Law Commons^™

Seeking A Seat At The Table: Has Law Left Environmental Ethics Behind, As It Embraces Bioethics?,, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Bioethics evolved from theoretical philosophy into an applied field. Decision makers in health and medical sciences involve bioethicists in decisions and policy making. Although people study environmental ethics, mainly in philosophy programs, environmental ethicists are not involved in decision making. I explore the development of bioethics and environmental ethics, primarily considering the role of law in their development. I ask whether laws and legal opinions encouraging the use of bioethicists in decision making promoted the development of applied bioethics, and correspondingly, whether the absence of laws and opinions promoting environmental ethicists retarded the development of applied environmental ethics. Finally, I …

Changing The Bathwater And Keeping The Baby: Exploring New Ways Of Evaluating Intent In Environmental Discrimination Cases, Browne C. Lewis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This paper is divided into four parts. Part one consists of a general overview of the problem of environmental discrimination. Part two gives a brief discussion of relevant Equal Protection jurisprudence. The section begins with a summary of general Equal Protection law. Then, the section analyzes the primary cases that established the foundation of modem-day Equal Protection doctrine. Part three examines the current application of the intent requirement in environmental discrimination cases. To that end, the section reviews the outcome of three of the early environmental discrimination cases, and speculates about the components that are necessary to prepare a successful …

What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: The Importance Of Information In The Battle Against Environmental Class And Racial Discrimination, Browne C. Lewis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

People across the country have witnessed the quality of their local environment decline in the name of progress but Lewis argues that tow-income and minority persons have observed the disproportionate placement of environmental hazards in their communities. That disparity has partially resulted from environmental discrimination based upon class and race. Acknowledging unequal treatment of low-income and minority persons has led to the development of the concept of "environmental justice. "

The premise of this Article is that, in order to effectively combat environmental discrimination, people must have access to quality information. Information may be used as a remedial measure. This …

It's A Small World After All: Making The Case For The Extraterritorial Application Of The National Environmental Policy Act, Browne C. Lewis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The purpose of this article is to illustrate why NEPA should be applied extraterritorially. For purposes of this article, extraterritorially means "beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the United States." Section One discusses the mandates of NEPA and its importance to the protection of the environment. In the second section, the article addresses the historic treatment of the issue of NEPA' s extraterritorial application by the legislative, executive and judicial branches. The third section analyzes the possible future treatment of the issue by those branches. The fourth section consists of a discussion of the reasons why NEPA should be applied extraterritorially. …

How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You?! Epa's Ongoing Struggle With Data From Third-Party Pesticide Toxicity Studies Using Human Subjects, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article addresses EPA's current and historic policy struggle regarding the position the Agency should take with respect to pesticide toxicity studies done by third parties in their attempts to register pesticides. Chemical companies often conduct these studies, or seek third-parties to do so, and submit the results to EPA in support of applications for pesticide registration. Although EPA had a high level joint Science Advisory Board/FIFRA Science Advisory Panel make recommendations to it on this subject in 1999, last year EPA asked the National Academy of Sciences to conduct additional, almost certainly duplicative review. Specifically, EPA has asked the …

Legislative Innovation In State Brownfields Redevelopment Programs, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

States throughout the country have created legislation and administrative programs to encourage the cleanup and redevelopment of urban brownfield land. In part, these efforts respond to the federal government's recent focus on the issue. However, leadership in method and approach has come, not from the federal government, but from the states. States have approached the cleanup and redevelopment of contaminated land in a variety of ways, some choosing to create voluntary cleanup programs, others imposing mandatory cleanup programs, and still others using combinations of these approaches. Regardless of method, however, the push to clean brownfield land is grounded in a …

Environmental And Brownfield Liability: Relative Influence On Corporate Expansion And Relocation, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, Alan K. Reichert

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Many states in America have enacted laws to encourage the development of contaminated properties. The laws attempt to do this by addressing one barrier to redevelopment, the environmental liability attached to contaminated properties. In general, the laws attempt to remove or reduce the significance of that barrier by reducing or eliminating the environmental liability risk attached to these properties. Our hypothesis was that these efforts cannot significantly encourage redevelopment because they fail to address non-environmental barriers to urban redevelopment. To determine whether this legislative focus on environmental liability is misplaced, we conducted a survey of Northeast Ohio businesses, which had …

Analysing The Extraterritorial Application Of The National Environmental Policy Act, Browne C. Lewis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of whether, in light of Congress' actions and the judicial precedents, NEPA should be applied extraterritorially. Section One discusses the extraterritorial application of United States laws in general, the bases supporting the extraterritorial application, and the tests courts have relied upon to determine the appropriateness of extraterritorial application. The section also explores the presumption against extraterritoriality and the logic behind it.

In the second section, the paper addresses the extraterritorial application of NEPA. That sections includes an analysis of the congressional, executive and judicial treatment of the issue. The third …

Deed Restrictions And Other Institutional Controls As Tools To Encourage Brownfields Redevelopment, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson, Robert A. Simons

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article concerns the use of deed restrictions and other institutional controls as tools to encourage brownfields redevelopment.

One Piece Of The Puzzle: Why State Brownfields Programs Can't Lure Businesses To The Urban Cores Without Finding The Missing Pieces, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

U.S. EPA, state legislatures, and state administrative agencies have invested considerable time and money resources to encouraging urban renewal through the redevelopment of contaminated urban properties, called brownfields. These efforts attempt to induce businesses to clean and redevelop brownfields by reducing the numerous environmental barriers to redevelopment, such as the enormous cost of clean-up and threat of immeasurable liability. In this Article, I argue that environmental barriers to redevelopment, although important, are but one piece of a complicated urban redevelopment puzzle. The other pieces, largely missing from existing efforts to encourage redevelopment of brownfields are non-environmental factors, such as size …