Law Commons^™

How Science Has Influenced, But Should Now Determine, Environmental Policy, Jan G. Laitos

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This Article makes the case that for environmental laws to succeed, they must reflect and conform to the universal scientific truths of nature. The mantra for policymakers is simple: successful environmental laws, as well as the policies that structure and cabin these laws, should adhere to the fundamental laws of the natural world and our biosphere. What are these universal truths? What laws, or rules, do physical, biological, and chemical systems all follow? Scientists have begun to unravel nature’s secrets, the principles which all natural phenomena obey, and which comprise nature’s master plan. This Article urges that our environmental policies …

Distributed Renewable Energy, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

For individuals, the heating and cooling of buildings is the second largest source of U.S. CO2 emissions after transportation. This chapter suggests pathways to help deploy the two most promising categories of U.S. distrib­uted renewable energy resources to reduce these emissions—photovoltaic solar matched with storage and ther­mal sources for hot water and for heating and cooling buildings. Distributed generation is probably the energy source most impacted by different levels of government and nongovernmental actors. However, distributed generation is also most immediate to consumers, especially with new technologies or rate structures that give them feedback about their own individual generation and …

Fracking The Public Trust, Kevin J. Lynch

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Climate change presents an ever more urgent threat, and earlier in 2019, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels reached an all time high for recorded history. Current federal and state policies promoting fossil fuel extraction mean that future governments will have to look very seriously at leaving fossil fuels in the ground, if our society wants to have any hope of avoiding catastrophic climate change.

One of the biggest obstacles to leaving fossil fuels in the ground is the threat of massive takings liability for any government that dares to slow or prevent the extraction of fossil fuels. This has been particularly …