Environmental Law Commons^™

Deterring Irresponsible Use And Disposal Of Toxic Substances: The Case For Legislative Recognition Of Increased Risk Causes Of Action, Tamsen D. Love

Vanderbilt Law Review

Increasing risk does not ordinarily result in tort liability. For instance, every speeding driver increases the risk of a traffic accident.' Tort liability, however, attaches only if the driver actually causes an accident, This means that of two reckless drivers who engage in exactly the same risky behavior, one might face great liability, while the other might escape with no liability at all. The difference between the two cases is in many ways a mere fortuity-whether timing and circumstance conspire to cause a traffic accident in a particular case or not. Many acts of reckless driving go unanswered in tort …

Case Summaries

Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law

No abstract provided.

A Hot Debate: Application Of The Zone Of Interests Test To The Endangered Species Act. Bennett V. Plenert, Lynette Mccloud

Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law

No abstract provided.

Recovering Environmental Cleanup Costs Under The Resource Conservation And Recovery Act: A Potential Solution To A Persistent Problem, Randall J. Butterfield

Vanderbilt Law Review

The rise of environmental concerns in the 1950s and 1960s' led Congress to adopt a number of statutes designed to curtail the pro- duction of air and water pollution as well as to promote the proper handling, storage, and disposal of those substances capable of contaminating the nation's natural resources. Citizen suit provisions were eventually incorporated into these environmental statutes in an effort to supplement what many perceived to be less than diligent governmental enforcement measures. However, despite early congressional efforts to regulate air and water pollution, disposal of hazardous waste on land went largely unregulated. This legislative oversight resulted …

Venue For Offshore Environmental Crimes: The Seaward Limits Of The Federal Judicial Districts, M. Benjamin Cowan

Vanderbilt Law Review

Consider the following scenario: USA Oil, an American company incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in California, has been conducting ongoing oil drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The company operates three oil platforms off the Texas coast. One is located two miles offshore, another six miles offshore, and the third ten miles offshore.

Federal authorities receive notice that on several occasions since the company began operating these rigs, it deliberately allowed large quantities of oil to leak into the Gulf from each of them. The government seeks to indict USA Oil on three counts of …

Environmental Reform In An Era Of Political Discontent, Walter R. Burkley

Vanderbilt Law Review

When Congress sought in 1995 to restructure the federal environmental regulatory schemes, it looked like a good fight to pick.' Congress, Republican-controlled for the first time in decades, was armed with an apparent mandate to shrink the federal government. Moreover, Americans were concerned about jobs and the economy. Environmental regulation, so the argument goes, impedes competitiveness, which in turn leads to loss of jobs. In addition, if history is any guide, environmental concerns tend to suffer in times when the economic interest of individuals is the driving political force. Given these dual concerns over the economy and the size of …

The Reauthorization Of The Endangered Species Act: A Hotly Contested Debate, Tanya L. Godfrey

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rivers As Legal Structures: The Examples Of The Jordan And The Nile, Joseph W. Dellapenna

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Florida's Troubled Phosphate Companies: Can Bankruptcy Law Be Used To Relieve Their Obligation To Reclaim The Land?, Mary Jane Angelo

UF Law Faculty Publications

The conflict that brings us here arises when the earth is disturbed and the environment in which we live is threatened. . . . On the one hand are the corporations who mine phosphate reserves in Florida—their intentions are based on the argument that an ever-shrinking agrarian base in America must have fertilizer to remain effective and productive. On the other hand are the individuals and groups who oppose that mining and their argument is based upon the contention that such mining is too destructive of a unique and very fragile ecosystem.

By the year 2000, phosphate companies will have …

Environmental Realpolitik: Joint Implementation And Climate Change, Thomas C. Heller

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Professor Heller's article discusses why there has been little

progress after the Rio Earth Summit in developing the Framework

Convention on Climate Change. He argues that, beyond the scientific

uncertainties about climate change and its economic impacts,

agreement on the legal structure of a comprehensive regime has been

hampered by institutional factors. These include: the political

discounting of damage to future populations, the diverse risks of

global warming in different regions, and the distrust in many nations

with market instruments, like taxes or tradable permits, that are

favored by many industrial nations dependent on fossil fuels.

Resolving these problems will …

Brief For Appellee: Eighth Annual Pace National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition, Eric Berkley, Ann E. Lane, Charles Vorndran

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brief For Appellant And Amicus United States Environment Protection Agency: Eighth Annual Pace National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition, Haylee Albert, Jaime Austrich, David Pearce

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Future Directions In International Environmental Law: Precaution, Integration And Non-State Actors, James Cameron

Dalhousie Law Journal

In this, the Horace E. Read Memorial Lecture for 1995, James Cameron discusses three developments in international environmental law,-the principles of precaution and of integration and the roles of non-state actors. The precautionary principle calls for regulatory intervention to prevent environmental harm even though the risk of damage remains scientifically uncertain. A wide consensus exists in favour of a precautionary approach to environmental management and state practice is sufficient to assert the principle has attained the status of customary international law, but it remains controversial because it demands changes in practice. The principle of integration takes a holistic approach to …

The Federal Advisory Committee Act: An Obstacle To Ecosystem Management By Federal Agencies, Sheila Lynch

Washington Law Review

Ecosystem management, the new guiding concept for federal land management, requires collaboration and information sharing across ownership boundaries, facilitation of changes in social values, and adaptation to new scientific and social information. Particularly in the western states, the federal land management agencies have been involved to varying degrees in innovative collaborative processes with the goal of implementing ecosystem management. However, the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which places numerous procedural requirements on certain federal interactions with non-federal parties, has been cited as an obstacle to federal participation in these efforts. This Comment presents an analytic framework for determining when FACA …

Loss Of Protection As Injury In Fact: An Approach To Establishing Standing To Challenge Environmental Planning Decisions, Miles A. Yanick

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As currently interpreted by the United States Supreme Court, Article III of the Constitution creates a significant hurdle for plaintiff citizen groups seeking standing to challenge environmental planning or management decisions. In particular, plaintiffs have had difficulty in making the required showing of an 'injury in fact" where an agency has not yet approved a site-specific action but has approved only a general plan for an area to govern future site-specific actions. The Supreme Court has not articulated a clear rule for standing to challenge the latter type of agency decision making, and the courts of appeals for the various …

Brief For Appellant, Brownfields Redevelopment Associates Of New Union: Eighth Annual Pace National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition, Victor E. Cretella Iii, Dorothy M. Guy, Thy Christine Pham

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brief For Respondent: Eighth Annual Pace National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition, Katherine Abate, Jessica Reid, Robin Silberzweig

Pace Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Air Quality And Transportation On Colorado's Front Range: Taking Responsibility For Difficult Choices, Wade Buchanan, David A. Pampu, Christine Lipaj Shaver, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Air Quality and Transportation on Colorado's Front Range: Taking Responsibility for Difficult Choices (March 12)

15 pages.

Collection of 3 papers presented at the Hot Topics in Natural Resources Law program held on March 12, 1996.

Includes biographical information for Wade Buchanan, David A. Pampu, and Christine Lipaj Shaver.

With communities along Colorado's Front Range continuing to grow at a rapid rate, government, private businesses and citizens are faced with difficult choices concerning air quality and transportation. Can we control the "brown cloud" and increasing congestion on our roads and freeways? What decisions and sacrifices must be made, and who will take responsibility for them? Wade Buchanan, Chairman of the Regional Air Quality Council (RAQC), …

Environmental Law: Ethics Or Science, A. Dan Tarlock

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Federalism Without Preemption: A Case Study In Bioregionalism, A. Dan Tarlock

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Russian Dumping Of Radioactive Wastes In The Sea Of Japan: An Opportunity To Evaluate The Effectiveness Of The London Convention 1972, James R. Mccullagh

Washington International Law Journal

By dumping 900 tons of radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan on October, 13, 1993, the Russian navy violated the moratorium on low-level radioactive waste dumping of the London Convention (the international treaty controlling ocean dumping). However, legal liability under the London Convention, the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and international customary law arguably does not attach to this activity. Indeed, even though the London Convention was amended in November of 1993 to prohibit all ocean dumping of radioactive waste, Russia remains legally entitled to use the ocean as a disposal site for low-level …

Expediting Productive Reuse Of Superfund Sites: Some Legislative Solutions For Virginia And The Nation, Scott C. Whitney

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

From Compelling To Catalyzing: The Federal Government's Changing Role In Environmental Protection, Gerald A. Emison

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

The Promotion And Preservation Of Culture As Part Of Environmental Policy, Nancy Perkins Spyke

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Fourth Circuit Summary, Editors Of The William & Mary Environmental Law And Policy Review

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

The Fourth Circuit Summary provides a summary of prevailing environmental decisions decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit since the last issue of the William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review. It does not cover every environmental decision of the Fourth Circuit during that time period, but only those cases which the editors believe to be of the most interest to our subscribers.

Deforestation In Cambodia And Malaysia: The Case For An International Legal Solution, Heather A. Wolf

Washington International Law Journal

The logging of tropical timber for the export market is the primary cause of deforestation in Southeast Asia. The problem of controlling the tropical timber trade has been addressed on both the national and international level. The existing legal mechanisms, however, have proven to be inadequate. A new multilateral agreement based on the import and export permit system of the Basel Agreement is necessary to control the timber trade and to aid in halting deforestation.

A Trust For Whom?: Managing Colorado's 3 Million Acres Of State Land, John M. Evans, Reeves Brown, Mark A. E. Burget, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

A Trust for Whom?: Managing Colorado's 3 Million Acres of State Land: A Critique of the Constitutional Amendment (February 5)

14 pages.

Includes biographical information for John M. Evans, Reeves Brown, and Mark A. E. Burget.

State Land Board Commissioner Maxine Stewart was also a speaker for this program, but did not submit any written materials.

Contents:

A trust for whom? managing Colorado's 3 million acres of state land : a critique of the constitutional amendment / prepared by John Evans -- A cattlemen's [sic] perspective of state land management / presented by Reeves Brown -- Remarks outline / Mark A. E. Burget

Program was presented on Monday, February 5, 1996 at the offices of Holland & Hart in Denver, …

Natural Resource Damages From Rachel Carson's Perspective: A Rite Of Spring In American Environmentalism, Peter M. Manus

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Shape Of Transfers To Come: A Model Water Transfer Act For California, Brian E. Gray

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Dioxin: Reassessing The Risk, Linda-Jo Schierow

RISK: Health, Safety & Environment (1990-2002)

Dr. Schierow briefly summarizes the status of a draft Environmental Protection Agency report reassessing the appropriate treatment of dioxin and describes ongoing intra- and extramural reviews of the reassessment.