Law Commons^™

Sustainability As A Means Of Improving Environmental Justice, Patricia E. Salkin, John C. Dernbach, Donald A. Brown

Patricia E. Salkin

This article explains why environmental justice provides much of the foundation for sustainable development, and shows how sustainability can improve our ability to achieve environmental justice. The article first explains a basic but often unrecognized truth about environmental policy: environmental pollution and degradation, sooner or later, harms humans. Both sustainable development and environmental justice respond to this problem, though in somewhat different ways. Sustainable development, however, suggests a broader set of tools to address this problem than are often employed for environmental justice. The article shows how four broad approaches — more and better sustainability options, law for sustainability, visionary …

Consequences For Cleanup: Epa Gets Serious About Weak Watershed Improvement Plans, Rena I. Steinzor, Anne Havemann

Rena I. Steinzor

In a landmark series of reports issued on June 26, 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) put the seven jurisdictions that pollute the Chesapeake Bay on notice that their plans for reducing nitrogen, phosphorous, and sediment fall short of where they must be to make cleanup by 2025 a reality. By EPA’s reckoning, Pennsylvania and Delaware were furthest off the mark, but Maryland, New York, Virginia, and West Virginia face EPA action if they fail to substantially improve their plans. Of the seven jurisdictions, only Washington, D.C. escaped serious criticism.

Controlling Power Plants: The Co-Pollutant Implications Of Epa's Clean Air Act § 111(D) Options For Greenhouse Gases, Alice Kaswan

Alice Kaswan

Existing power plants are the nation’s largest single source of carbon emissions. In the absence of comprehensive federal climate change, EPA is forging ahead with power plant controls through § 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. This article focuses on one critical consideration: the ancillary impacts of carbon controls on associated co-pollutants, like sulfur oxides, particulates, nitrogen oxides, and mercury. The article focuses on an array of regulatory options, including both “inside-the-fence” reductions at power plants and “outside-the-fence” measures that reduce power sector emissions, like renewable energy and consumer energy efficiency. The article then evaluates the co-pollutant consequences of several …

The Paper Tiger Gets Teeth: Developments In Chinese Environmental Law, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

This very short essay reports on the 2014 amendments to China’s Environmental Protection Law, following a series of internationally reported air and water pollution crises leading to unprecedented public protests. The changes promise more meaningful oversight of industrial pollution and harsher penalties for violations, targeting not only polluters but officials who fail to enforce applicable regulations against them. The amendments also empower certain non-governmental organizations to bring environmental litigation on behalf of the public. Official news accounts openly acknowledge the government’s hope that increased public access to legal redress will reduce the growing trend of mass environmental protests. These are …

Falling Behind: Processing And Enforcing Permits For Animal Agriculture Operations In Maryland Is Lagging, Rena I. Steinzor, Anne Havemann

Rena I. Steinzor

After decades of failed interstate agreements, the Chesapeake Bay is choking on too many nutrients. The estuary’s last, best chance of recovery is the Environmental Protection Agency's Total Maximum Daily Load (“TMDL”) program, also known as a pollution diet. To meet this deadline, all polluters, including large animal farms, will need to sharply reduce the pollutants they release into the Bay. The Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) must ensure that each Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (“CAFO”) has developed a facility-specific permit that details when and where manure is applied to fields and how waste is stored and handled. Then …

How Environmental Review Can Generate Car-Induced Pollution: A Case Study, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

The National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) requires federal officials to draft an environmental impact statement (“EIS”) describing the environmental impact of proposed federal actions that significantly affect the environment, as well as analyze the environmental impacts of alternatives to the proposed action. Almost two dozen states have adopted “little NEPA” statutes imposing similar requirements upon state and/or local governments.

This article focuses on one of the strictest little NEPA statutes: New York's State Environmental Quality Review Act (“SEQRA”). While most little NEPA statutes cover only government projects,SEQRA also covers private sector projects requiring municipal permits. Furthermore, SEQRA requires the government …

The Elaborate Paper Tiger: Environmental Enforcement And The Rule Of Law In China, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan