Law Commons^™

Too Little, Too Late: Congress's Attempt To Regulate Forever Chemicals Through Military Appropriations, Michael Heard Snow

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, shortened to “PFAS,” are a broad class of approximately 4,000 to 6,000 industrial chemicals characterized by a carbon chain saturated with fluorine molecules. This structure, dominated by carbon-fluorine bonds, is one of the most stable known chemical structures—and it is this stability that lies at the core of both the usefulness and the greatest issues surrounding PFAS. They are generally non-reactive except at tailored “active sites” and they never break down naturally—leading to the nickname “forever chemicals.” The persistence of their structures creates a plethora of desirable characteristics: PFAS are grease-resistant, waterproof, fireproof, stain-proof, and chemically …

An Empirical Analysis Of Cost Recovery In Superfund Cases: Implications For Brownfields And Joint And Several Liability, Howard F. Chang, Hilary Sigman

All Faculty Scholarship

Economic theory developed in the prior literature indicates that under the joint and several liability imposed by the federal Superfund statute, the government should recover more of its costs of cleaning up contaminated sites than it would under nonjoint liability, and the amount recovered should increase with the number of defendants and with the independence among defendants in trial outcomes. We test these predictions empirically using data on outcomes in federal Superfund cases. Theory also suggests that this increase in the amount recovered may discourage the sale and redevelopment of potentially contaminated sites (or “brownfields”). We find the increase to …

The Environment And Climate Change: Is International Migration Part Of The Problem Or Part Of The Solution?, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reasonable Emissions Of Greenhouse Gases: Efficient Abatement For A Stock Pollutant, Howard F. Chang

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Shifting Sands: The Limits Of Science In Setting Risk Standards, Cary Coglianese, Gary E. Marchant

All Faculty Scholarship

Regulators need to rely on science to understand problems and predict the consequences of regulatory actions, but over reliance on science can actually contribute to, or at least deflect attention from, incoherent policymaking. In this article, we explore the problems with using science to justify policy decisions by analyzing the Environmental Protection Agency's recently revised air quality standards for ground-level ozone and particulate matter, some of the most significant regulations ever issued. In revising these standards, EPA mistakenly invoked science as the exclusive basis for its decisions and deflected attention from a remarkable series of inconsistencies. For example, even though …

Virginia Fisheries And The Environment: Proceedings, William & Mary Law School, Virginia Marine Resources Commission, Virginia Institute Of Marine Science

Law School Conferences: Ephemera

Held December 8, 1979 at the Colonial Williamsburg Lodge.

Funded by the Virginia Environmental Endowment. Sponsored by the Marshall-Wythe School of Law, with the cooperation of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Symposium Participants (in order of appearance): Perkins Wilson, L. Eugene Cronin, Luie Fass, Ivar Strand, Carl L. Herring, Jr., J.B. Jackson, Herbert M. Austin, James Chambers, Robert R. Huggett, Ronald Gregory, John Wedin, Turner Smith, Jackson Davis, William M. Feinberg, James F. McHugh, John M. DeMaria, Jr., N. Bartlett Theberge, Evelyn M. Hailey, Allen W. Haynie, and Thomas J. Schoenbaum.