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Full-Text Articles in Law
Judicial Limitation Of The Epa's Oversight Authority In Clean Water Act Permitting Of Mountaintop Mining Valley Fills , Christopher D. Eaton
Judicial Limitation Of The Epa's Oversight Authority In Clean Water Act Permitting Of Mountaintop Mining Valley Fills , Christopher D. Eaton
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Mountaintop removal mining operations in the Appalachian region have expanded significantly in recent decades. The practice decimates the mountain ecosystems by leveling forests, filling headwater streams, and producing significant runoff of heavy metals, sediment, and other pollutants that impair the aquatic environment of entire watersheds. Yet environmental permitting of the practice is relatively limited. A recent trend in litigation aimed at halting mining operations has involved challenging permits that authorize the discharge of mining overburden into headwater streams pursuant to the Clean Water Act (CWA). The Army Corps of Engineers has assumed jurisdiction over such discharges under section 404 of …
Past Its Prime: Why The Clean Air Act Is In Need Of Modification, Levi Smith
Past Its Prime: Why The Clean Air Act Is In Need Of Modification, Levi Smith
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat
The Clean Air Act (CAA) is the primary federal statute regulating the emission of air pollutants. First enacted in 1970, the CAA requires, inter alia, the federal government to establish air quality goals and states to develop implementation plans to achieve those goals. The most stringent requirements of the CAA are imposed on “new” or “modified” sources of pollution, such as sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, and particulate matter. Sources that were operating when the CAA was enacted are mostly exempt from regulation under the Act. Because of the substantial costs associated with the CAA standards, there is an incentive for …
Is A Substantive, Non-Positivist United States Environmental Law Possible?, Dan Tarlock
Is A Substantive, Non-Positivist United States Environmental Law Possible?, Dan Tarlock
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
U.S. environmental law is almost exclusively positive and procedural. The foundation is the pollution control and biodiversity conservation statutes enacted primarily between 1969–1980 and judicial decisions interpreting them. This law has created detailed processes for making decisions but has produced few substantive constraints on private and public decisions which impair the environment. Several substantive candidates have been proposed, such as the common law, a constitutional right to a healthy environment, the public trust, and the extension of rights to fauna and flora. However, these candidates have not produced the hoped for substantive law. Many argue that a substantive U.S. environmental …
The Quest For A Sustainable Future And The Dawn Of A New Journal At Michigan Law, David M. Uhlmann
The Quest For A Sustainable Future And The Dawn Of A New Journal At Michigan Law, David M. Uhlmann
Articles
When I joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School in 2007, the first assignment I gave students in my Environmental Law and Policy class was John McPhee's Encounters with the Archdruid. It must have seemed like a curious choice to them, particularly coming from a professor who just three months earlier had been the Chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. The book was not a dramatic tale of courtroom battles. In fact, the book was not even about the law, and the clash of environmental values it depicted pre-dated the environmental …