 in urban environments are different from those in rural areas, and an awareness of these differences is necessary to draft effective legislation. For instance, parks serving urban areas frequently give rise to environmental justice concerns of wealth and poverty as reflected by extensive, well-appointed parks in more affluent communities compared to neighboring communities with less social and economic …

Looking For A Home: How Micro-Housing Can Help California, Dawn Withers

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

Humans have long shared small homes and small communal spaces. In the Middle Ages, it was common for many people to share a bed and for many people to share a room. Pilgrims lived in homes of about 165 square feet, and German farmers in nineteenth-century Texas built 200-square-foot homes for use on the weekends when they came to town. After the 1906 earthquake, San Francisco built 140-square-foot homes to shelter survivors.

Continuing the tradition of living in small quarters is no simple task in the modern era. How and where we live is not determined by us alone but …

"Location, Location, Location" Should Be "Environment, Environment, Environment": A Market-Based Tool To Simplify Environmental Considerations In Residential Real Estate, Robert H. Cutting, Lawrence B. Cahoon, Jack C. Hall

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

The most important rule of real estate (location, location, location) should be upgraded to the three E’s: environment, environment, environment. What we value in real estate is the natural and human environment of a site and its structures. A home is typically an American’s most significant asset; thus, environmental issues should be of interest, primarily because the effects of environmental degradation can cause devaluation while simultaneously imposing substantial expenses (such as cleanup, health care, and relocation) on the population. The real costs of ignoring the environment are life-threatening health and safety issues, including lung damage and cancer resulting from radon …

Can A Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan Save San Diego's Vulnerable Vernal Pool Species?, John Buse

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

The Endangered Species Act2 (hereinafter “ESA” or “the Act”) protects some of the rarest and most charismatic mammals on earth, including polar bears, wolves, jaguars, and orcas. The ESA also protects less conspicuous species and their habitats. Not all species are equal under the law; for example, plants are afforded substantially less protection, and the Act excludes pest insects if their protection “would present an overwhelming and overriding risk to man.” But the ESA does provide a remarkable degree of taxonomic equality for most covered species, generally treating bears and burying beetles as equals. This equality infuriates opponents of the …

From Post To Pond: How The Public Created The Presidio's Crissy Field Marsh, Deborah Bardwick

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

Brian O’Neill, the late Superintendent of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, said that the unifying theme of the Presidio is that of “humans in the natural environment, understood in its broadest context.” This Article explores the critical role that the public played in creating Crissy Field Marsh, a unique feature of the Presidio in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Public involvement is always critical to the operation of the National Park Service. In nearly every new project, members of the public are involved in every step, including but not limited to lobbying politicians, commenting on environmental documents, raising …

Protecting The Ballona Wetlands In West Los Angeles: A Look Back At Three Decades Of Urban Habitat Advocacy, Carlyle W. Hall, Jr.

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

Surrounded by densely populated West Los Angeles, the Ballona Wetlands are a remnant of a larger, flourishing coastal ecosystem that has been subjected to over a hundred years of urban assault. Ninety-eight percent of Los Angeles County’s historic wetlands have been filled and developed, and more than a century of abuse and neglect have severely degraded the Ballona Wetlands. Nonetheless, the Ballona Wetlands remain “one of the most important pieces of wildlife habitat” in the region, and they constitute the County’s largest remaining coastal wetland.

As might be expected when an important, severely endangered coastal natural resource located in a …

Open Spaces In Tight Places: An Introduction To The Issue, Paul Stanton Kibel, Kathleen E. Nitta

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Epa Shoots Down Lead Shot Regulation: Lead Ammo's Unreasonable Risk To Human Health And The Environment, And The Special Situation Of The California Condor, Rachel Hawkins

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

This Comment argues that the EPA has the authority to ban lead ammunition nationwide under The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), because lead ammunition poses an unreasonable risk to human health and the environment that is not adequately addressed by other laws. Further, the EPA retains the authority to ban lead ammunition nationwide under TSCA because a national ban would not be preempted by other federal laws. Part II of this Comment explores the problematic history of lead regulation as well as the devastating effects of lead poisoning on humans. Part III begins with an in-depth explanation of the harmful …

Farallon Poison Paradox: The U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service's Attempt At Saving One Species While Subjecting Others To Probable Death, Vadim Sidelnikov

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

This Comment examines the failure of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) to adequately protect this country’s unique wildlife from highly toxic rodenticides like brodifacoum, and particularly the EPA’s broad exemption for the FWS’s use of brodifacoum in island conservation. Part II explains the problem of non-native mice at the Farallon National Wildlife Refuge and the FWS’s proposed plan to eradicate the mice. Additionally, this Part describes the federal legal framework that governs pesticide application and use within the United States.

Part III evaluates the EPA’s narrow scope in determining to reregister brodifacoum, focusing on the EPA’s decision to allow …

Green Beer: Incentivizing Sustainability In California's Brewing Industry, Timothy R. Sloane

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

Part II of this Article examines the role of alcoholic beverages in human history, paying special attention to alcohol as a motivating factor in large-scale social change. Part III examines the prominence of California’s unique brewing industry and the economic and social ubiquity of Californian beer. As discussed in Parts IV and V, that ubiquity and prominence, as well as California’s historical leadership on environmental issues, make the state an ideal testing ground for sustainable brewing legislation. After an examination of California’s energy use in producing beer, Parts VI and VII break down the brewing process and explain a selection …

A Tale Of Two Water Districts: The Future Of Agriculture In California's San Joaquin Valley Lies In Compromise Over Drainage, Kathleen Nitta

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

This Comment will demonstrate why enforcement of the lower San Joaquin River total maximum daily load (TMDL) for selenium under the Clean Water Act should be postponed by amending the Basin Plan for the lower San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers to extend the selenium compliance schedule for the Grassland Area Farmers (GAF) until it finishes implementing its drainage management plan. This Comment will also discuss why the GAF’s drainage plan should be used as a model for Westlands and should prompt Congress to amend the San Luis Act to require Westlands’ farmers to provide their own drainage.

Part II will …

A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing: The Plastics Industry's "Public Interest" Role In Legislation And Litigation Of Plastic Bag Laws In California, Jennie R. Romer, Shanna Foley

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

In recent years, single-use plastic bag reduction ordinances have emerged as a lasting icon for the environmental movement. Despite fierce resistance from the plastics industry, premised primarily on the argument that such ordinances could potentially have harmful effects on the environment, the momentum to pass these ordinances remains strong. The plastics industry has spent millions lobbying against local ordinances and for statewide preemption of local ordinances, engaged in epic public relations campaigns, and sued or threatened to sue virtually every California municipality that has recently taken steps to adopt a plastic bag ordinance. Plastic bag manufacturers also sued a reusable …

Climate Change Litigation In The Wake Of Aep V. Connecticut And Aes V. Steadfast: Out To Pasture, But Not Out Of Steam, Cecilia O'Connell Miller

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

On April 19, 2011, two courts heard oral arguments in cases that will define the future of climate change litigation for decades to come. In American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut (hereinafter AEP), the United States Supreme Court considered whether environmental advocates can use a federal common-law nuisance claim as a vehicle for seeking redress for climate change accruing from greenhouse gas (hereinafter GHG) emissions. Just a hundred miles south that same day, the Virginia Supreme Court heard oral arguments in AES Corporation v. Steadfast (hereinafter Steadfast), in which Virginia’s highest court considered whether a commercial general liability …

Montana V. Wyoming: An Opportunity To Right The Course For Coalbed Methane Development And Prior Appropriation, Michelle Bryan Mudd

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

Part I of this Article provides a brief background on the Yellowstone River Compact and the Montana v. Wyoming litigation. This part further explains the Special Master’s analysis of the CBM issue, as well as the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on improved irrigation efficiency. When viewed together, these decisions provide an important framework for determining how the parties’ regulation of CBM development should proceed. Part II then describes the magnitude of the CBM groundwater pumping issue and asserts that the posture of the Montana v. Wyoming case provides a unique opportunity not only to set Powder River Basin CBM development …

A Water Story With Original Jurisdiction And A Doctrine For Changing Uses, Melosa Granda

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

This is a story of how two rivers in the remote reaches of Wyoming and Montana, and the underlying water, became a federal case before the United States Supreme Court. It is an account of a local water dispute whose resolution will likely impact the course of water law, and more importantly, water throughout the entire country.

In This Edition, Sofiya Feerer, Luthien L. Niland

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Masthead, Vol. 5 #2

Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.