Environmental Law Commons^™

New York State's Brownfields Programs: More And Less Than Meets The Eye, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

New York, as the nation's second most populous state, and one of its oldest and most urban, has an abundance of brownfields-slightly contaminated properties that were formerly used for industrial purposes, but that are now unused or underused, and ripe for redevelopment if they can be cleaned up. Thus, it may be surprising that New York is one of the few states without a comprehensive statute or regulation for the voluntary cleanup of brownfields.

There is, however, more here than meets the eye. New York has three important programs and several smaller ones that provide procedures, money, or incentives for …

In Defense Of The Superfund Liability System: Matching The Diagnosis And The Cure, Rena I. Steinzor, Linda E. Greer

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Whose Water Is It? Private Rights And Public Authority Over Reclamation Project Water, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

The American West, for the most part, is an arid place. The average annual precipitation in the seventeen western states is twenty-one inches, but in many places is far less. Often there is too little water to go around, even in places such as Oregon that are ommonly believed to be wet.' Water is valuable everywhere because it is indispensable; it is even more precious in the West because it is scarce.

The Committee On The Regions And The Role Of Regional Governments In The European Union, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Compliance With Private Voluntary Agreements: The Example Of The International Organization For Standardization's Iso 14000, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Protecting The Environment: Finding The Balance Between Delaney And Free Play, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., Howard Kunreuther

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Addressing Human Rights Abuses: Truth Commissions And The Value Of Amnesty, Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Peter A. Schey, Dinah L. Shelton

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Developing Countries, Regional Organizations, And The Iso 14001 Environmental Management Standard, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

International Human Rights Law In United States Courts: Professor Riesenfeld's Contributions, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Municipal Powers Under Seqra, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) confers considerable powers on New York State municipalities. In fact, most municipalities are probably unaware of the full scope of authority they are given by this statute.

Territoriality, Risk Perception, And Counterproductive Legal Structures: The Case Of Waste Facility Siting, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

The siting of hazardous and nuclear waste facilities has proven to be a task of enormous difficulty in our federal system. In this Article, the Author argues that one of the major causal factors for this difficulty is that the legal regime surrounding waste facility siting decisions is not structured in a manner sensitive to the human factors involved. The siting of a hazardous waste facility is likely to generate a negative community response where the imposition of externally made decisions and externally generated wastes fails to take into account the innate human trait of territoriality. Territoriality is a powerful …

Asteroids And Comets: U.S. And International Law And The Lowest-Probability, Highest Consequence Risk, Michael B. Gerrard, Anna W. Barber

Faculty Scholarship

Asteroids and comets pose unique policy problems. They are the ultimate example of a low probability, high consequence event: no one in recorded human history is confirmed to have ever died from an asteroid or a comet, but the odds are that at some time in the next several centuries (and conceivably next year) an asteroid or a comet will cause mass localized destruction and that at some time in the coming half million years (and conceivably next year), an asteroid or a comet will kill several billion people. The sudden extinction of the dinosaurs, and most other species 65 …

Golden Rules For Transboundary Pollution, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Environmental law is becoming ever more centralized. In the United States, state and local pollution laws have been eclipsed by federal regulation. In the European Community, and to a lesser degree under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), national controls have been supplemented by regional regulation. And the growing importance of treaties regulating particular aspects of the global environment has reinforced calls for more general regimes of international environmental regulation.

One inevitably given justification for this centralizing trend is that pollution is a transboundary phenomenon. Air and water pollution, and to a lesser extent groundwater contamination, can cross political …

Risky Business, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

In prior studies by high-level commissions, emphasis was given to improving the scientific basis and institutional procedures for risk assessment and risk regulation within existing statutory frameworks. Recommendations have led to slow but steady progress. This study is considerably different. It emphasizes a public health approach for efficient use of resources in a new flexible framework for risk management, reductionist approaches to risk assessment and characterization, increased public involvement, and various methods for managing such public involvement. It provides a mix of aspirations and concepts, procedures, and "shop floor rules" for putting the new system of risk management into practice. …

Major Sources Of Criteria Pollutants In Nonattainment Areas: Balancing The Goals Of Clean Air, Environmental Justice, And Industrial Development, Eileen Gauna

Faculty Scholarship

If an area is suffering from economic decay as well as unhealthy air, should new facilities -- and more pollution -- be allowed into the area anyway? If so, the result is that impoverished areas are afforded less environmental protection.This article addresses an important aspect of this dilemma: under what circumstances, if any, should a facility which will emit large amounts of air pollution be allowed to locate or expand operations in areas of existing poor air quality? Part II of this article provides a brief historical explanation of the Clean Air Act as it pertains to major stationary sources. …

Lmo's: Treasure Chest Or Pandora's Box, Michael S. Baram

Faculty Scholarship

Biotechnology is beginning to trans- A form agriculture across the globe. After thousands of years of traditional plant and animal breeding, and centuries of mechanization and chemical application, genetic research has opened a Pandora's box of living modified organisms (LMOs) designed to improve the productivity and efficiency of commercial agriculture. A multitude of transgenic crops and animals is now being introduced into commerce by biotechnology companies, and b nations are puzzling out how to appropriate the benefits and manage the risks.

American biotechnology companies and agencies are the leading proponents of using LMOs. They claim that two decades of costly …

Regulatory Reinvention And Project Xl: Does The Emperor Have Any Clothes?, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unfunded Environmental Mandates And The "New (New) Federalism": Devolution, Revolution, Or Reform, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Text, Purpose And Facts: The Relationship Between Cercla Sections 107 And 113, William D. Araiza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

A Watershed Issue: The Role Of Streamflow Protection In Northwest River Basin Management, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Watershed management has become a popular approach to environmental problems in the Northwest. Federal, regional, state, local, and tribal watershed efforts are in progress throughout the region. The popularity of the watershed approach can be traced to ecological and political factors. Most watershed management activities, however, focus more on land use and riparian measures than on providing and protecting instreamflows. For both legal and political reasons, watershed efforts tend to avoid water rights issues. Such efforts tend not to be well connected with instream flow protection or water resource planning under state law. Unless they address the need for streamflows, …

Legal Issues Presented By A Pilot International Greenhouse Gas (Ghg) Trading System, Jonathan B. Wiener, Richard B. Stewart, Philippe Sands

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Comparative Risk Assessment In New York, Michael B. Gerrard, Deborah Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

Comparative risk assessment (CRA) is the examination of the relative risks posed by different dangers, with a view to deciding which dangers deserve the most governmental attention. CRA frequently tries to reduce different problems to a common metric, usually the statistical lives saved by a program, so that apples can be weighed against oranges. This article will discuss and assess the growing use of CRA in New York State.

There are two principal arguments for the use of CRA in the environmental context. The first is that we do not have unlimited resources; we cannot move against all problems simultaneously. …

Application Of International Water Law To Transboundary Groundwater Resources, And The Slovak-Hungarian Dispute Over Gabcikovo-Nagymaros, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

The growth in global population and economic development has resulted in tremendous pressures on existing sources of fresh water. Human water use over the past three centuries increased by a factor of thirty-five and is growing by four to eight percent annually. Coupled with recurring international disputes over water resources, poor water management, and the realization that water is an indispensable but finite resource, these trends have propelled the use and management of transboundary groundwater resources to the forefront of legal debate.

Until recently, matters relating to groundwater resources were relatively ignored in the context of international law applicable to …

House Passess Unbalanced Clean Water Act, Denise D. Fort

Faculty Scholarship

The Clean Water Act and the associated state statutes and regulations provide the framework for New Mexico's regulation (and nonregulation) of our rivers and streams. Both the federal and state laws need improvement if they are to work in New Mexico. As readers of The Green Fire Report well know, the "improvements" contemplated by the new Congress are unlikely to improve our water. H.R. 961, the House bill recently passed by the House, is simply unacceptable. President Clinton has indicated that he will veto the bill as passed by the House. Your efforts are needed to contact your federal legislators …

Its Time For A State Environmental Policy Act, Denise D. Fort

Faculty Scholarship

What single law should be the first step in protecting New Mexico's environment from the consequences of our cascading population? My nomination would go to a State Environmental Policy Act, commonly called a "state NEPA." These laws are on one level very simple, requiring only that state governments "stop and think" before taking actions with significant environmental costs. After twenty-five years of experience with the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), however, we know that a law that allows citizens input into governmental action has a profound effect on governmental action.

Human Rights Environmentalism: Forging Common Ground, Gabriel Eckstein, Miriam Gitlin

Faculty Scholarship

Since the early 1970s, the international community has widely acknowledged the nexus between human rights and environmental protection. References to this association and even to a human right to some minimal quality of environment, can be found in numerous international instruments. The Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, for example, proclaims that human beings have the "fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being." Similarly, the Additional Protocol to the American Convention on Human Rights states that "everyone shall have the right to live …

The Reauthorization Of Superfund: The Public Works Alternative, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Reauthorization Of Superfund: Can The Deal Of The Century Be Saved?, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Economic Incentives And Nonpoint Source Pollution: A Case Study Of California's Grasslands Region, Brian E. Gray, Chelsea H. Congdon, Terry F. Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Challenges To Environmental Law, John D. Leshy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.