Environmental Law Commons^™

Does Climate Disclosure Work To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Emerging Evidence Suggests Cautious Optimism., Cynthia A. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The purpose of this Article is to bring some of the emerging empirical literature evaluating the effects of required greenhouse gas (GHG) disclosure to bear on discussions of disclosure as a mechanism to address climate change. Since disclosure has become such a significant part of global efforts to address climate change, whether it has the effects in fact that are attributed to it in theory is properly subject to interrogation.   In this Article, several interrelated questions will be discussed. First, what does the empirical evidence show about the effects of required (GHG) disclosures on emissions? What mechanisms are engaged in …

The Law’S Failure To Protect Our Drinking Water From Pfas, Emily Levine

Indiana Law Journal

How did per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the forever chemicals known to harm human health and appear in most Americans’ blood, spread so widely in drinking water? Why didn’t someone with the power and knowledge to stop this crisis step in sooner? Simply imposing limits on PFAS levels in public water systems is the bare minimum to protect American drinking water—a necessary step but only the starting point of a long path toward creating a regulatory framework that can withstand the whims of changing presidential administrations and political influences.

     It is too easy for the EPA Administrator, either out of …

Outdated U.S. Safety Net Leaving Poor Communities Exposed To “Climate Strains”, Maurer School Of Law - Indiana University

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America’s safety net is failing to protect its most vulnerable citizens from the growing pressures of climate change, according to new research from an Indiana University Maurer School of Law Professor Andrew Hammond.

In a new article forthcoming in the Iowa Law Review, Hammond argues that while policymakers, the press, and the public tend to focus on climate “shocks” like hurricanes and wildfires, millions of Americans face overlooked climate “strains”—the everyday stresses of extreme heat, deteriorating air quality, and failing infrastructure that disproportionately affect low-income Americans.

Hammond’s paper, “Climate Strains and the Safety Net,” found that …

Conservation Law Clinic Students Help Draft New Indiana Prescribed Burn Legislation, James Owsley Boyd

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A new Indiana law that expands the state’s prescribed burning capacity was signed by Indiana Governor Mike Braun on April 30, in part due to efforts by Indiana University Maurer School of Law students through the school’s Conservation Law Clinic.

The law expands a prescribed fire training program administered through the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and defines the standard of liability for those certified through the training program. Before the bill was signed, Indiana was one of only a few states nationwide without a certification program or standard of liability clearly defined through legislation. This new law will allow …

Streamlining Wildlife Regulation, Robert L. Fischman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A recent burst of revisions in the bedrock regulations governing projects that may adversely affect wildlife represents a generational shift in policy. Streamlining federal decision -making drove much of this reform. Streamlining offers a path to address climate change without abandoning a longstanding commitment to wildlife conservation. The conservation community recognizes the need to build new infrastructure to reduce the rate of climate change through air emissions. The most urgent priority is decarbonizing the electrical ~rid through renewable energy generation and a better transmission network. Adaptation to the "new abnormal" of climate-driven environmental disruption demands federal approvals for a host …

Climate Change And Corporate Law In The United States: Not "Woke" But Eyes Open., Cynthia A. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Essay discusses the evidence that climate change and nature loss create financially material risks for corporations that must be carefully considered by officers and directors pursuant to their fiduciary duties of loyalty and care. This analysis concludes that under the current state of fiduciary duty law and the known financial risks presented by climate change and nature loss, officers and directors of corporations may breach their fiduciary duties by failing to implement and monitor a robust system to identify and manage each type of industry-specific climate-related and nature related risk. Risk of breach is particularly acute for entity-specific compliance …

Climate Litigation And Third-Party Litigation Finance, Courtney Geiss

Indiana Law Journal

For the last 200 years, human activities have been the main driver of global climate change, particularly the burning of fossil fuels. Increased emissions from fossil fuels have contributed to rising temperatures, food scarcity, and natural disasters, including fires, flooding, and droughts. Although climate change has been an issue in the public eye for the last several decades, global emissions are projected to continue increasing. At this point, it is clear that current actions at the individual and state level are not enough to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In this Note, I will discuss the idea of using third-party …

Jbs’S Initial Public Offering: Threats To Environmental And Human Rights, Kayla Thompson

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

This paper centers around the decision to be made regarding JBS, the world’s largest meat company, wanting to list shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and the environmental and social impacts that could result from the Security and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approval. JBS has been at the center of various controversies over the last several years, including sourcing cattle from ranches acquired through illegal deforestation, engaging in greenwashing practices, incorrectly reporting greenhouse gas emissions, and engaging in human rights abuses. Many environmental groups have filed complaints with the SEC concerning JBS’s bid to list on the NYSE. The …

Prescribing A Balance: Sustaining Environmental Health With Pharmaceutical Interest In Puerto Rico, Derek Warzel

Indiana Law Journal

Puerto Rico, often referred to as the “Medical Cabinet of the U.S.A.,” is a hub for pharmaceutical manufacturing, contributing significantly to the American medical supply chain and Puerto Rico’s economy. However, decades of industrial activity, compounded by climate events like Hurricane Maria, have led to severe environmental damage, particularly through groundwater contamination and damaged Superfund sites. This Note examines the historical intersection of economic incentives and environmental neglect in Puerto Rico, focusing on the pharmaceutical industry’s impact. By critically analyzing the Superfund program and proposing reforms, this Note advocates for a balanced approach: introducing proactive environmental protections and financial incentives …

Climate Prosecution As Climate Regulation, Cindy J. Cho

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Last term, the Supreme Court weakened the federal government’s ability to regulate. Three new decisions—and one landmark case from the previous term—will affect everything from drug approvals to overtime pay to national security. One issue stands out as a political flashpoint that will prove particularly difficult to address via regulation in the wake of this term: climate change. Given the unlikelihood of congressional climate action any time soon, those concerned about the risks of a warming planet will no doubt be looking for alternatives to regulation. Private and state civil lawsuits against polluters reflect an important legal tradition that must …

Fischman Elected To Defenders Of Wildlife Board, James Owsley Boyd

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An environmental law professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law has been elected to the board of directors of a national conservation organization dedicated to the protection and restoration of imperiled species and their habitats in North America.

Rob Fischman, the George P. Smith, II Distinguished Professor of Law and an adjunct professor at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, was elected to the Defenders of Wildlife board on Tuesday, May 21.

His teaching, research and service align closely with the organization’s conservation vision of a future where diverse wildlife populations in North America are secure …

Legal, Policy, And Environmental Scholars Discuss Global Food Systems At Indiana Law Symposium, James Owsley Boyd

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The Indiana University Maurer School of Law and its Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies are hosting scholars from around the country Friday and Saturday (Jan. 19-20) for an interdisciplinary discussion on one of the world’s most prevalent problems—food insecurity.

Data from the World Bank estimate more than 780 million people around the world suffered from chronic hunger in 2022. As climate change affects agricultural production and water accessibility, the problem could worsen in coming years.

“A Fragile Framework: How Global Food Systems Intersect with the International Legal Order, the Environment, and the World’s Populations” will bring together legal, policy, …

Corporate Climate Litigation And Environmental Justice: How Green Amendments Can Be Used To Advance Accountability And Equity, Noah Hines

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

The term “Green Amendment” was first coined by author Maya van Rossum in her 2017 book The Green Amendment: Securing Our Right to a Healthy Environment, in which she argues that modern environmental protection laws are fundamentally failing the most vulnerable people in society and proposes the creation of new constitutional rights as a solution. The provisions van Rossum argues ought to be added to state constitutions as “Green Amendments” are also sometimes called “Environmental Rights Amendments,” and generally enumerate the right of all citizens to a clean or healthy environment. Green Amendments currently exist in Pennsylvania, Montana, Illinois, Hawaii, …

Private Climate Governance Of Finance: "Net Zero" Prospects And Politics., Cynthia A. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In 2021, as part of the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (“GFANZ”) was announced. This Alliance of banks, asset managers, and insurance companies, among other financial institutions, with more than $130 trillion of assets under management when announced, was based on a pledge by the participating companies to work towards net-zero status in their businesses by 2050 or sooner. Led by former UK Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who is now the U.N.’s Special Envoy on Climate, it seemed to have some promise as a “soft law” governance mechanism to develop voluntary …

Deals In The Heartland: Renewable Energy Projects, Local Resistance, And How Law Can Help, Christiana Ochoa, Kacey Cook, Hanna Weil

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article offers proposals for better engagements, relationships, and deals with local communities contemplating wind farms. Because the rapid expansion of wind energy to date has exhausted the first-mover rural communities, the promise of wind energy depends on reluctant rural communities that may require the legal, relational, and policy innovations proposed herein if they are to grant their consent to future wind farms and participate in the renewable energy transformation. The proposals herein are the result of empirical research exploring how occupants of rural spaces have reacted to wind developer’s strategies in their communities and how local communities have employed …

Maurer Environmental Law Expert Is Lead Author On Science Insights Policy Forum Article, James Owsley Boyd

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Environmental champions and conservationists will mark the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act later this month. That is the law requiring federal agencies to use all methods necessary to prevent extinctions and ensure that federal actions not jeopardize the continued existence of species on the brink of disappearing from the face of the Earth.

In the leadup to the December 27th anniversary, several publications have begun examining the Act’s history and impact over five decades.

Science, the world’s third-most influential scholarly journal based on Google Scholar citations, invited experts from around the country to look ahead as well …

A Landmark Environmental Law Looks Ahead, Robert L. Fischman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In late December 1973, the United States enacted what some would come to call “the pitbull of environmental laws.” In the 50 years since, the formidable regulatory teeth of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have been credited with considerable successes, obliging agencies to draw upon the best available science to protect species and habitats. Yet human pressures continue to push the planet toward extinctions on a massive scale. With that prospect looming, and with scientific understanding ever changing, Science invited experts to discuss how the ESA has evolved and what its future might hold.

Environmental And Natural Resources Law Symposium: Assessing The August 2023 Amendments To The Waters Of The United States Rule In The Wake Of Sackett V. Epa, Ryan Day

Maurer Law Events

In 1982, the Army Corps of Engineers adopted the EPA definition of “waters of the United States.” This brought an end to a smoldering interagency conflict over the definitions under the Clean Water Act. This relationship was formalized with a 1989 Memorandum of Agreement between the EPA and the Corps; the Corps has largely ceded definitional decision making to the EPA, which develops guidance and supporting materials, while the Corps is responsible for most case-specific jurisdictional determinations under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. In 2023, the agencies embarked on their latest round of rulemaking. In January, the Biden …

Maurer Environmental Law Expert Is Lead Author On Science Insights Policy Forum Article, James Owsley Boyd

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The Indiana University Maurer and McKinney Schools of Law jointly will convene leading scholars and practitioners to discuss the implications of the 2023 United States Supreme Court case of Sackett v. EPA. The event, “Sackett v. EPA: What the Supreme Court’s Decision Means for Regulation and Wetlands Conservation,” will take place November 10 in the Wynne Courtroom and Steve Tuchman and Reed Bobrick Atrium at IU McKinney in Indianapolis.

Committee Chaired By Maurer Professor To Complete Its Analytical Review Of Hanford Nuclear Reservation Waste Options, James Owsley Boyd

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A committee chaired by an Indiana University Maurer School of Law professor will complete next week its five-year charge to review the analysis performed by a team investigating how best to treat and dispose of low-level waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington.

John Strait Applegate, the James L. Calamaras Professor of Law, has served as chair of the 13-member National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee since 2018. The committee will conclude its work with a public meeting in Richland, Washington, on June 6. Applegate had previously chaired a prior review of the waste disposal issue …

Fischman Serves As Witness In Endangered Species Act Hearing, James Owsley Boyd

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An environmental law expert from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law served as an expert witness today (April 18) as part of a congressional hearing on the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Professor Rob Fischman participated in one of three panels convened by the U.S. House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries as lawmakers consider four Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions challenging the implementation of certain aspects of the ESA.

Climate Security Insights From The Covid-19 Response, Mark Nevitt

Indiana Law Journal

The climate change crisis and COVID-19 crisis are both complex collective action problems. Neither the coronavirus nor greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions respect political borders. Both impose an opportunity cost that penalizes inaction. They are also increasingly understood as nontraditional, novel security threats. Indeed, COVID-19’s human cost is staggering, with American lives lost vastly exceeding those lost in recent armed conflicts. And climate change is both a threat accelerant and a catalyst for conflict—a characterization reinforced in several climate-security reports. To counter COVID-19, the President embraced martial language, stating that he will employ a “wartime footing” to “defeat the virus.” Perhaps …

Kolender’S Paper Earns Ohio Environmental Writing Award, James Owsley Boyd

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When a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the soil, water, and air, Zoe Kolender knew the cleanup efforts would be an arduous task. But she also knew something most people don’t—that environmental disasters like the Norfolk Southern derailment are treated differently depending on the areas in which they occur.

Kolender, a 3L at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, had been studying the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) while developing a paper for Professor India Thusi’s seminar in Critical Race Theory. CERCLA …

Warrantying Health Equity, Heather Payne, Jennifer Oliva

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The United States is experiencing a significant rise in the prevalence of asthma and other debilitating respiratory and cardiovascular ailments that disproportionately burden low income and marginalized Americans. This is due in large measure to climate change, which is responsible for increasingly devastating air quality events—including wildfires and drought—that trigger these serious health conditions. As a result, it is imperative that we begin to explore potential legal and policy reforms that rein in sources of health-impairing air pollution.

The common law of property has long implied in residential leasing arrangements a warranty guaranteed by landlords to tenants that the premises …

Solving Contemporary Issues In Conservation Through A Market-Based International Park System, Ian Finley

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In 2016, the United States National Park Service celebrated its centennial, which caused a flurry of calls for reflection and recommendations for improvements for national parks.1 People began urging the national parks to reaffirm their commitment to conservation and recreation, along with encouraging more research.2 It seemed to be a natural time to revisit the original “justification for both Yosemite and Yellowstone park [that] was the protection of unique scenery in the national interest.”3 That being said, in light of developments in national parks over the last one hundred years, it is important to challenge or at least qualify that …

Domestic Emergency Pretexts, Amy L. Stein

Indiana Law Journal

Whereas emergencies used to be the exception to the rule, they now seem to be the norm. Wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, and contagious diseases dominate our daily lives. Although these are not the traditional types of military emergencies of our past, these non-wartime emergencies can trigger some of the same emergency powers. And with their use comes some of the same concerns about abuses of such emergency powers. Much ink has been spilled analyzing the tradeoffs associated with necessary emergency powers and frequent abuses in the context of foreign threats—resulting in reduced privacy, civil liberties, and freedoms.

This Article is not …

Deals In The Heartland: Renewable Energy Projects, Local Resistance, And How Law Can Help, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Informed by original empirical research conducted in the Midwestern United States, this Article provides a rich and textured understanding of the rapidly emerging opposition to renewable energy projects. Beyond the Article’s urgent practical contributions, it also examines the importance of formalism and formality in contracts and complicates current understandings.

Rural communities in every windblown and sun-drenched region of the United States are enmeshed in legal, political, and social conflicts related to the country’s rapid transition to renewable energy. Organized local opposition has foreclosed millions of acres from renewable energy development, impeding national and state-level commitments to achieving renewable energy targets …

Stakeholderism Silo Busting, Aneil Kovvali

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The fields of antitrust, bankruptcy, corporate, and securities law are undergoing tumultuous debates. On one side in each field is the dominant view that each field should focus exclusively on a specific constituency—antitrust on consumers, bankruptcy on creditors, corporate law on shareholders, and securities regulation on financial investors. On the other side is a growing insurgency that seeks to broaden the focus to a larger set of stakeholders, including workers, the environment, and political communities. But these conversations have largely proceeded in parallel, with each debate unfolding within the framework and literature of a single field. Studying these debates together …

Deitche Earns Karen Hastie Williams Fellowship, James Owsley Boyd

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La’Kendra Deitche, a 2L from Fort Wayne, Indiana, has been selected as one of eight—and the only one from outside the Washington, D.C. area—Karen Hastie Williams Leadership Fellows, a prestigious fellowship awarded by the D.C. Bar.

Deitche will complete a leadership orientation session followed by a six-month fellowship, from January through June 2023, on the D.C. Bar’s Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources community. The D.C. Bar offers 20 communities that help members develop expertise in specific practice areas.

Science-Intensive Dispute Mechanism For Protection Of Atmosphere: Icj, Wto And Pca, Chhaya Bhardwaj, Anmol Agarwal

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The authors argue that protection of atmosphere related science intensive disputes should be submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) because it has a better approach in comparison to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and World Trade Organization (WTO). This comparative analysis highlights different approaches by the three dispute settlement institutions. The approach by the ICJ and WTO are discretionary and follow a case-by-case method to evaluate scientific evidence. The PCA has standardized its dispute settlement process under its codified protocols for science-intensive disputes. There is an increase in science-intensity of legal issues in the twenty-first century and …