Environmental Law Commons^™

Executive Orders And Presidential Commands: Presidents Riding To The Rescue Of The Environment, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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Presidential executive orders are legal and political documents. They are also uniquely personal utterances of the president and the administration. The right words at the appropriate time can motivate and move the human spirit, and they can link this president and this moment to the strongest of ideas. Being personal and tending to the heroic, the executive order can thus be perceived as accomplishing a great public good.

This article will explore the pros and cons of the executive order tool. I will then evaluate a number of executive orders that have impacted contemporary environmental policy. I will conclude by …

The Miccosukee Indians And Environmental Law: A Confederacy Of Hope, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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Two legal orphans have found each other. The older one is "Indian Law," a confused, embarrassing, and twisted body of legal rules that "explain" the relationships between the United States and its native peoples. The newer one is "Environmental Law," a complex and jumbled stew of cases and statutes that "prescribe" proper behavior between modern Americans and the natural world.

Both these children of the law are suspected of subversion—the one is tainted by advocates of separate sovereignties, the other by critics of the American way of life. For Native Americans and environmentalists, their recent legal merger is a confederacy …

U.S. Constitutional Law--Federal Jurisdiction---Environmental Law--Maritime Law--State Regulation Of Shipping For Pollution--Control Purposes--Federal Preemption United States V. Locke. 120 S.Ct. 1135. Supreme Court Of The United States, March 6, 2000., Patrick O. Gudridge

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Protocol On Liability And Compensation For Damage Resulting From The Transboundary Movements Of Hazardous Wastes And Their Disposal, Jerrold A. Long

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The Most Creative Moments In The History Of Environmental Law: "The Whats", William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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In preparation for this symposium piece, Professor Rodgers asked a number of his colleagues active in the field of environmental law to identify what they considered to be the most creative moments in the history of environmental law. He gave no specific instructions with his request other than providing a definition of what he considered to be a creative moment: "A legal initiative that advances environmental law with a new level of analysis, new structure, or new institutional bridge. "

This article is a compilation of the numerous responses the author received. The responses formulate a detailed and informative description …

Federalism In The Era Of International Standards: Federal And State Government Regulation Of Merchant Vessels In The United States (Part Iv), Craig H. Allen

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No abstract provided.

The Myth Of The Win-Win: Misdiagnosis In The Business Of Reassembling Nature, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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This Article starts with a closer than customary look at the most serious obstacle to the ambitious campaign of environmental restoration that is the focus of this Symposium. That obstacle is the human brain.

The Article contends that human cognitive processes are marvelous designers of serviceable self-deceptions. In the war on nature that we witnessed in the twentieth century the most functional of these is the firm belief in a non-zero sum world. This is the conviction that gains from economic development could be enjoyed without sacrifice of the natural world.

This is a convenient, powerful, and serviceable myth although …

Mine Disaster Threatens Spain's Donana National Park, Jerrold A. Long

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Federalism In The Era Of International Standards: Federal And State Government Regulation Of Merchant Vessels In The United States (Part Iii), Craig H. Allen

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No abstract provided.

The Most Creative Moments In The History Of Environmental Law: "The Who's", William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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My definition of creativity in environmental law is any legal initiative that advances the subject with new levels of analysis, structure, or institutional bridges. There are two requirements: improvement on function and novelty. Law is better if it increases the prospect of protecting the natural world or its inhabitants. Law is novel if it combines mandate, process, or structure in unusual ways.

There are reasons to suspect that environmental law as a field may be more creative than other legal subjects such as trust and estates, contracts, property, or tax law. One reason, as Oliver Houck has said, is that …

What A Salmon Czar Might Hope For, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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There is a windowof opportunity in the wave of Endangered Species Act salmon listings that has descended on the Pacific Northwest in 1998 and 1999. Federal law links listings to the "inadequacy of existing regulatory mechanisms." Experience in Oregon has shown that EPA listings cannot be avoided by "voluntary or future conservation efforts."

Meaningful state law that will deter federal overrides must be "current" and "enforceable." With salmon stocks plummeting and with "inadequate" regulation prominently confirmed, what would the naive observer expect from a Washington State legislature intent upon saving the salmon and protecting its authority? A spate of stunning …

Understanding The "Public Interest" Justification For Government Actions, Paul R. Verkuil

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The article examines the concept of "public interest" as a justification for government actions, arguing that while the term has historically been a cornerstone of administrative law, its meaning has become increasingly ambiguous and subjective over time. The author traces the evolution of the public interest standard, from its origins in the New Deal era to its current use, and questions whether it can still serve as an objective standard for evaluating government behavior. The analysis highlights the tension between the public interest as a justification for government action and its susceptibility to political and bureaucratic influence.

Federalism In The Era Of International Standards: Federal And State Government Regulation Of Merchant Vessels In The United States (Part Ii), Craig H. Allen

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No abstract provided.

Federalism In The Era Of International Standards: Federal And State Government Regulation Of Merchant Vessels In The United States (Part I), Craig H. Allen

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In examining federalism issues relevant to merchant vessels, this article will distinguish between those laws and regulations governing liability for harm and those which regulate safety. Federalism questions arise most frequently in the former, private, maritime law domain, when courts are called upon to determine judicial jurisdiction and the extent to which state law may be applied to adjudicate liability and damages in cases falling within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction. Less frequently, the federalism debate focuses on public maritime law, when states seek to regulate commercial vessel safety or vessel-source pollution.

This article will begin with an examination of …

Defeating Environmental Law: The Geology Of Legal Advantage, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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My talk today will: (1) introduce the metaphor of geology, (2) suggest to you that complexity has "gainers" as well as "losers," and (3) show you how environmental laws can be defeated by these twin engines of complexity and clever human adversaries.

[Third Annual Lloyd K. Garrison Lecture on Environmental Law.]

Structures Of Environmental Criminal Enforcement, Michael E. Herz

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Accountability And Mandates: Redefining The Problem Of Federal Spending Conditions, Edward A. Zelinsky

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An Introduction To Environmental Law In The United States Of America, Michael E. Herz

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There is an old joke about someone who, having taken a course in speed reading, is able to finish War and Peace in an afternoon. On bragging about this accomplishment, he is asked what the book was about. His entire response: "Russia." In attempting to fulfil my charge to summarize American environmental law in a few pages I fear that I risk a similar result. With such ruthless simplification, the reader may came away with no more understanding of this enormous, detailed, and complex body of law than the speed reader had of Tolstoy, knowing only that American environmental law …

On The Topology Of Uniform Environmental Standards In A Federal System And Why It Matters (Symposium: Environmental Federalism), James E. Krier

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Uniform standards are much favored among the makers of federal environmental policy in the United States, which is to say, among the members of Congress. By and large-judging at least from the legislation it has enacted-Congress expects the air and water eventually to meet the same minimum levels of quality in every state in the country, and expects each pollution source in any industrial category or subcategory to be controlled just as much as every other such source, notwithstanding the source's location or other peculiar characteristics. There are exceptions to these generalizations, but they are exceptions and not the rule.1 …

Property Rules And Liability Rules: The Cathedral In Another Light, James E. Krier, Stewart J. Schwab

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Ronald Coase's essay on "The Problem of Social Cost" introduced the world to transaction costs, and the introduction laid the foundation for an ongoing cottage industry in law and economics. And of all the law-and-economics scholarship built on Coase's insights, perhaps the most widely known and influential contribution has been Calabresi and Melamed's discussion of what they called "property rules" and "liability rules."' Those rules and the methodology behind them are our subjects here. We have a number of objectives, the most basic of which is to provide a much needed primer for those students, scholars, and lawyers who are …

Deception, Self-Deception, And Myth: Evaluating Long-Term Environmental Settlements, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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This paper draws upon six famous settlements that are known in various degrees to students of environmental law. Three are a matter of deep history: the 1970 Environmental Defense Fund settlement that led the last manufacturer of DDT in the U.S. to cease discharges into the Los Angeles sewer system and thence into Santa Monica Bay, the Kepone settlement of the mid-70s that followed in the wake of Judge Merhige's initial assessment of a record-breaking criminal fine of $13.24 million, and the Hudson River settlement of the early 1980s in which environmentalists gave up demands for cooling towers on several …

Roundtable Discussion: Science, Environment, And The Law, James E. Krier

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Science, environment, and the law is our topic. The problem of interest to me has to do with risk regulation and, more particularly, with the fact that technical and scientific views of risk differ dramatically from lay or public views. How is this conflict to be managed and resolved? I have to go through my account very quickly, given the time constraint, so let me mention that it is based on an article that sets out my arguments at length.'

Marketable Pollution Allowances (Great Lakes Symposium), James E. Krier

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In March 1993, the EPA auctioned off 150,010 sulfer dioxide emissions permits at the Chicago Board of Trade. The auction brought in $21.4 million and ushered in the Clean Air Act's market-based approach to sulfur dioxide control. Congress created these marketable pollution allowances (MPAs) under Title IV of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 19903 to regulate acid rain pollution. While most MPAs were bought by utilities, to be exchanged as a commodity according to need, some MPAs were removed from the market solely to prevent their use by polluters. The Cleveland-based National Healthy Air License Exchange bought one allowance …

The End Of The World News (Symposium: Twenty-Five Years Of Environmental Regulation), James E. Krier

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My title, but nothing else, owes to Anthony Burgess.' I like the ambiguity of Burgess's words. They could be a play on what an anchor says when she brings the night's news of the world to a close ("and that's the end of.. ."), or they could be the name of a doomsday periodical, or a headline announcing the bankruptcy of a tabloid, or, at the extreme, a reference to the end of the world. For my purposes, however, they signify the end of an era.

The Seven Statutory Wonders Of U.S. Environmental Law: Origins And Morphology, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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Students from around the world often ask my opinion on the most influential or effective of the United States environmental laws. I offer an opinion based on two criteria: What laws have contributed most to protection of the natural world and what laws have been most emulated? The second criterion is obviously an indicator of output, not of direct consequence. However, a linkage between the spread of strong laws and degree of environmental protection is assumed.

In theory, of course, the questions of "how much protection" and "how many laws" can be answered empirically. But this story is available only …

Parallel Universes: Nepa Lessons For The New Property, Michael E. Herz

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The Eagle Bird: Mapping A New West, Dale Goble

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Gathering Danger: The Urgent Need To Regulate Toxic Substances That Can Bioaccumulate, Richard L. Williamson Jr.

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Where Environmental Law And Biology Meet: Of Pandas' Thumbs, Statutory Sleepers, And Effective Law, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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The purpose of this article is to introduce some of the recent findings of evolutionary biology to the legal community and to urge their consideration in developing a more effective law. As background, Part II of this article will present a brief evolutionary history of our own species.

Part III offers a primer on Darwin's theory of natural selection and the concept of adaptation, with special attention to the elaboration of altruism as it is known in modern biology. Part IV discusses maladaptation as a counterpoise to adaptation and underscores the notion with some stories from natural history on subjects …

The Porcupine's Dilemma: Strategic And Psychological Uncertainty In The Face Of Global Warming, William H. Rodgers, Jr.

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No abstract provided.