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Full-Text Articles in Law

Environmental Challenges To The Energy Sector, Becky L. Jacobs Sep 2014

Environmental Challenges To The Energy Sector, Becky L. Jacobs

Book Chapters

No abstract provided.


Vulnerability And Power In The Age Of The Anthropocene, Angela P. Harris Sep 2014

Vulnerability And Power In The Age Of The Anthropocene, Angela P. Harris

Washington and Lee Journal of Energy, Climate, and the Environment

Feminist legal theorist Martha Fineman has suggested that recognition of universal human “vulnerability” should be the starting point for thinking about the state’s obligations to its citizens. This Article argues that Fineman’s concept of vulnerability is valuable for situating political and legal theory within a concern for the natural world. We live in what some scientists have dubbed the Anthropocene—an age in which our collective behavior has serious implications for the flourishing of all life on earth. The concept of “ecological vulnerability” recognizes that humans are vulnerable not only because they age, become ill, and die, but because their survival …


Ferc Anti-Manipulation Enforcement And The Barclays Proceeding: What Factors Should Regulated Entities Consider Before Deciding To Follow Barclays' Path To Federal Court?, Matthew Hale Sep 2014

Ferc Anti-Manipulation Enforcement And The Barclays Proceeding: What Factors Should Regulated Entities Consider Before Deciding To Follow Barclays' Path To Federal Court?, Matthew Hale

Washington and Lee Journal of Energy, Climate, and the Environment

Energy regulation is not a new topic, but after the Enron scandal, Congress made significant changes. The changes were embodied in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. One major change was to FERC's ability to hand down penalties for market manipulation. Recently, FERC has been aggressively enforcing its power and anticipates anti-manipulation enforcement will be a point of emphasis in the future. The first entity to challenge FERC's power in federal court is Barclays. The Barclays case, other recent enforcement actions, and the regulations FERC has promulgated provide a guide to regulated entities about how and when they should challenge …


Water You Waiting For? Balancing Private Rights And Public Necessity In The South Atlantic Wetlands, Alison Leary Sep 2014

Water You Waiting For? Balancing Private Rights And Public Necessity In The South Atlantic Wetlands, Alison Leary

Washington and Lee Journal of Energy, Climate, and the Environment

A healthy and robust network of wetlands protects coastal communities from storm damage caused by hurricanes. Unfortunately, development pressures threaten wetlands along the South Atlantic coast, the region most susceptible to an increased risk of climate change induced hurricanes. If these wetlands are not protected from destruction, coastal communities will be left without a buffer against flooding, storm damage, and sea level rise. In addition to putting the public at large in physical danger, significant environmental justice concerns accompany the failure to protect coastal wetlands. In order to protect these ever-diminishing resources, federal and state law makers have enacted regulatory …


Fracking Preemption Litigation, James K. Pickle Sep 2014

Fracking Preemption Litigation, James K. Pickle

Washington and Lee Journal of Energy, Climate, and the Environment

Fracking is not a new technology, but it only recently came to the forefront of energy industry news. Fracking’s recent fame has been both positive and negative. Fracking proponents have lauded the economic and environmental benefits of the process. They cite the process’ ability to extract formerly inaccessible oil and natural gas, which reduces the U.S.’s demand for foreign oil and natural gas and reduces the use of coal. In contrast, fracking opponents state fracking damages the environment by diluting drinking water with harmful chemicals, generating emissions, and creating general nuisances for communities. They believe fracking’s harmful impacts clearly outweigh …


Options For Adaption To Climate Change, Richard L. Ottinger, Pianpian Wang, Kristin M. Motel Jul 2014

Options For Adaption To Climate Change, Richard L. Ottinger, Pianpian Wang, Kristin M. Motel

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In order to tackle climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) provided a portfolio of measures: mitigation, adaptation and constant research. Although Article 10 of the Kyoto Protocol underlined the importance of adaptation, adaptation to climate change had been obtained limited attention in the early negotiations of climate talks. In 2010, Cancun Session of Conference of Parties (“COP”) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (“UNFCCC”) highlighted the equal importance of adaptation just as mitigation. Since then, increasing attention has been drawn to adaptation practice by the international society. Typically, adaptation can be broken down into …


Water Quality Standard Setting Under The Clean Water Act: Is It Nimble Enough To Avoid Wasteful Spending On The Wrong Goals, Christopher B. Power, Jennifer J. Hicks Apr 2014

Water Quality Standard Setting Under The Clean Water Act: Is It Nimble Enough To Avoid Wasteful Spending On The Wrong Goals, Christopher B. Power, Jennifer J. Hicks

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.


Unringing The Bell: Time For Epa To Reconsider Its Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, David Yaussy, Elizabeth Turgeon Apr 2014

Unringing The Bell: Time For Epa To Reconsider Its Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, David Yaussy, Elizabeth Turgeon

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.


Electric Power Resource "Shuffling" And Subnational Carbon Regulation: Looking Upstream For A Solution, Jim Rossi, Andrew J.D. Smith Jan 2014

Electric Power Resource "Shuffling" And Subnational Carbon Regulation: Looking Upstream For A Solution, Jim Rossi, Andrew J.D. Smith

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

"Resource shuffling" occurs when different subnational approaches to carbon regulation create variations in the costs of production across jurisdictions. California is the most aggressive jurisdiction in the United States to address climate change and has adopted a cap & trade program for its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This Article addresses the resource shuffling issue presented by California's cap-and-trade program and evaluates the merits of various legal and regulatory solutions to the problem.


Fundamental Principles Of Law For The Anthropocene?, Nicholas A. Robinson Jan 2014

Fundamental Principles Of Law For The Anthropocene?, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

A wide array of questions arises from global change to confront environmental law. The IPCC has examined social decisions affecting the climate in the design of human settlements, transport systems, industrialisation, agriculture and silviculture, waste management, provisions for energy, and virtually all other socio-economic dimensions of human life. The AR-5, too, cannot avoid raising issues of human ethics and values at local and regional scales. Such issues reach environmental policy and law directly. The IPCC’s AR-5 report furthers widespread public debate about the human dimensions of climate change, and how social theory relates to environmental change. Already, climate change has …


A Step By Step Look At Uarg V. Epa: A New Layer Of Greenhouse Gas Regulation, Kevin O. Leske Jan 2014

A Step By Step Look At Uarg V. Epa: A New Layer Of Greenhouse Gas Regulation, Kevin O. Leske

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Analysis Of The Mechanisms To Control The Fulfillment Of The Eu Sustainability Criteria For Biofuels In Directive 2009/28/Ec, (Part Ii), Evgenia Pavlovskaia Dec 2013

Analysis Of The Mechanisms To Control The Fulfillment Of The Eu Sustainability Criteria For Biofuels In Directive 2009/28/Ec, (Part Ii), Evgenia Pavlovskaia

Evgenia Pavlovskaia

The article analyzes mechanisms established to control the fulfillment of the EU sustainability criteria for biofuels that were presented in Directive 2009/28/EC. The article is the continuation of the research started in the work Pavlovskaia, E. (2013) “Controlling the Fulfillment of the EU Sustainability Criteria for Transport Biofuels”, which was published in RELP 4/2013. The conducted analysis is grounded in the opinions of the leading researchers in the environmental energy studies. The results of the article highlight that there are difficulties to achieve the desirable quality of control when the EU sustainability criteria are implemented. It is pointed out that …


Mechanisms To Control The Fulfillment Of The Eu Sustainability Criteria For Transport Biofuels In Directive 2009/28/Ec, Evgenia Pavlovskaia Dec 2013

Mechanisms To Control The Fulfillment Of The Eu Sustainability Criteria For Transport Biofuels In Directive 2009/28/Ec, Evgenia Pavlovskaia

Evgenia Pavlovskaia

To function efficiently, a framework in environmental law should contain certain mechanisms or supplementary elements that facilitate the implementation and enforcement of environmental regulations, for example such mechanisms and elements that answer for the control and supervision of the legislated requirements. Appropriately organized control mechanisms are important for a legal framework to function as it has been aimed for and to fulfill its purposes. The present article is focused on the analysis of the mechanisms chosen to control the fulfillment of the European Union (EU) sustainability criteria for transport biofuels, which have been presented in Directive 2009/28/EC. The analysis is …