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Full-Text Articles in Law
Vetoing Wetland Permits Under Section 404(C) Of The Clean Water Act: A History Of Inter-Federal Agency Controversy And Reform, Michael Blumm
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) …
The Underappreciated Role Of The National Environmental Policy Act In Wilderness Designation And Management, Michael Blumm, Lorena Wisehart
The Underappreciated Role Of The National Environmental Policy Act In Wilderness Designation And Management, Michael Blumm, Lorena Wisehart
Faculty Articles
On its 50th anniversary, the Wilderness Act owes much to the effect of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), both in terms of the number of acres in the national wilderness system and in the management of designated wilderness areas. Courts have closely scrutinized federal land management agency actions that threaten wilderness qualities — and this article maintains that the usual vehicle has been NEPA. Enacted a little over a half-decade after the Wilderness Act, NEPA was instrumental in the doubling of wilderness acres in the 1980s, as Congress added wilderness areas and released other areas to multiple uses in …
The Past As Prologue To The Present: Managing The Oregon And California Forest Lands, Michael Blumm, Tim Wigington
The Past As Prologue To The Present: Managing The Oregon And California Forest Lands, Michael Blumm, Tim Wigington
Faculty Articles
This article is a brief review of the convoluted history of what are known as the Oregon and California forest lands, federal lands that were once the subject of a 19th century federal railroad grant, then became the focus of widespread land fraud and official corruption, which led to the Supreme Court halting land sales and Congress taking back the lands, situated in eighteen Oregon counties. Federal management of the lands in the 20th century emphasized timber harvesting, and this dominant use of the lands led to environmental lawsuits and the Endangered Species Act listing of the northern spotted owl …
Endangered Species Act Listings And Climate Change: Avoiding The Elephant In The Room, Michael Blumm, Kya Marienfeld
Endangered Species Act Listings And Climate Change: Avoiding The Elephant In The Room, Michael Blumm, Kya Marienfeld
Faculty Articles
The Endangered Species Act (ESA), with its reputation as the nation’s strongest environmental law, might be expected to impose some limits on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions adversely affecting listed species due to rising global temperatures. Although the federal government recently ended a long period of denial by conceding that some species warrant listing because of climate change, the accompanying listing decisions revealed a federal refusal to apply the ESA to constrain GHG emissions causing the listings. In this article, we explain those decisions — involving the American pika, the polar bear, the wolverine, and the Gunnison sage-grouse — and their …