Environmental Law Commons^™

The End Of Energy: The Unmaking Of America's Environment, Security, And Independence – Chapters 11 And 12, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

With the permission of MIT Press, this document includes Chapters 11 and 12 from my 2011 book, The End of Energy: The Unmaking of America’s Environment, Security, and Independence. These two chapters discuss some of the history and merits of taxes, subsidies, and regulation (including cap and trade) as mechanisms to implement policies to curb greenhouse gases. In light of the renewed interest in and discussion of command and control regulations and carbon taxes, these chapters may be useful to readers who do not have the book. The bibliographic material relating to these chapters is contained in the book and …

United States Of America, Michael B. Gerrard, Gregory E. Wannier

Faculty Scholarship

The prospect of carbon liability in the United States is a relatively recent phenomenon. It is only in the last decade that US environmental lawyers and policy-makers have begun to turn their attention to climate change, as climate-related litigation has surged, government action on several fronts has begun, and climate change has generally been recognised as a factor to consider in decision-making across the economy. This chapter lays out existing options to establish liability for greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) emissions along legislative, regulatory and judicial channels.

Governmental And Private Liability For Flooding, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years the frequency and severity of heavy precipitation and floods in parts of the United States, including the Northeast, have been increasing to a statistically significant degree, and this trend is expected to worsen. Events such as last August’s Hurricane Irene have caused widespread loss of life and property damage.

This article summarizes some of the liability issues that result from floods, and efforts to control them.

New York's Revived Power Plant Siting Law Preempts Local Control, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Taking most observers by surprise, the New York State Legislature on June 22, 2011, overwhelmingly passed The Power NY Act of 2011. Governor Andrew Cuomo signed it on Aug. 4. The new law revives Article X of the Public Service Law after a nearly nine-year hibernation. As before, the law creates a one-stop, state-led program for permitting electric generating facilities while preempting local requirements. But the new Article X differs from its predecessor in several important ways: It covers facilities as small as 25 megawatts (down from the prior 80 megawatts threshold), it has even more generous provisions for funding …

2010 Developments Under State Environmental Quality Review Act, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The courts decided 37 cases under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) in 2010. That is the lowest number since this column began its annual survey of SEQRA cases in 1990. The second lowest number was 45 in 2009. This trough is most likely caused by the economic recession, as SEQRA activity primarily relates to real estate development.

As is usually the case, defendants were much more likely to win in cases where an environmental impact statement (EIS) had been prepared than when there was no EIS. Of the 16 cases with an EIS, defendants won 13 (81 percent); …

Increasing Use Of Renewable Energy: Legal Techniques And Impediments, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The current turmoil in the Middle East and the consequent rise in oil prices are highlighting the long-recognized need for the United States to reduce its dependence on foreign energy sources. The most promising way to do that is through increased efficiency in our use of energy. My last column (Jan. 13, 2011) discussed the legal aspects of that measure. Today’s column is devoted to the legal aspects of the second most important way – increasing the share of the energy that we use that comes from renewable sources.

What’S Ahead For Power Plants And Industry? Using The Clean Air Act To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Building On Existing Regional Programs, Franz T. Litz, Nicholas Bianco, Michael B. Gerrard, Gregory E. Wannier

Faculty Scholarship

In the absence of congressional action on climate change, all eyes are on the states and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to see how they will regulate greenhouse gas emissions from existing large power plants and industrial facilities. Indeed, power plants and industrial facilities are the sources of half of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making those plants and facilities central to any effort to reduce the country’s total emissions. This working paper explores a promising pathway for the states and EPA to make these reductions using the standards of performance under section 111 of the Clean Air …

Harmonizing Climate Change Policy And International Investment Law: Threats, Challenges And Opportunities, Daniel M. Firger, Michael Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter responds to a chorus of commentary about the potential for conflict between the international investment law regime and an array of national and international actions being undertaken to mitigate and adapt to global climate change. Contrary to conventional wisdom, while some climate-friendly regulations may indeed be facially incompatible with the obligations imposed on states by typical international investment agreements (IIAs), many climate policies – especially those related to clean energy finance and technology transfer – involve principles common to foreign investment law and are largely compatible with that regime. Moreover, pending the unlikely negotiation of a single global …

From Ship To Shore: Reforming The National Contingency Plan To Improve Protections For Oil Spill Cleanup Workers, Rebecca Bratspies, Alyson Flournoy, Thomas Mcgarity, Sidney A. Shapiro, Rena I. Steinzor, Matthew Shudtz

Faculty Scholarship

Eleven workers died on April 20, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform exploded beneath them. Since then, tens of thousands of workers have toiled under difficult conditions to stop the leak and clean up the mess. For these workers, the spill is more than an environmental and economic disaster; it poses straightforward and serious risks to their health and safety. Oil is toxic, as are the dispersants used liberally by BP to contain it. BP’s foul up is not the first significant oil spill in the nation’s history, nor even the first in the Gulf. The oil companies …

See No Evil - Revisiting Early Visions Of The Social Responsibility Of Business: Adolf A. Berle's Contribution To Contemporary Conversations, Erika George

Faculty Scholarship

This Article situates Adolf A. Berle's contribution to the field of corporate law in the context of current debates over the alleged complicity of multinational corporations in international human rights violations. Specifically, this Article revisits some central insights offered by Berle and Gardiner C. Means in The Modern Corporation and Private Property and reconsiders what conducting business consciously across borders requires in the context of a governance gap generated by economic globalization. Further, this Article considers how both ownership and control are well situated to ensure that business conduct becomes better aligned with a growing consciousness that business organizations must …

Laying To Rest An Ancien Régime: Antiquated Institutions In Louisiana Civil Law And Their Incompatibility With Modern Public Policies, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

Man faces unprecedented challenges as he barrels through the twenty-first century. The world is now approaching a population of seven billion people, concentrated largely in crowded, overdeveloped urban centers. Global climate change is predicted to cause massive population displacement related to the disappearance of coastal lands and to create dire food shortages within the coming decade. Increasingly, societies are forced to make systemic adaptations to handle the strain of these modern-day crises. Governments must be innovative and adaptive in their efforts to protect the public. When the fundamental goals and objectives of society alter, the law should be modified to …

Coasean Blind Spots: Charting The Incomplete Institutionalism, Gregg P. Macey

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Protecting New Mexico’S Waters: A Blueprint For The Future, Denise D. Fort

Faculty Scholarship

Aquatic species are imperiled by water diversions, introduced species, pollution and now climate change. In the western U.S., water law rewards the withdrawal and use of water, rather than leaving water instream for ecological, recreational and other purposes. New Mexico has no statutory protections for environmental flows and is increasing its diversions of water from rivers. This paper discusses the status of instream flows in the state and proposes policies to better protect the state’s waters.

Pining For Sustainability, Timothy M. Mulvaney

Faculty Scholarship

The survey results discussed in Part I below reveal substantial paper consumption excesses in the existing law journal system. Though only thirty-three primary law journals responded to the survey, making extrapolation across the general population of all law journals difficult, the aggregate data is illuminating nonetheless. Based upon a very conservative evaluation of the data set, the respondent journals reported printing nearly seventeen million pages of paper in the one-year term of the 2008-2009 editorial boards. Isolated practices proved particularly disconcerting. For instance, one journal reported printing a full, single-sided copy of each of the more than two thousand electronically …

Pesticide Risk Indicators: Unidentified Inert Ingredients Compromise Their Integrity And Utility, Michael D. Surgan, Madison Condon, Caroline Cox

Faculty Scholarship

Pesticide Risk Indicators (PRIs) are widely used to evaluate and compare the potential health and environmental risks of pesticide use and to guide pest control policies and practices. They are applied to agricultural, landscape and structural pest management by governmental agencies, private institutions and individuals. PRIs typically assess only the potential risks associated with the active ingredients because, with few exceptions, pesticide manufacturers disclose only the identity of the active ingredients which generally comprise only a minor portion of pesticide products. We show that when inert ingredients are identified and assessed by the same process as the active ingredient, the …

From The Greenhouse To The Poorhouse: Carbon Emissions Control And The Rules Of Legislative Joinder, David A. Super

Faculty Scholarship

Pending legislation to address carbon emissions would include large subsidies for existing emitters. These subsidies make little sense economically or politically. Worse, they divert resources needed to address two crucial issues that the proposed legislation largely ignores: the impact of raising carbon costs on low-income people and the massive structural federal deficit. A carbon tax or cap-and-trade system would increase costs substantially not only for transportation but for food and housing. With poverty rising even before the current economic downturn, these price increases’ consequences could be dire. The structural deficit will require deflationary tax increases or spending cuts. Combining carbon …

Regulatory Blowout: How Regulatory Failures Made The Bp Disaster Possible, And How The System Can Be Fixed To Avoid A Recurrence, Alyson Flournoy, William Andreen, Rebecca Bratspies, Holly Doremus, Victor Flatt, Robert Glicksman, Joel Mintz, Daniel Rohlf, Amy Sinden, Rena I. Steinzor, Joseph Tomain, Sandra Zellmer, James Goodwin

Faculty Scholarship

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is destined to take its place as one of the greatest environmental disasters in the history of the United States, or for that matter, of the entire planet. Like so many other disasters on that list, it was entirely preventable.

BP must shoulder its share of the blame, of course. Similarly, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) – since reorganized and rebranded – has come under much deserved criticism for its failure to rein in BP’s avaricious approach to drilling even where it was unable to respond to a worst-case scenario in …

Corrective Lenses For Iris: Additional Reforms To Improve Epa's Integrated Risk Information System, Rena I. Steinzor, Wendy E. Wagner, Lena Pons, Matthew Shudtz

Faculty Scholarship

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) is the most important toxicological database in the world. Not only is it the single most comprehensive database of human health information about toxic substances, it also serves as a gateway to regulation, as well as to a range of public and private sector efforts to protect against toxic substances. IRIS “profiles” of individual substances include a number of scientific assessments of the substance’s toxicity to humans by various means of exposure – by inhalation, contact with the skin, and so on. Federal regulators rely on the assessments to do …

Strategies For Promoting Green Energy Innovation, Deployment, & Technology Transfer, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

This paper surveys various strategies for promoting the development and deployment of green energy technologies.

Gaming The Past: The Theory And Practice Of Historic Baselines In The Administrative State, James Salzman, J.B. Ruhl

Faculty Scholarship

Goals based on absolute targets, risk, technology, or cost are found throughout the administrative state. “Historic baselines,” a point in the past used to ground a policy goal, are just as commonplace, yet remain unexamined. Whether in budgeting or tax, criminal sentencing or environmental protection, historic baselines direct a wide range of agency activities. Their ubiquity begs some important questions. What makes baselines more attractive than other approaches for implementing regulatory goals? Conversely, when are other standard setting methods such as absolute targets and risk-based, technology-based, and cost-based standards more useful to policy makers than historic baselines? Unless one believes …

The Politics Of Nature: Climate Change, Environmental Law, And Democracy, Jedediah Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

Legal scholars’ discussions of climate change assume that the issue is one mainly of engineering incentives, and that “environmental values” are too weak, vague, or both to spur political action to address the emerging crisis. This Article gives reason to believe otherwise. The major natural resource and environmental statutes, from the acts creating national forests and parks to the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, have emerged from precisely the activity that discussions of climate change neglect: democratic argument over the value of the natural world and its role in competing ideas of citizenship, national purpose, and the role and …

Pursuing Geoengineering For Atmospheric Restoration, James Salzman, Robert B. Jackson

Faculty Scholarship

Geoengineering is fraught with problems, but research on three approaches could lead to the greatest climate benefits with the smallest chance of unintentional environmental harm. The authors propose a model for thinking about geoengineering based on the concept of restoration, suggesting the term “atmospheric restoration.” Under this model geoengineering efforts are prioritized based on three principles: to treat the cause of the disease itself, to reduce the chance of harm, and to prioritize activities with the greatest chance of public acceptance.

Based on these principles, the authors propose three forms of geoengineering that could provide the greatest climate benefits with …

Stepping Stone Or Stumbling Block: Incrementalism And National Climate Change Legislation, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the effects of incremental domestic legislation on international negotiations to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating the effects of climate change is a global public good, which, ultimately, only an international agreement can provide. The common presumption (justified or not) is that national legislation is a step forward to an international agreement. This Article analyzes how national legislation can create a demand for international action but can also preempt or frustrate international efforts. The crucial issue, which has been largely ignored thus far, is how incremental steps at the domestic level alter international negotiations. This paper identifies four …

Resistance, “Revolution,” And Reassessment 1981 - 1997, Richard J. Finkmoore

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Workers At Risk: Regulatory Dysfunction At Osha, Thomas Mcgarity, Rena I. Steinzor, Sidney A. Shapiro, Matthew Shudtz

Faculty Scholarship

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was born with a heavy load to bear – the obligation of ensuring that every worker in America has a safe and healthful workplace for his or her entire working life. In its early years, OSHA acted with great vigor, establishing important standards for occupational health and safety that have prevented hundreds of thousands of injuries and illnesses. But the agency has not aged gracefully. Today its enforcement staff is stretched thin and the rulemaking staff struggle to produce health and safety standards that can withstand industry legal challenges. In short, OSHA is a …

Liability For Environmental Harm And Emerging Global Environmental Law, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

Environmental law and policy are undergoing rapid change at the global, national, and even local levels. The nations of the world continue to struggle to develop an effective global response to climate change. Transboundary pollution and resource management problems command regional attention even as nations work to upgrade their own environmental standards and their energy, transportation, and land use policies. Surprising environmental initiatives are emerging even from state and local governments.

In my previous work I have argued that globalization is affecting law and legal systems throughout the world in profound new ways. See Robert V. Percival, The Globalization of …

La Responsabilidad Por Daño Ambiental Global Y La Evolución En Las Relaciones Entre El Derecho Público Y Privado [Liability For Global Environmental Harm And The Evolving Relationship Between Public And Private Law], Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Constitution And Our Debt To The Future, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

Health and safety laws have always been justified as manifestations of congressional authority to regulate and protect the free flow of interstate commerce under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. Professor Steinzor argues that reliance on the Commerce Clause can support next generation proposals, including a National Environmental Legacy Act proposed by Professor Alyson Flournoy, which would require that any action on federal land involving the consumption or destruction of resources must be sustainable, as well as pending climate change legislation. But, Steinzor says, a far more desirable constitutional foundation for such laws is the General Welfare Clause found …

Constitutional Limitations On Land Use Controls, Environmental Regulations And Governmental Exactions (2010 Ed.), Garrett Power

Faculty Scholarship

This electronic book is published in a searchable PDF format as a part of the E-scholarship Repository of the University of Maryland School of Law. It is an “open content” casebook intended for classroom use in courses in Land Use Control, Environmental Law and Constitutional Law. It consists of cases carefully selected from the two hundred years of American constitutional history which address the clash between public sovereignty and private property. It considers both the personal right to liberty and the personal right in property. The text consists of non-copyrighted material and readers are free to use it or re-mix …

Foundations: The Public Domain And Natural Resources Law 1785 - 1960, Richard J. Finkmoore

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.