Environmental Law Commons^™

Slides: Tribal Perspectives On Natural Resource Policy, Donald Wharton

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: Donald Wharton, Native American Rights Fund

16 slides

The Growing Influence Of Tort And Property Law On Natural Resources Law: Case Studies Of Coal Bed Methane Development And Geologic Carbon Sequestration, Alexandra B. Klass

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

19 pages.

"Alexandra B. Klass, Associate Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School"

Historical Evolution And Future Of Natural Resources Law And Policy: The Beginning Of An Argument And Some Modest Predictions, Sally K. Fairfax, Helen Ingram, Leigh Raymond

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

8 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

"Sally Fairfax, UC-Berkeley, Helen Ingram, UC-Irvine, and Leigh Raymond, Purdue University" -- Agenda

Federalism And Natural Resources Policy [Outline], Robert L. Fischman

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

2 pages.

"Robert L. Fischman, Indiana University School of Law–Bloomington"

"Outline of Presentation"

Private Rights And Collective Governance: A Functional Approach To Natural Resources Law, Eric T. Freyfogle

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

4 pages.

"Eric T. Freyfogle, Max L. Rowe Professor of Law, University of Illinois College of Law"

Law Casebook Description And Table Of Contents: Constitutional Environmental And Natural Resources Law [Outline], Jim May, Robin Craig

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

6 pages.

"James May, Widener University School of Law" -- Agenda

Slides: What's In A Name? The Story Of The Utah Wilderness Reinventory, James R. Rasband

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

Presenter: James R. Rasband, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University

23 slides

What’S In A Name? The Story Of The Utah Wilderness Reinventory, James R. Rasband

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

14 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

"James R. Rasband, Associate Dean of Research & Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University"

Some Preliminary Thoughts On Contrasts And Convergence In Environmental And Natural Resources Law, Karin P. Sheldon

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

16 pages.

Includes bibliographical references

Model Interstate Water Compact, Ken Knox

Publications

No abstract provided.

Advisory Committee Recommendations - The Utton Center Model Interstate Water Compact, State Bar Center, State Bar Of New Mexico

Publications

No abstract provided.

Slides: The Future Of Federal Wetlands Regulation, Mark Squillace

The Future of Federal Wetlands Regulation After Rapanos (May 10)

Presenter: Professor Mark Squillace, Director, Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law

35 slides

Agenda: The Future Of Federal Wetlands Regulation After Rapanos, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

The Future of Federal Wetlands Regulation After Rapanos (May 10)

Hot-Topic Discussion held at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck in Denver, Colorado on May 10, 2007 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:15 p.m.

Speaker: Mark Squillace, Director of the Natural Resources Law Center, University of Colorado School of Law.

Commentators: Wayne Forman and Michelle Kales, attorneys, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck

"Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006), was a United States Supreme Court case challenging federal jurisdiction to regulate isolated wetlands under the Clean Water Act. It was the first major environmental case heard by the newly appointed Chief Justice, John Roberts and Associate Justice, Samuel Alito. The Supreme Court …

Introduction, G. Emlen Hall

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Mississippi River Stories: Lessons From A Century Of Unnatural Disasters, Sandi Zellmer, Christine Klein

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the nation pondered how a relatively weak Category 3 storm could have destroyed an entire region. Few appreciated the extent to which a flawed federal water development policy transformed this apparently natural disaster into a “man-made” disaster; fewer still appreciated how the disaster was the predictable, and indeed predicted, sequel to almost a century of similar disasters. This article focuses upon three such stories: the Great Flood of 1927, the Midwest Flood of 1993, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005. Taken together, the stories reveal important lessons, including the inadequacy of engineered flood …

A Tale Of Two Imperiled Rivers: Reflections From A Post-Katrina World, Sandra Zellmer

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

Hurricanes are a natural, predictable phenomenon, yet the Gulf Coast communities were devastated by the hurricanes of 2005. One year after Hurricane Katrina struck, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers responded to a congressional request for an accounting by admitting culpability for the destruction of New Orleans. Its structural defenses failed not because Congress had authorized only moderate Category 3 protection, which in turn let floodwaters overtop the city's levees, but because levees and floodwalls simply collapsed. The so-called network of federal and local structures was a haphazard system in name only, where floodwalls and levees of varying heights utilized …

Generally Illegal: Npdes General Permits Under The Clean Water Act, Jeffrey M. Gaba

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Under the Clean Water Act, it is unlawful for a point source to discharge pollutants without a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) permit. Most NPDES permits are issued to individual facilities, but since 1979, EPA and States have had a process of issuing “General Permits” to satisfy the requirements of the Clean Water Act. These General Permits may contain enforceable effluent limitations and other requirements, but, unlike individual permit, they may apply to large numbers of sources discharging into many different bodies of water. The conditions of a General Permit are developed through a “notice and comment” process similar …

Broadening Narrow Perspectives And Nuisance Law: Protecting Ecosystem Services In The Acf Basin, Robert Haskell Abrams

Journal Publications

The political stalemate among the neighboring states of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida over the cooperative management of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint (ACF) River Basin has been chronicled in numerous articles in the past. This Article will canvas parallel ground in relation to the ACF Basin. In addition, this Article will consider the usual mantra about why the legal deck appears to be stacked against the bottom of the basin where the principal benefits of the water are derived from the ecological systems that are supported by a more natural flow regime. After that, however, the Article will explain how the greatly expanded …

From Walden To Wall Street: Frontiers Of Conservation Finance, Edited By James N. Levitt, Patrick J. Redmond

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Grotius, Ocean Fish Ranching, And The Public Trust Doctrine: Ride 'Em Charlie Tuna, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Seventy percent of the world's fish populations are in serious decline; some have been fished to near extinction. While domestic and international efforts are underway to curb the rate at which the remaining fish are being depleted, the demand for fish appears to be outstripping these initiatives--before they can take hold, the fish may be gone. In response to this increasingly dire situation, many countries, including the United States, have turned to fish farming in hope of taking pressure off of certain wild stocks of fish while still meeting consumer demands for them. More recently, non-U.S. fish farmers have moved …

Joe Stell's Life, Career, & Contributions, Susan Kelly

Water Matters!

Representative Joe Stell's retirement after 20 years in the New Mexico Legislature has many people wondering: How will we fare without his knowledge and history ofNew Mexico water matters? Stell viewed one of his most important roles as that of helping new legislators get up to speed on w ater issues. We hope that Water Matters! may assist in this role by providing legislators with background information on some of the issues they will encounter. The Utton Center also wanted to acknowledge Joe Stell's outstanding service to New Mexico, and we have therefore included a brief sketch about his career, …

Invasive Seaweed: Global And Regional Law And Policy Responses, Meinhard Doelle, Moira Mcconnell, David Vanderzwaag

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

We consider law and policy responses to invasive seaweeds at global and regional levels. Key global regimes considered include the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Ramsar Convention and the Bonn Convention on Migratory Species. Contributions from the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Maritime Organization are also considered in the global context. At a regional level, examples of efforts in North America and Europe are offered to illustrate challenges and opportunities for regional responses to invasive seaweeds. We conclude with law and policy recommendations, most notably the need …

Rivers To Live By: Can Western Water Law Help Communities Embrace Their Streams?, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

In short, this article will adress: (1) the ways in which traditional western water law has hindered efforts to preserve free-flowing rivers in our communities; (2) some examples of how cities and towns are making efforts to keep their rivers flowing in order to provide recreation and other public benefits, and the ways in which water law is beginning to change to accomodate these efforts; and (3) some suggestions for water law reforms that would expand opportunities for western communities to keep water flowing in their rivers.

Chumming On The Chesapeake Bay And Complexity Theory: Why The Precautionary Principle, Not Cost-Benefit Analysis, Makes More Sense As A Regulatory Approach, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay ("Bay") and Puget Sound are in grave trouble. They each suffer from poor water quality, loss of habitat, and declining biodiversity, and efforts to restore their health are straining both public and private resources. While accomplishments are often recorded in the fight against these ills, it is clear these accomplishments "are not yet equal to the scale of the problems." The focus of this article is on the nation's largest estuary, the Bay. Despite the investment of billions of dollars to improve water quality, the Bay continues to suffer from severe environmental degradation that impairs …

The Information Quality Act: The Little Statute That Could (Or Couldn't?) Applying The Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments Of 1996 To The Federal Communications Commission, Kellen Ressmeyer

Federal Communications Law Journal

In December 2000, Congress passed the Information Quality Act - a two sentence rider to a 712-page Appropriations Bill. The Information Quality Act, which seeks to ensure the quality of government-disseminated information, places the White House Office of Management and Budget in a supervisory role. The Office of Management and Budget subsequently finalized a set of mandatory Guidelines applicable to all federal agencies. Among other things, the Guidelines require adherence to the scientific standard articulated in the 1996 Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act where such agencies engage in risk analysis to human health, safety, and the environment. As …

Policy Tools For Smart Growth In New England, New England Environmental Finance Center

Smart Growth

Across New England communities have been experiencing a rapid outward surge of development away from our community and downtown centers. Effects of sprawl include a loss of wildlife habitat, farm and timber lands; increased costs of community services and higher taxes; auto-dependency, longer commutes, and increased congestion; increases in air and water pollution; a sedentary lifestyle and increased obesity; and losses to one’s sense of place and social ties.

State-level responses to sprawl have surfaced throughout New England in recent years. This report describes 11 examples of these responses, representing all six New England states and a diversity of recent …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Water Forum 2006, Susan Kelly

Publications

No abstract provided.

Reckoning With Rapanos: Revisiting "Waters Of The United States" And The Limits Of Federal Wetland Regulation, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Rapanos v. United States is the latest episode in the serial effort to identify the precise meaning of "waters of the United States." Federal courts have struggled to define the scope of federal regulatory jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act ("CWA") since the law was adopted.

Although no single opinion in Rapanos commanded a majority of the Court, the Court delivered a discernible holding. Specifically, the Court held that CWA jurisdiction over private lands is limited...and reaffirmed that federal regulatory authority only extends to those wetlands that have a "significant nexus" to navigable waters of the United States. Nonetheless, the …

Waters Of The United States: Theory, Practice And Integrity At The Supreme Court, Jamison E. Colburn

ExpressO

In the Supreme Court's two wetlands cases this Term, a question of statutory interpretation divided the justices sharply, in part because so much rides on the particular statutory provision at issue. The provision, a cryptic definition within the Clean Water Act (CWA), has now provided three separate occasions at the Court where the justices have confronted (1) the Chevron doctrine and the Court’s own ambivalence toward it, and (2) the CWA's enormous project of restoring the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters. In this essay, I argue that the way the Court went about resolving its differences …