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Articles 1 - 19 of 19
Full-Text Articles in Law
Look To Windward: The Michigan Environmental Protection Act And The Case For Atmospheric Trust Litigation In The Mitten State, Jonathan M. Coumes
Look To Windward: The Michigan Environmental Protection Act And The Case For Atmospheric Trust Litigation In The Mitten State, Jonathan M. Coumes
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Failure to address climate change or even slow the growth of carbon emissions has led to innovation in the methods activists are using to push decisionmakers away from disaster. In the United States, climate activists frustrated by decades of legislative and executive inaction have turned to the courts to force the hand of the state. In their most recent iteration, climate cases have focused on the public trust doctrine, the notion that governments hold their jurisdictions’ natural resources in trust for the public. Plaintiffs have argued that the atmosphere is part of the public trust and that governments have a …
Evolution Of Water Institutions In The Indus River Basin: Reflections From The Law Of The Colorado River, Erum Sattar, Jason Robison, Daniel Mccool
Evolution Of Water Institutions In The Indus River Basin: Reflections From The Law Of The Colorado River, Erum Sattar, Jason Robison, Daniel Mccool
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Transboundary water institutions in the Indus River Basin can be fairly characterized as broken in key respects. International relations between India and Pakistan over the Indus Waters Treaty, as well as interprovincial relations within Pakistan over the 1991 Water Accord, speak to this sentiment. Stemming from research undertaken by the authors for the Harvard Water Federalism Project and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), this Article seeks to spur the evolution of the Indus River Basin’s water institutions by offering a comparative perspective from North America’s most “institutionally encompassed” basin, the Colorado River Basin. Mindful of the importance …
Energy-Water Nexus, The Clean Power Plan, And Integration Of Water Resource Concerns Into Energy Decision-Making, Sarah Ladin
Energy-Water Nexus, The Clean Power Plan, And Integration Of Water Resource Concerns Into Energy Decision-Making, Sarah Ladin
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Energy regulation in the United States is now at a crossroads. The EPA has begun the process to officially repeal the Clean Power Plan and currently has no plan to replace it with new rulemaking to regulate carbon emissions from the U.S. energy sector. Even though the Clean Power Plan is more or less at its end, its regulatory structure stands as a model of the way decision-makers in the United States regulate the energy sector and the environment. Since the beginning of the modern environmental legal system, decision-makers have chosen to silo the system. Statutes and agencies focus on …
Parallels In Public And Private Environmental Governance, Sarah E. Light, Eric W. Orts
Parallels In Public And Private Environmental Governance, Sarah E. Light, Eric W. Orts
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
Private actors, including business firms and non-governmental organizations, play an essential role in addressing today’s most serious environmental challenges. Yet scholars have not fully recognized the parallels between public environmental law and the standard-setting and enforcement functions of private environmental governance. “Instrument choice” in environmental law scholarship is generally understood to refer to government actors choosing among options from the public law “toolkit,” which includes prescriptive rules, the creation of property rights, the leveraging of markets, and informational regulation. Each of these major public law tools, however, has a parallel in private environmental governance. This Article first provides a descriptive …
Uncertainty, Precaution, And Adaptive Management In Wildlife Trade, Annecoos Wiersema
Uncertainty, Precaution, And Adaptive Management In Wildlife Trade, Annecoos Wiersema
Michigan Journal of International Law
Wildlife trade is big business. Legal international trade in just some of the wild animals and plants traded worldwide is estimated at $350 to $530 million per year. The United States is the primary importer of virtually every major taxon of these species, including mammals, reptiles, fish, and plants. When it comes to illegal trade, estimates of its value range from $7 to $23 billion annually, covering wild animals, fish, and timber. This illegal trade fuels organized crime and militia and terrorist groups. In the face of all this pressure, some wild species appear to be traded in sustainable amounts. …
Avoiding Jeopardy, Without The Questions: Recovery Implementation Programs For Endangered Species In Western River Basins, Reed D. Benson
Avoiding Jeopardy, Without The Questions: Recovery Implementation Programs For Endangered Species In Western River Basins, Reed D. Benson
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
The application of the Endangered Species Act to water resources has generated much controversy in the American West. In several western river basins, however, Recovery Implementation Programs (RIPs) provide an alternative, collaborative approach to ESA compliance. These programs offer an enhanced role for states and stakeholders in ESA decisionmaking, and increased certainty that ESA requirements will not disrupt ongoing water project operations and established uses. This Article examines the origins, purposes, and elements of various RIPs, with particular emphasis on these programs’ approach to compliance with the requirements of ESA section 7 for federal agency actions. The Article also considers …
Closing The Regulatory Gap In Michigan's Public Trust Doctrine: Saving Michigan Millions With Statutory Reform, Kelsey Breck
Closing The Regulatory Gap In Michigan's Public Trust Doctrine: Saving Michigan Millions With Statutory Reform, Kelsey Breck
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Great Lakes are some of Michigan's most valuable and important environmental resources. The public trust doctrine requires Michigan to protect and preserve the lands along the shores of the Great Lakes for the use of future generations. Unfortunately, the public trust doctrine in Michigan is in disarray and as a result, public and private rights to the lands along the Great Lakes are poorly delineated. This Note presents an economic argument for why the public trust doctrine should be reformed to better define public and private rights to the land along Michigan's Great Lakes. It also suggests a statutory …
The Quest For A Sustainable Future And The Dawn Of A New Journal At Michigan Law, David M. Uhlmann
The Quest For A Sustainable Future And The Dawn Of A New Journal At Michigan Law, David M. Uhlmann
Articles
When I joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School in 2007, the first assignment I gave students in my Environmental Law and Policy class was John McPhee's Encounters with the Archdruid. It must have seemed like a curious choice to them, particularly coming from a professor who just three months earlier had been the Chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. The book was not a dramatic tale of courtroom battles. In fact, the book was not even about the law, and the clash of environmental values it depicted pre-dated the environmental …
Investigating 40 C.F.R. Sec. 124.55(B): State-Court Review Of Npdes Permit Certifications, Tad Macfarlan
Investigating 40 C.F.R. Sec. 124.55(B): State-Court Review Of Npdes Permit Certifications, Tad Macfarlan
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note investigates the wisdom and validity of 40 CER. § 124.55(b), a Clean Water Act regulation promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program. The Clean Water Act provides affected states with an opportunity to certify federally administered NDES permits before issuance by EPA. State certification is a meaningful moment in water quality regulation, and judicial review of these critical decisions takes place in state courts. Unfortunately, 40 C.ER. § 124.55(b), designed to bring certainty and finality to permit-holders, effectively removes state courts from the process of …
The Texas Wind Estate: Wind As A Natural Resource And A Severable Property Interest, Alan J. Alexander
The Texas Wind Estate: Wind As A Natural Resource And A Severable Property Interest, Alan J. Alexander
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In 2011, Texas is again at the forefront of an energy boom: the wind energy boom. In 2006, Texas surpassed California and became the US. state with the most installed capacity to produce wind energy, and Texas' level of installed capacity has continued to grow. But the law has not kept pace with this growth. Similar to the initial growth of the oil and gas industry in Texas, the wind energy industry was also born, and continues to grow, in the absence of clear legal and regulatory standards. Lack of regulation in the early development of the oil industry contributed …
Establishing A "Due Care" Standard Under The Lacey Act Amendments Of 2008, Rachel Saltzman
Establishing A "Due Care" Standard Under The Lacey Act Amendments Of 2008, Rachel Saltzman
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The Lacey Act was first enacted in 1900 as a narrow measure for domestic bird preservation and agriculture protection. It was significantly amended in 1981 and 1988 to prohibit trafficking in fish and wildlife "taken, possessed, transported, or sold" in violation of state and foreign laws. For the past three decades, the amended statute has provided the federal government with a powerful tool for regulating imports of fish and wildlife. In 2008 Congress expanded its reach still further, responding to widespread concern about the effects of illegal logging on local governance, the environment, and American business by extending the Act's …
Canada-United States Cooperative Approaches To Shared Marine Fishery Resources: Territorial Subversion?, Ted L. Mcdorman
Canada-United States Cooperative Approaches To Shared Marine Fishery Resources: Territorial Subversion?, Ted L. Mcdorman
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Essay will focus on how Canada and the United States have both succeeded and failed in adopting cooperative approaches to managing ocean fishery resources. A critical factor that has influenced these efforts is the introduction of an international legal construct dictating that States have exclusive sovereign rights respecting all marine living resources within 200 nautical miles of their shores. Cooperative approaches to managing transboundary marine living resources between Canada and the United States are necessary for two reasons. First, in the case of marine living resources, the resource pays scant attention to human-constructed national boundaries. Put another way, marine …
Conserving Marine Wildlife Through World Trade Law, Eric A. Bilsky
Conserving Marine Wildlife Through World Trade Law, Eric A. Bilsky
Michigan Journal of International Law
Part I of this Essay marshals the evidence that fisheries around the world are in peril from destructive fishing practices. Part II argues that most fisheries management regimes are ineffective at counteracting the political pressures and economic incentives that lead to unsustainable fishing. Part III makes the case that government subsidies are major enablers of overfishing. The fourth and final Part discusses the continuing efforts to use international trade regulation to eliminate overfishing subsidies and halt the collapse of the world's marine fish populations.
Assemblage-Oriented Ocean Resource Management: How The Marine Environment Washes Over Traditional Territorial Lines, John A. Duff
Assemblage-Oriented Ocean Resource Management: How The Marine Environment Washes Over Traditional Territorial Lines, John A. Duff
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Essay assesses challenges that arise when marine territorial boundaries do not encompass the appropriate assemblage of resources and relationships necessary for effective authority and management. It reviews the manner in which certain offshore resource uses have been "quasi-territorialized" by the application of other forms of jurisdiction. It also highlights regime-jurisdiction-private interest-oriented responses to territory-oriented challenges in the form of assemblages of authority, interests, space, and time. Given the scalar progression of the links in the discussion, the assessment moves from international principles to exercises of national sovereignty to domestic administration of space and resources to private legal interests.
From "Navigable Waters" To "Constitutional Waters": The Future Of Federal Wetlands Regulation, Mark Squillace
From "Navigable Waters" To "Constitutional Waters": The Future Of Federal Wetlands Regulation, Mark Squillace
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Wetlands regulation in the United States has a tumultuous history. The early European settlers viewed wetlands as obstacles to development, and they drained and filled wetlands and swamps at an astounding rate, often with government support, straight through the middle of the twentieth century. As evidence of the ecological significance of wetlands emerged over the last several decades, programs to protect and restore wetlands became prominent. Most notable among these is the permitting program under section 404 of the Clean Water Act. That provision prohibits dredging or filling of "navigable waters, " defined by law to mean "waters of the …
The Tribal Sovereign As Citizen: Protecting Indian Country Health And Welfare Through Federal Environmental Citizen Suits, James M. Grijalva
The Tribal Sovereign As Citizen: Protecting Indian Country Health And Welfare Through Federal Environmental Citizen Suits, James M. Grijalva
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
This Article suggests that federal environmental citizen suits can serve tribal sovereignty interests without presenting the legal risks tribes face when they attempt direct regulation of non-Indians. Section I briefly describes governmental regulatory roles tribes may play in the implementation of federal environmental law and policy. Section II overviews the conceptual and procedural framework for tribal claims as "citizens." Section III argues that in bringing environmental citizen suits, tribal governments exercise their inherent sovereign power and responsibility to protect the health and welfare of tribal citizens and the quality of the Indian country environment. Section IV concludes that, while suits …
Application Of The Public-Trust Doctrine And Principles Of Natural Resource Management To Electromagnetic Spectrum, Patrick S. Ryan
Application Of The Public-Trust Doctrine And Principles Of Natural Resource Management To Electromagnetic Spectrum, Patrick S. Ryan
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
The Electromagnetic spectrum is among our most valuable natural resources. Yet while the past few decades have seen a rich body of environmental law develop for other natural resources, this movement has largely passed over the electromagnetic spectrum. This Article argues that to remedy that situation, the public-trust doctrine, which is now a cornerstone of modern environmental law, should be extended to the electromagnetic spectrum. This extension would not be a leap: the public-trust doctrine has already been used to guarantee the public access to various bodies of water (not just navigable water), and to protect recreational lakes and beaches, …
Keeping Clean Waters Clean: Making The Clean Water Act's Antidegradation Policy Work, John A. Chilson
Keeping Clean Waters Clean: Making The Clean Water Act's Antidegradation Policy Work, John A. Chilson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Note stresses the importance of making the Clean Water Act's antidegradation policy work in order to avoid a system of national waters of equally mediocre quality. The Nation's highest quality and most important waters are not receiving appropriate protection under the Act because the antidegradation policy contains vague definitions, the states fail to review water quality standards every three years and to entertain citizens' petitions, and the Environmental Protection Agency has not taken an active role in ensuring compliance with federal standards. This Note examines the schemes of the Great Lakes States and Florida and hypothesizes that similar provisions …
State Regulation Of The Canal Corporation In Colorado, Leonard P. Fox
State Regulation Of The Canal Corporation In Colorado, Leonard P. Fox
Michigan Law Review
Inapplicability of the common law doctrine of riparian rights to conditions in the arid region moved the first territorial legislature of Colorado to recognize the counter doctrine of prior appropriation. In fact, the right to the water in the streams of Colorado, by prior appropriation, antedated any legislation. "It was the common law of the people, and legislation, both national and territorial, was but a recognition declaratory of the right as it had theretofore and then existed."-1 Adhering to territorial precedent, Colorado was the first state to incorporate the priority doctrine in its organic law.