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Full-Text Articles in Law
The California Offset Game: Who Wins And Who Loses?, Alan Ramo
The California Offset Game: Who Wins And Who Loses?, Alan Ramo
Publications
California is implementing the most comprehensive global warming regulatory program in the United States. A key part of this program is its cap-and-trade system. Integral to the cap-and-trade requirements are provisions for offsets, whereby companies, to meet their caps, can purchase credits from certain unregulated entities whose activities are deemed to have resulted in real and additional emission reductions. California has attempted to avoid the Kyoto Protocol's project-by-project lengthy and problematic review of offsets with a performance standard approach for domestic offsets and a sector approach for international offsets. Offsets, even if done right. raise serious environmental justice questions as …
Environmental Law News - November, 2012, Elcj
Environmental Law News - November, 2012, Elcj
Environmental Law and Justice Clinic
No abstract provided.
Addressing The Significance Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under Ceqa: California’S Search For Regulatory Certainty In An Uncertain World, Alexander G. Crockett
Addressing The Significance Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under Ceqa: California’S Search For Regulatory Certainty In An Uncertain World, Alexander G. Crockett
Golden Gate University Environmental Law Journal
This Article explores the efforts of California’s air agencies in addressing how to determine the significance of a project’s greenhouse gas emissions under CEQA, focusing on the recent guidance adopted by three of California’s largest regional air-quality agencies – the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. It also addresses work done by the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association and the California Air Resources Board (ARB), which laid the foundations for these agencies’ actions. In Section II, the Article provides a brief review of …
Piecemeal Legislative Proposals: An Inappropriate Approach To Managing Offshore Oil Drilling, Lynn S. Sletto
Piecemeal Legislative Proposals: An Inappropriate Approach To Managing Offshore Oil Drilling, Lynn S. Sletto
Golden Gate University Law Review
The election of George W. Bush in 2000 as the forty-fourth President of the United States, a perceived pro offshore oil-drilling President), was followed by several legislative proposals aimed at limiting or ceasing oil drilling off the coast of most of the states. This comment discusses why these legislative proposals are unworkable in light of the nation's goals for managing offshore oil drilling. Nonetheless, many of these legislative proposals highlight the coastal state's specific concerns, as well as, improvements to the offshore oil leasing decision-making process to alleviate those concerns.
Erroneous And Unauthorized Revisions To The California Environmental Quality Act: 1998 Ceqa Revisions Violate Legislative Intent And Contradict Judicial Holdings, Kristin Henry
Golden Gate University Law Review
This Comment will summarize the CEQA review process to which California agencies must adhere. Next, Part III of this Comment will examine San Joaquin Raptor/Wildlife Rescue v. Stanislaus and Kings County Farm Bureau v. Hanford, two landmark California appellate court cases that have interpreted the CEQA review process prior to the amended regulations. Included in Part III A is an analysis of how lead agencies have treated cumulative impacts in the past during the CEQA review process and an explanation of the recent amendments purporting to codify that interpretation. In Part III B, this Comment will explain the recent amendments …
Environmental Justice Enforcement Requires Reassessment Under The Equal Protection Clause, Title Vi Of The Civil Rights Act, And Environmental Statutes, Kenneth Owen
Golden Gate University Law Review
This article will suggest what is required to prevail under the purposeful discrimination standard under the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Interestingly, no equal protection environmental justice case or Title VI action has been presented to a jury charged with determining the factual issue of intent. The author will next explore the possibility of winning environmental justice cases under the citizen suit provisions that are part of most environmental statutes. Lastly, the author will suggest arguments to possible defenses that might be raised by defendants.
Environmental Law - Resource Investments, Inc. V. U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers, Marcelin E. Keever
Environmental Law - Resource Investments, Inc. V. U.S. Army Corps Of Engineers, Marcelin E. Keever
Golden Gate University Law Review
In Resource Investments Inc. v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considered whether section 404 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) authorized the United States Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to require a landowner to obtain a dredge and fill permit from the Corps before constructing a municipal solid waste landfIll on a wetlands site. The Court held that when a proposed project affecting a wetlands area is a solid waste landfill, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), rather than the Corps, will have permit authority under the Resource Conservation and …
Environmental Law - Northcoast Environmental Center V. Glickman, Lisa Braly
Environmental Law - Northcoast Environmental Center V. Glickman, Lisa Braly
Golden Gate University Law Review
In Northcoast Environmental Center v. Glickman, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a less deferential standard of "reasonableness" applied to its review of legal questions that determined the applicability of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA,). Thus, when no facts are in dispute, an agency's decision not to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)"will be upheld unless it is unreasonable. When facts are in dispute, however, the Supreme Court decision of Marsh v. Oregon Natural Resources Council, which applied an "arbitrary and capricious" standard of review, controls. The Ninth Circuit also decided that district …
Environmental Law - City Of Auburn V. U.S. Government, Lisa Braly
Environmental Law - City Of Auburn V. U.S. Government, Lisa Braly
Golden Gate University Law Review
In City of Auburn v. U.S. Government; the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the plain language of the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act (lCCTA) preempts state and local permitting laws regarding railroad operations. The court reasoned that since the ICCTA gave the Surface Transportation Board (Board), a federal agency, exclusive jurisdiction over certain railroad matters, railroad companies were required to follow only federal permitting laws, not those of a state or city. Thus, Burlington Northern Railroad is not subject to the environmental permitting laws of the city of Auburn. The court also held that …
A Deeper Shade Of Green: The Evolution Of Cuban Environmental Law And Policy, Fredric Evenson
A Deeper Shade Of Green: The Evolution Of Cuban Environmental Law And Policy, Fredric Evenson
Golden Gate University Law Review
This article provides a brief history and general overview of Cuba's environmental legal system describing the contemporary framework of environmental laws, and the governmental and non-governmental institutions responsible for its creation, implementation, and enforcement. To illustrate how Cuba's environmental regulatory scheme is designed 'to operate, focus is directed on environmental requirements of foreign investment projects and the related fields of environmental licensing, environmental impact assessment, state environmental inspection, and civil responsibility. This article concludes that Cuba's new framework environmental law and revised institutional structure are significant expressions of the government's desire to protect the environment. The recent changes in these …
Too Late In The Game: How Ballot Measures Undercut Ceqa, Jon Rainwater, Susan Stephenson
Too Late In The Game: How Ballot Measures Undercut Ceqa, Jon Rainwater, Susan Stephenson
Golden Gate University Law Review
Because the regulatory guidelines for the California Environmental Quality Act ("CEQA") contain an exemption for "the submittal of proposals to a vote of the people," both projects avoided environmental analysis after the board of supervisors and the electorate had given a green light for the projects. In this article, we will examine the possibility that the ballot measure exemption functions as a loophole that weakens the goal of early meaningful, analysis that is at the heart of CEQA. To. put the exemption in a specific environmental and political context, we will look at some of the environmental impacts of the …
Environmental Law - Mccarthy V. Thomas: Are States Bound When Approval Of An Sip Is Merely Conditional?, Edward P. Murphy
Environmental Law - Mccarthy V. Thomas: Are States Bound When Approval Of An Sip Is Merely Conditional?, Edward P. Murphy
Golden Gate University Law Review
In McCarthy v. Thomas, the Ninth Circuit held that the Clean Air Act (hereinafter "CAA") authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency (hereinafter "EPA") to conditionally approve a State Implementation Plan (hereinafter "SIP"), thereby binding the states even if later EPA actions do not specifically reference the earlier conditionally approved provisions. In McCarthy, the SIP which included transportation measures for Pima and Maricopa Counties in Arizona, had never been fully approved by the EPA, but had received a conditional approval. Since Arizona had difficulty complying with the CAA, the SIP was revised several times before the EPA granted full approval. The final …
Environmental Law, M. Lynn Haggerty, Cherie P. Shanteau
Environmental Law, M. Lynn Haggerty, Cherie P. Shanteau
Golden Gate University Law Review
No abstract provided.
The Bush Record On The Environment: What A Difference Two Years Make, Clifford Rechtschaffen
The Bush Record On The Environment: What A Difference Two Years Make, Clifford Rechtschaffen
Environmental Law and Justice Clinic
Although the Bush Administration has proposed a few environmentally positive initiatives . . . these initiatives have been far over-shadowed by the efforts to weaken or roll back environmental protections.
Improving State Environmental Enforcement Performance Through Enhanced Government Accountability And Other Strategies, Clifford Rechtschaffen, David L. Markell
Improving State Environmental Enforcement Performance Through Enhanced Government Accountability And Other Strategies, Clifford Rechtschaffen, David L. Markell
Publications
This Article discusses a number of options for EPA to strengthen state performance and bring it more in line with EPA's expectations. First, EPA must play a stricter gate-keeping function in initially authorizing state programs, and more regularly reassess and report the adequacy of state enforcement authorities and state capacity. Second, EPA must stop delivering a mixed message to the states about the enforcement practices it expects the states to follow. Instead, it must establish clear expectations for performance. Third, in terms of the substance of those expectations, EPA should revise its criteria for evaluating whether state enforcement programs work. …
The Paper Tiger Awakens: North American Environmental Law After The Cozumel Reef Case, Paul Stanton Kibel
The Paper Tiger Awakens: North American Environmental Law After The Cozumel Reef Case, Paul Stanton Kibel
Publications
This Article examines the citizen submission process created under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation ("NAAEC"), which, along with the North American Free Trade Agreement ("NAFTA "), was adopted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States in 1993. The Article details the historical evolution of North American environmental law and diplomacy in the hundred years prior to the adoption of NAAEC. It proceeds to analyze the environmental provisions of NAAEC and the citizen submissions that have been filed since NAAEC went into effect, and undertakes an in-depth case study of the citizen submission relating to coral reefs in Cozumel, …
California Comparative Risk Project (1994). Toward The 21st Century: Planning For The Protection Of California's Environment, Alan Ramo
Publications
Participants in the California Comparative Risk Project were charged with identifying environmental threats of the greatest ecological, human health, and societal concern using the risk ranking model. However, agreeing that risk is not the only factor that should be considered, our project also examined how economics, pollution prevention, environmental justice, education, and public participation contribute to environmental decision-making. The unique inclusion of this aspect in our project was in response to a growing debate nationally and in California about the limitations of a risk-ranking model for setting environmental priorities. The findings and recommendations of the California Comparative Risk Project are …
Bay Area's First Environmental Law Clinic To Open In January
Bay Area's First Environmental Law Clinic To Open In January
Press Releases
No abstract provided.