Law Commons^™

Newsroom: Wyman Leads Marine Affairs Institute, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Response To Heather Gerken's Federalism And Nationalism: Time For A Détente?, Erin Ryan

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Environmental Law, Eleventh Circuit Survey, Travis M. Trimble

Scholarly Works

In 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, addressing an issue of first impression, rejected the district court's use of a Lone Pine case-management order as a means of testing the sufficiency of the plaintiffs' pleadings in a state law environmental torts case. The court also interpreted Florida law to mean that plaintiffs are not required to allege that groundwater contamination exceeded regulatory maximum contaminant levels for drinking water to maintain their claims and that they could recover "stigma" damages to their property without alleging actual contamination. The United States District Court for the Middle District …

Promoting Sustainable Development Through Environmental Law: Prospects For Saudi Arabia, Faisal K. Alturki

Dissertations & Theses

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia enjoys a rich cultural and natural heritage and has an advanced state of socio- economic development. It also suffers from a wide range of growing environmental problems such as securing its potable water supply, coping with solid and liquid waste, ensuring clean air or protecting the marine environment. It is the objective of sustainable development to ensure that further development in the Kingdom does not damage the public health of the people or the natural environment. The policies underlying sustainable development have developed internationally over the past four decades and are well explained in Agenda …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Dennis Esposito's Post: Marine Affairs: Esposito Takes The Helm, Dennis Esposito

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Standing To View Other People's Land: The D.C. Circuit's Divided Decision In Sierra Club V. Jewell, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In its divided 2014 decision in Sierra Club v. Jewell, the D.C. Circuit held that plaintiffs who observe landscape have Article III standing to sue in federal court to protect those views even if they have no legal right to physically enter the private property that they view. The D.C. Circuit’s decision could significantly enlarge the standing of plaintiffs to sue federal agencies or private parties over changes to private lands that the plaintiffs have no right to enter. Because the Supreme Court has inconsistently applied both strict and liberal approaches to standing, it is difficult to predict how it …

Rwu Law: The Magazine Of Roger Williams University School Of Law (Issue No. 8) (2015), Roger Williams University School Of Law

RWU Law

No abstract provided.

Restating Environmental Law, Joel A. Mintz

Faculty Scholarship

Although environmental law springs from deep roots in centuries of common law, during the last forty years in particular it has grown into a well-established and important legal field in the United States with enormous practical consequences. Maturity, however, has also made it notoriously complex, and environmental law’s overlapping statutory schemes and inconsistent federal and state programs have sparked recurring conflict, controversy, and criticism.

Stigmatized Sites And Urban Brownfield Redevelopment, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

This chapter addresses the "stigmatized sites" located in urban areas in the United States and Europe and the "brownfields" redevelopment programs aimed at removing the stigma and promoting remediation and reuse of these sites. Although the European Union has put regulatory frameworks in place, the United States has led the global effort to address brown fields redevelopment, and the discussion in this chapter will focus on American models for brown fields remediation and reuse.

Time To Upgrade Drinking Water Protections, Noah M. Sachs

Law Faculty Publications

A year ago, residents of Charleston, W.Va., learned that their entire drinking water supply had become contaminated by MCHM, a toxic chemical used to wash coal. Ten thousand gallons of MCHM had spilled from a corroding storage tank by the Elk River, located a mile upstream of the city’s drinking water intake pipes. As a result of the chemical spill, 300,000 citizens lost their water for more than a week, and hundreds sought emergency care.

That accident alone should have been a wake-up call for Virginians about the need to protect our water supply from chemical spills. But a year …

Beyond Gridlock, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Jonathan A. Gilligan

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Private climate governance can achieve major greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions reductions while governments are in gridlock. Despite the optimism that emerged from the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, almost a quarter century later the federal legislative process and international climate negotiations are years from a comprehensive response. Yet Microsoft, Google and many other companies have committed to become carbon neutral. Wal-Mart has partnered with the Environmental Defense Fund to secure 20 million tons of GHG emissions reductions from its suppliers around the world, an amount equal to almost half the emissions from the US iron and …

Vetoing Wetland Permits Under Section 404(C) Of The Clean Water Act: A History Of Inter-Federal Agency Controversy And Reform, Michael Blumm

Faculty Articles

For most of its four-decade history, section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act could have been considered to be a sleeper provision of environmental law. The proviso authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) overrule permits for discharges of dredged or fill material issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) where necessary to ensure protection of fish and wildlife habitat, municipal water supplies, and recreational areas against unacceptable adverse effects. This authority of one federal agency to veto the decisions of another federal agency is quite unusual, perhaps unprecedented in environmental law. The exceptional nature of section 404(c) …

Coming Into The Anthropocene, Jedediah Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

This essay reviews Professor Jonathan Cannon’s Environment in the Balance. Cannon’s book admirably analyzes the Supreme Court’s uptake of, or refusal of, the key commitments of the environmental-law revolution of the early 1970s. In some areas the Court has adapted old doctrines, such as Standing and Commerce, to accommodate ecological insights; in other areas, such as Property, it has used older doctrines to restrain the transformative effects of environmental law. After surveying Cannon’s argument, this review diagnoses the historical moment that has made the ideological division that Cannon surveys especially salient: a time of stalled legislation, political deadlock, and …

Regulating Pot To Save The Polar Bear: Energy And Climate Impacts Of The Marijuana Industry, Gina S. Warren

Faculty Scholarship

It goes by many names: cannabis, marijuana, pot, chronic, grass, reefer, shwag, Mary Jane. Whatever the name, the trend is clear: the weed is legal but the herb ain’t green. Nearly half of all U.S. states have enacted—or have pending— legislation to legalize, decriminalize, or in some way permit the use and cultivation of marijuana. As a result, marijuana has become a significant topic of conversation in the U.S.— especially in the areas of social policy and criminal law. One conversation yet to reach fruition, however, is the industry’s projected impacts on energy demand and the climate. As the industry …

The Limits Of Judicial Mechanisms For Developing And Enforcing International Environmental Norms: Introductory Remarks, Nienke Grossman, Jacqueline Peel

All Faculty Scholarship

International courts and tribunals have played a key role in the development of principles and norms of international environmental law. Over the last two decades, such bodies have been asked to resolve a growing number of disputes that involve environmental issues. The types of issues considered by international courts and tribunals have also expanded in scope and complexity. For instance, disputes concerning environmental matters may involve claims of state responsibility, law of the sea questions, human rights issues, or trade and investment aspects.