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Full-Text Articles in Law
Nrdc Sues Epa For A Failure To Issue Hazardous Substance Regulations: The End Of A Decades-Long Public Risk In Sight, Jack Morgan
Nrdc Sues Epa For A Failure To Issue Hazardous Substance Regulations: The End Of A Decades-Long Public Risk In Sight, Jack Morgan
Law Student Publications
Currently there are no federal regulations that prevent hazardous substance spills at onshore facilities, such as tank farms, or in communities where a spill of those chemicals could threaten water supplies. On July 21, 2015, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) filed a complaint on behalf of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform (EJHA) and People Concerned About Chemical Safety (PCCS) against EPA and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in her official capacity as administrator, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The case has been assigned to Judge Shira A. Sheindlin. The …
Tackling Climate Change: Don't Forget Energy Efficency, Joel B. Eisen
Tackling Climate Change: Don't Forget Energy Efficency, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
Todd S. Aagaard and Joel B. Eisen write that one option available for states under the EPA's high-profile Clean Power Plan is relying on greater efficiency in energy usage and other demand-side strategies such as "demand response," which involves programs to reduce consumption at specific times of high electricity demand. However, a federal court recently cast a cloud over demand response's future.
Finality In Brownfields Remediation And Reuse, Joel B. Eisen
Finality In Brownfields Remediation And Reuse, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
The intersection of brownfields redevelopment and these broader concerns presents a host of issues. Does redevelopment of brownfields connect to a larger vision for the city that links with "smart growth" and climate action goals? Retooling the original developer-centered vision of VCPs to promote broader goals is an ongoing challenge. Has the affected community been involved in planning for brownfields remediation, or has the developer controlled the process? The latter narrows the ability to view the project as part of a community-wide plan, and undermines its legitimacy. Finally, if brownfields redevelopment yields benefits, how can we measure success over the …
Brownfields Redevelopment, Joel B. Eisen
Brownfields Redevelopment, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
Critiquing how brownfields programs expanded without much attention to developments in the international environmental arena will illustrate some ways to alter them to comport with Agenda 21 and other prerequisites for sustainable development. Another interesting aspect of this analysis for the Rio+ 10 review is its timing. The state and federal programs have mushroomed since 1992; for example, while a small of states had "voluntary cleanup programs" 10 years ago, virtually every state has one now, and there is considerable increasing experience with them. If adjustments to these programs should be developed to comport with the prescriptions of Agenda 21 …
A Case Study Of Sustainable Development: Brownfields, Joel B. Eisen
A Case Study Of Sustainable Development: Brownfields, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
Critiquing how brownfields programs expanded without much attention to developments in the international environmental arena will illustrate some ways to alter them to comport with Agenda 21 and other prerequisites for sustainable development. Another interesting aspect of this analysis for the Rio + 10 review is its timing. The state and federal programs have mushroomed since 1992; for example, while a small minority of states had "voluntary cleanup programs" 10 years ago, virtually every state has one now, and there is considerable and increasing experience with them. If adjustments to these programs should be developed to comport with the prescriptions …
Alternative Dispute Resolution At The Environmental Protection Agency, Joel B. Eisen
Alternative Dispute Resolution At The Environmental Protection Agency, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
This chapter examines how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods to help resolve complex environmental disputes. In recent years, the EPA's use of ADR has increased dramatically in a wide variety of settings. The EPA has made ADR a central feature of its environmental enforcement strategy, encouraged its use in Title VI and environmental justice conflict settings, and turned to negotiated rulemaking as an alternative to the cumbersome notice-and-comment process for the development of new federal regulations. Other EPA programs, such as the Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative, promote nonadversarial methods for tackling complex environmental …
Brownfields Policies For Sustainable Cities, Joel B. Eisen
Brownfields Policies For Sustainable Cities, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
My analysis begins in Part I with a short summary of brownfields law and policy, and a description of our current understanding of "sustainable development." There is no hard and fast definition of the term, but it is increasingly more clear that a body of sustainable development "law" will take shape as the product of a host of decisions made now and in the near future. The optimal way to ensure that brownfields programs mesh with this body of law-whatever it turns out to be-is to incorporate basic norms of sustainable development about which there is widespread agreement. Those agreed-upon …
"Brownfields Of Dreams?": Challenges And Limits Of Voluntary Cleanup Programs And Incentives, Joel B. Eisen
"Brownfields Of Dreams?": Challenges And Limits Of Voluntary Cleanup Programs And Incentives, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
As one of the most important current topics in environmental law, the redevelopment of abandoned or underutilized urban properties, better known as brownfields, continues to generate much discussion and debate. Because most agree that abandoned sites located in aging areas and the accompanying exodus of industry to the suburbs are undesirable, the federal government and many state governments have created programs to encourage the redevelopment of these industrial properties. But often overlooked by the advocates of such programs are the difficult political, scientific, and moral questions associated with redevelopment. In this insightful article, Professor Eisen provides the most comprehensive discussion …
Toward A Sustainable Urbanism: Lessons From Federal Regulation Of Urban Stormwater Runoff, Joel B. Eisen
Toward A Sustainable Urbanism: Lessons From Federal Regulation Of Urban Stormwater Runoff, Joel B. Eisen
Law Faculty Publications
This Article focuses on the particularly vexing challenge of forging a sustainable urbanism in Edge Cities and analyzes regulatory attempts to control urban stormwater runoff. If our task is to "describe the natural world and to evaluate our actions toward it in ways that presuppose ... [a] community between nature and mankind," we must also characterize and address this source of considerable pollution, which originates from thousands of dispersed locations. Unfortunately, environmental protection efforts have only begun to address the pollution of urban stormwater runoffs. Parts II and III of this Article detail these largely unsuccessful attempts and conclude that …