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Full-Text Articles in Law
Nepa At 21: Over The Hill Already?, David G. Burleson
Nepa At 21: Over The Hill Already?, David G. Burleson
Akron Law Review
The first part of this Comment will briefly review the somewhat meteoric rise of NEPA including the increase in public awareness which led to federal action, its projected effect, and the manner in which the courts seemed to be heading in their treatment of NEPA. The Comment will then review the decline of NEPA due to subsequent Supreme Court decisions. Finally, the Comment will consider possible remedies for the present anemic condition of this first federal environmental statute.
The Increasing Privatization Of Environmental Permitting, Jessica Owley
The Increasing Privatization Of Environmental Permitting, Jessica Owley
Akron Law Review
This article examines the increasing privatization of environmental law by taking a close look at mitigation measures in permitting programs. As mitigation has become an increasingly important element of permitting programs, permitting agencies have looked for outside organizations to help design, monitor, and enforce the mitigation projects. Thus, compensatory mitigation projects provide a good lens for examining the role of private organizations in environmental law. There are good reasons for drawing on the power of private organizations. They can provide flexibility and expertise as well as increased capacity. However, concerns regarding democracy and accountability arise when government agencies hand off …
Toward Regional Governance In Environmental Law, Douglas R. Williams
Toward Regional Governance In Environmental Law, Douglas R. Williams
Akron Law Review
This article will proceed in three parts. Part I provides a brief introduction to the structured institutional arrangements under the CAA and the CWA. I discuss how these programs have evolved in ways that depart from what may have been originally anticipated and how their structure poses impediments to effective environmental management. Part II provides a short summary of current thinking about the institutional architecture of our environmental programs, focusing primarily on the “environmental federalism” scholarship of recent years. I offer reasons for abandoning federalism as an appropriate institutional framework. Part III presents a conceptual, rather than tightly engineered, argument …
Looking Back To The Future: The Curmudgeon's Guide To The Future Of Environmental Law, Denis Binder
Looking Back To The Future: The Curmudgeon's Guide To The Future Of Environmental Law, Denis Binder
Akron Law Review
This essay is not intended as a traditional law review article, but as an essay intended to raise questions about the current status and future of Environmental Law in light of the three and one-half centuries of a developmental, exploitative ethos in America.
Power To The People: Restoring The Public Voice In Environmental Law, Albert C. Lin
Power To The People: Restoring The Public Voice In Environmental Law, Albert C. Lin
Akron Law Review
Although the last forty years of environmental law have witnessed some successes, they have also increasingly revealed the limitations of existing laws and regulatory structures. Congress has been unable to pass substantial environmental legislation in recent years, notwithstanding widespread recognition of the need for better tools for responding to climate change, toxic chemicals, non-point source water pollution, and other problems. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) has struggled in the wake of limited resources and politicization to effectively use the tools it has, and its rulemaking processes are often dominated by industry and other repeat players. To deal with …
Aligning Regulation With The Informational Need: Ecosystem Services And The Next Generation Of Environmental Law, Keith H. Hirokawa, Elizabeth J. Porter
Aligning Regulation With The Informational Need: Ecosystem Services And The Next Generation Of Environmental Law, Keith H. Hirokawa, Elizabeth J. Porter
Akron Law Review
This article explores the Clinch Coalition decision to understand why the court would perpetuate a process that systematically rejects the relevance and value of ecosystem processes in the information gathering exercise entailed in these environmental regulations. The discussion begins with an introduction to ecosystem services as a study of human dependency on the services provided by functioning ecosystems. In the second section, the article turns to the Clinch Coalition decision to outline the arguments relied upon by the court to legitimize the Forest Service’s decision to avoid an ecosystem services analysis. The article then presents the Clinch Coalition decision as …
Adaptive Management And The Future Of Environmental Law, Eric Biber
Adaptive Management And The Future Of Environmental Law, Eric Biber
Akron Law Review
Adaptive management is the new paradigm in environmental law. It is omnipresent in scholarship and management documents and is even starting to appear in court opinions. There have been many calls for environmental law to adapt itself to adaptive management by becoming more flexible and dynamic. But does adaptive management really warrant a revolution in environmental law? Or is it adaptive management that might need to adapt to the world of environmental law? There has been an abundance of scholarship on the strengths of adaptive management, making the case for changing environmental law to embrace adaptive management. But answering the …
Environmental Law And The Collapse Of New Deal Constitutionalism, Arthur F. Mcevoy
Environmental Law And The Collapse Of New Deal Constitutionalism, Arthur F. Mcevoy
Akron Law Review
This Article, which is a précis for a book in progress about the history of late twentieth-century U.S. environmental law, argues that our modern environmental law is peculiarly a creature of the New Deal. Despite its obvious legacy from common-law nuisance and Progressive regulation, what makes modern environmental law different from anything that came before is the way in which reformers built it out of parts copied from New Deal reform projects: cooperative federalism, the tax-and-spend power, representation-reinforcing, rights trumps, and so on. Environmental law’s history, its character, its accomplishments, and its shortcomings thus entwined with those of the New …
Replacing Sustainability, Robin Kundis Craig, Melinda Harm Benson
Replacing Sustainability, Robin Kundis Craig, Melinda Harm Benson
Akron Law Review
This Article argues that, from a policy perspective, we must face the impossibility of even defining—let alone pursuing—a goal of “sustainability” in a world characterized by such extreme complexity, radical uncertainty, and discomfiting loss of stationarity. Instead, we need new policy directions and orientations that provide the necessary capacity to deal with these “wicked problems” in a meaningful and equitable way. The realities of current and emerging SES dynamics warrant a new set of tools and approaches to governance of those systems. Part II of this Article provides a brief history of sustainability and sustainable development, including corollary emphases on …
Symposium: The Next Generation Of Environmental And Natural Resources Law: What Has Changed In Forty Years And What Needs To Change As A Result, Kalyani Robbins
Symposium: The Next Generation Of Environmental And Natural Resources Law: What Has Changed In Forty Years And What Needs To Change As A Result, Kalyani Robbins
Akron Law Review
Introduction to nine perspectives changing in the field of Environmental and Natural Resources Law. These discussions, and our shared concern for the issues that will impact the planet for centuries to come, are so valuable.