Law Commons^™

The Legal And Administrative Risks Of Climate Regulation, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

Dramatic and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are necessary to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) at acceptable levels. Prioritizing federal environmental regulation as the primary means of achieving these goals may be a strategic mistake. Regulatory mandates, particularly if based upon existing statutory authority, will be vulnerable to legal attack, obstruction, and delay. Climate legislation can reduce the legal risks and accelerate the rate of policy implementation, but only on the margin. Adopting regulatory controls, sector-by-sector, technology-by-technology will be immensely resource intensive for the EPA and other federal agencies. Even with authorizing legislation, federal regulatory strategies may …

The Environmental Protection Agency Turns Fifty, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

In anticipation of the fiftieth anniversary of the EPA’s founding, the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law and the Case Western Reserve Law Review sponsored a symposium to look at the past, present, and future of the EPA. The conference featured an array of environmental-law and -policy experts, including individuals who served in environmental-policy positions in each of the last four presidential administrations, as well as the current EPA Administrator, Andrew Wheeler.

This article is an introduction for the articles from this conference that are published in this special symposium issue of the law review.

Reforming Our Wasteful Hazardous Waste Policy, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Federal hazardous waste regulation and cleanup programs suffer from poor prioritization, insufficient flexibility, high costs, and questionable benefits. Many of these problems are a result of excessive regulatory centralization. With the enactment of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Comprehensive Emergency Response, Cleanup and Liability Act (CERCLA, aka "Superfund") Congress centralized environmental policy questions that are, in many respects, inherently local in nature. This produced a "mismatch" between those jurisdictions with regulatory primacy and the nature of the environmental problems at issue.

Contamination of soil and groundwater are site-specific, rarely crossing state lines. Due to the local nature …

Hothouse Flowers: The Vices And Virtues Of Climate Federalism, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Federal law preempts state regulation of motor vehicle emissions. California alone is allowed to seek a waiver of such preemption, and unsuccessfully sought such a waiver for the state's regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles. The debate and pending litigation over California's effort to obtain a waiver of preemption has focused attention on the state role in climate change policy. This paper explores the role of state governments in developing climate change policy, with a particular focus on how federalism principles and practice should inform judgments about the division of authority between the state and federal governments. As …