Environmental Law Commons^™

Revitalizing The Presumption Against Preemption To Prevent Regulatory Gaps: A Case Study Of Judicial Tolerance Of Illegal Railroad Waste Transfer Stations, Carter H. Strickland Jr.

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

This article addresses the problem of regulatory gaps that are created through imprecise preemption rulings. It begins with a detailed case study of how railroads were able to enter the highly regulated solid waste industry, to claim that all state oversight is preempted by a federal statute intended to deregulate railroad economics, and to obtain the economic benefits of operating in a regulatory gap. The net result of current preemption doctrine in those cases has been to strip citizens of the power to ensure that waste transfer stations are safe, and this fundamental injustice serves as a backdrop to analyzing …

Sustainable Living: Theme Of The Future Or A One-Hit Wonder, Michelle Hershman

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Is environmental consciousness in the United States just a popular trend or the beginning of permanent changes? In light of the American government's refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, this comment examines social, corporate and regulatory pressures on environmental policy in the United States. The author concludes by arguing for the implementation of environmentally conscious policies and programs at private and public levels.

The Ramsar Convention On Wetlands: Assessment Of International Designations Within The United States, Kim Diana Connolly

Other Scholarship

The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat, more commonly knows as the Ramsar Convention, is one international framework used to protect wetlands. At this time, the United States has designated 22 sites as wetlands of international importance. In this Article, Royal C. Gardner and Kim Diana Connolly analyze survey data collected from each of these 22 sites to determine whether and how Ramsar designation benefits these wetland areas. The authors first provide a brief overview of the Ramsar Convention, including its function within the United States. They then break down the survey data, looking at both …

Introduction, G. Emlen Hall

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Preserving The Chesapeake: Law, Ecology, And The Bay, Hon. Gerald L. Baliles

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Waterlocked": Public Access To New Jersey's Coastline, Timothy M. Mulvaney, Brian Weeks

Faculty Scholarship

This Article addresses the public trust doctrine as applicable to waterways and their shores, with a particular focus on emerging trends in the state of New Jersey. Several disparate factors have aggravated disputes between competing visions for waterfront areas. The U.S. population has increased much more in coastal than inland areas. The decline in heavy industry along with dramatic increases in real estate values have led to intensive development and redevelopment in waterfront areas, including the re-opening of areas functionally closed to the public for well over one hundred years. As communities have discovered the values of attractive waterfront areas, …

"Forever Wild": New York's Constitutional Mandates To Enhance The Forest Preserve, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Professor Robinson explores some of the evident, and also some of the less apparent legal implications that can be drawn from recognizing the implicit “land ethic” that resides within the “forever wild” conception of the Forest Preserve in New York’s Constitution. It is his thesis that the executive branch of State government, our Governors and most of our other State and local authorities, have observed the mandates of Article XIV most shallowly. They have ignored their stewardship duties to promote “forever wild forest lands.” Civic groups, and courts should not only concern themselves with the task of keeping government from …

Are All ‘Legal Dollars’ Created Equal?, Doron Teichman, Yuval Feldman

ExpressO

For several decades law and economic scholars have employed the tools of price theory in order to evaluate an array of legal questions ranging from criminal sanctions to contract remedies. This vast body of literature implicitly assumed that all payments made through the legal system are fungible. In other words, just as a dollar paid for a tomato is identical to a dollar paid for a cucumber, so are a dollar paid as a pollution tax to the government and a dollar paid as compensation to the party injured by the pollution. In this study we challenge this assumption, and …

Using Ethanol As A Fuel To Reenergize Free Trade Area Of The Americas Negotiations, Marcel De Armas

ExpressO

Currently the United States imposes a 2.5 percent ad valorem tax along with a 14.27 cents per liter tax on imported ethanol from countries with normal trade relations under the harmonized tariff schedule. However, the United States exempts many countries from this tariff or reduces the tariff under various free trade agreements or initiatives. The issues that resulted in Doha’s failure also caused FTAA negotiations to temporarily stall since both Brazil and the United States wanted certain FTAA issues negotiated at the WTO level. The United States could initiate this process with a discussion of reducing or eliminating its ethanol …

The Ramifications Of The W.H. Sammis Settlement: Why Jobs Are Being Lost, The Air Remains Unclean, And This Landmark Settlement Is Making Progress In The Wrong Direction, Michael Paul Pegman

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

The Precautionary Principle: More Than A Cameo Appearance In United States Environmental Law?, Phillip M. Kannan

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Responsible Response: Do The Emergency And Major Disaster Exceptions To Federal Environmental Laws Make Sense From A Restoration And Mitigation Perspective?, Julia C. Webb

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

The Ramsar Convention On Wetlands: Assessment Of International Designations Within The United States, Royal C. Gardner, Kim Diana Connolly

Journal Articles

Editors' Summary: The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat, more commonly knows as the Ramsar Convention, is one international framework used to protect wetlands. At this time, the United States has designated 22 sites as wetlands of international importance. In this Article, Royal C. Gardner and Kim Diana Connolly analyze survey data collected from each of these 22 sites to determine whether and how Ramsar designation benefits these wetland areas. The authors first provide a brief overview of the Ramsar Convention, including its function within the United States. They then break down the survey data, looking …

Jutstice Kennedy And The Environment: Property, States' Rights, And The Search For Nexus, Michael Blumm

ExpressO

Justice Anthony Kennedy, now clearly the pivot of the Roberts Court, is the Court’s crucial voice in environmental and natural resources law cases. Kennedy’s central role was never more evident than in the two most celebrated environmental and natural resources law cases of 2006: Kelo v. New London and Rapanos v. U.S., since he supplied the critical vote in both: upholding local use of the condemnation power for economic development under certain circumstances, and affirming federal regulatory authority over wetlands which have a significant nexus to navigable waters. In each case Kennedy’s sole concurrence was outcome determinative.

Justice Kennedy has …

Resolving Conflicts Between Multilateral Environmental Agreements: The Case Of The Montreal And Kyoto Protocols, Daniel G. Mccabe

ExpressO

The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer are multilateral environmental agreements that regulate the use of chemicals that contribute to climate change and ozone depletion. The Montreal Protocol, however, encourages the replacement of ozone depleting substances with chemicals that contribute to climate change. Likewise, the Kyoto Protocol encourages the production of an ozone depleting substance by allowing companies to profit by destroying the byproduct of its manufacture. This comment attempts to resolve these conflicts through conventional and customary international law. It concludes that the …

Hemp ... Why Not?, Jared B. Kahn

ExpressO

Hemp ... Why Not?

By: Jared Kahn

(Abstract)

Industrial hemp has been utilized as a commodity crop for centuries in the United States, and for millennia throughout the world. Today, the crop is cultivated for industrial uses in thirty countries, but not the United States. United States citizens may import hemp, eat hemp, wear hemp, and do whatever they please with a manufactured hemp product, but nobody grows the valuable crop in the U.S. Several states have legalized industrial hemp cultivation, however, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) interprets the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to prohibit the growing of hemp …

How Do We Deal With This Mess? A Primer For State And Local Governments On Navigating The Legal Complexities Of Debris Issues Following Mass Disasters, Ryan M. Seidemann, Megan K. Terrell, Christopher D. Matchett

ExpressO

The devastation wrought by the 2005 hurricane season brought into bold relief the need for comprehensive debris management plans in the United States. As cleanup efforts commenced following Hurricane Katrina, it became abundantly apparent that the local governments were not prepared to deal with the massive scope of the debris problem.

Disasters will occur. It is not a matter of if, but a matter of when. The entire nation is at risk of being struck by some type of disaster at some time. The best way to deal with the outfall from these disasters is to be prepared for them …

“Heaven Shines On Puget Sound” Seattle, Washington, June 2003, Brad Daniels

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Life Under The Republicans: The Subversion Of Democracy In The House Resources Committee, Erica Rosenberg

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Mccloud River Waterfall, Mccloud, California, Arielle Harris

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Application Of The Public Trust Doctrine To Modern Fishery Management Regimes, Kevin J. Lynch

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

As the state of the nation’s fisheries has declined in recent decades, fishery managers have increasingly sought more effective means for managing fishing efforts to prevent overfishing. The situation is particularly dire in marine fisheries, where studies have shown that populations of large predatory fish species such as tuna, marlin, and swordfish have declined by up to 90%. Conventional explanations for this and other declines in fish populations invoke the concepts of the “tragedy of the commons” and the “race to the fish.” The tools favored by economists to solve these problems typically involve creating some form of limited private …

Mississippi River Stories: Lessons From A Century Of Unnatural Disasters, Sandi Zellmer, Christine Klein

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the nation pondered how a relatively weak Category 3 storm could have destroyed an entire region. Few appreciated the extent to which a flawed federal water development policy transformed this apparently natural disaster into a “man-made” disaster; fewer still appreciated how the disaster was the predictable, and indeed predicted, sequel to almost a century of similar disasters. This article focuses upon three such stories: the Great Flood of 1927, the Midwest Flood of 1993, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005. Taken together, the stories reveal important lessons, including the inadequacy of engineered flood …

A Tale Of Two Imperiled Rivers: Reflections From A Post-Katrina World, Sandra Zellmer

Nebraska College of Law: Faculty Publications

Hurricanes are a natural, predictable phenomenon, yet the Gulf Coast communities were devastated by the hurricanes of 2005. One year after Hurricane Katrina struck, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers responded to a congressional request for an accounting by admitting culpability for the destruction of New Orleans. Its structural defenses failed not because Congress had authorized only moderate Category 3 protection, which in turn let floodwaters overtop the city's levees, but because levees and floodwalls simply collapsed. The so-called network of federal and local structures was a haphazard system in name only, where floodwalls and levees of varying heights utilized …

Analisis Del Principio De Complentariedad De La Corte Penal Internacional Tras El Lente De Las Cortes Federales, Ada Sheng

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

La firma del Estatuto de Roma que cre6 la Corte Penal Internacional (CPI) fue visto por muchos en la comunidad de derecho internacional como un momento constitucional similar a la implementaci6n del Acto de Judicatura de 1789.

"The Ghosts Of Colonialism In Africa": Silences And Shortcomings In The Icjs 2005 Armed Activities Decision, Guy Fiti Sinclair

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

International law likes to imagine itself as neutral, dispassionate, and prin- cipled, operating above the petty squabbles and prejudices of states and peoples.

Environmental Law In The Twenty-First Century, Robert V. Percival

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Changing Climate For United States Law, David M. Driesen

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

Just a few years ago, the subject of American climate change law would not merit an article like this one, let alone the book that the American Bar Association has recently published on the subject. But the United States has changed, at least somewhat. At the moment, most important United States climate change law consists of state and local law, but there are signs that the federal government may create significant climate change law as well, at least after President Bush leaves office.

This article has two goals. The obvious one is simply to describe some of the American climate …

Oversight Hearing On The Federal Superfund Program's Activities To Protect Public Health, Rena I. Steinzor

Congressional Testimony

No abstract provided.

Corporate Accountability For Environmental Human Rights Abuse In The Developing Nations: Making The Case For Punitive Damages Under The Alien Tort Claims Act, Audrey Koecher

Florida State University Journal of Transnational Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Title Vi And The Warren County Protests, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

One part of the 1982 civil rights struggle against building a Polychlorinated Biphenyls ("PCB") landfill in Warren County, North Carolina, was a suit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ("NAACP") under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Although the suit was unsuccessful, the Warren County protests led to a 1983 General Accounting Office study and a 1987 United Church of Christ's Commission on Racial Justice (CRJ) study, both of which found that hazardous waste facilities were more likely to be located in minority communities. The Warren County protests and the two studies helped build …