Environmental Law Commons^™

Still No Remedy After All These Years: Plugging The Hole In The Law Of Leaking Underground Storage Tanks, Jason M. Basile

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Environmental Law, Kelley A. Kinney, Andrea West Wortzel

University of Richmond Law Review

This article reviews the key environmental developments at the federal and state levels during the period from June 1996 to June 1998. Legislation and judicial decisions are presented topically. Certain issues, such as public participation and environmental justice, are playing an increasing role and will likely impact all media.

Environmental Benefits Of Reoperation, Relicensing, Decommissioning And Recapture, Richard Roos-Collins

Dams: Water and Power in the New West (Summer Conference, June 2-4)

35 pages.

Contains footnotes.

American Mining Congress V. Army Corps Of Engineers: Ignoring Chevron And The Clean Water Act's Broad Purpose, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Part I of this article will provide a brief introduction to section 404 of the Clean Water Act. Part II will examine the Tulloch rule. Part III will examine the district court's opinion. Finally, part IV will demonstrate that section 404(a) is ambiguous regarding whether incidental fallback from dredging may in some circumstances constitute disposal under the statute and, accordingly, that under the Chevron doctrine the district court erred in failing to defer to the agencies' Tulloch rule.

Still Dirty After Twenty-Five Years: Water Quality Standard Enforcement And The Availability Of Citizen Suits, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

When Congress enacted the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, commonly known as the Clean Water Act, it established a pollution control regime that imposed a baseline level of technology-based pollution control, and was designed to ensure that water quality would not fall below certain standards. Twenty-five years after the enactment of the Clean Water Act, success may be claimed with regard to technology-based controls. Achieving water quality standard (WQS) compliance has proved much more difficult. Indeed, evaluated from a variety of perspectives, the enforcement of the water quality-based system of pollution control must be viewed as a failure.

In light …

The Politics Of Property Rights, John D. Echeverria

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Finding The Pearl In The Oyster: Strategies For A More Effective Implementation Of Virginia's Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, Patrick J. Skelley Ii

University of Richmond Law Review

Since our nation's infancy, the Chesapeake Bay ("Bay") has been one of Virginia's natural treasures. The Bay is America's largest and historically most productive estuary, valued today as an economic resource, a wilderness sanctuary, and an aesthetic asset. Every year, commercial fishermen harvest blue crabs, oysters, and a multitude of fish species in mass quantities to satiate our desire for seafood. Nature aficionados can observe ospreys, laughing gulls, and other shorebirds taking their share of the Bay's bounty. From the -shoreline, quiet vacation homes overlook the waters across coves and inlets. Despite these idyllic images, the Bay has been facing …

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 …

Reflections From The Seventh American Forest Congress: Some Thoughts For National Forest Management, William R. Bentley

The National Forest Management Act in a Changing Society, 1976-1996: How Well Has It Worked in the Past 20 Years?: Will It Work in the 21st Century? (September 16-18)

21 pages.

Contains endnotes and references.

The Failure Of Federal Land Planning, Steven P. Quarles

The National Forest Management Act in a Changing Society, 1976-1996: How Well Has It Worked in the Past 20 Years?: Will It Work in the 21st Century? (September 16-18)

26 pages.

Strict Criminal Liability For Environmental Violations: A Need For Judicial Restraint, Kepten D. Carmichael

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Tribal Perspective On Esa Reform, Ted Strong

Biodiversity Protection: Implementation and Reform of the Endangered Species Act (Summer Conference, June 9-12)

4 pages.

How The Regulated Community Views Regulation To Protect Living Resources: The Endangered Species Act, Biological Diversity, And Ecosystem Management, Steven P. Quarles

Biodiversity Protection: Implementation and Reform of the Endangered Species Act (Summer Conference, June 9-12)

21 pages.

Contains footnotes.

Upper Colorado River Fish: A Recovery Program That Is Working – Myth Or Reality?, James S. Lochhead

Biodiversity Protection: Implementation and Reform of the Endangered Species Act (Summer Conference, June 9-12)

24 pages (includes 1 map).

Contains 2 pages of references.

Columbia River Salmon: Are Any Of The Esa Tools Adequate For The Job?, John M. Volkman

Biodiversity Protection: Implementation and Reform of the Endangered Species Act (Summer Conference, June 9-12)

32 pages.

Contains footnotes.

Landscape Scale Habitat Conservation Plans: The California Experience, Lindell L. Marsh

Biodiversity Protection: Implementation and Reform of the Endangered Species Act (Summer Conference, June 9-12)

24 pages.

Contains 3 pages of references.

Is A Textualist Approach To Statutory Interpretation Pro-Environmentalist?: Why Pragmatic Agency Decisionmaking Is Better Than Judicial Literalism, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article provides both anecdotal evidence and a more theoretical argument for why textualist statutory interpretation is not the best approach to address environmental. issues.

The Attraction And Limits Of Textualism: The Supreme Court Decision In Pud No. 1 Of Jefferson County V. Washington Dep't Of Ecology, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

During its 1993 Term, the Supreme Court had the opportunity to consider the interaction between two federal statutory schemes: the Federal Power Act (FPA), which provides that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has the authority to regulate and license hydropower projects, and the Clean Water Act (CWA), which provides that states have the authority to adopt water quality standards and that federal law will impose and enforce those standards in regulating emissions into, and the quality of, waters of the United States. The tension created by these two statutes lies not only between federal agencies, but more importantly, between …

Jurisdiction To Review Agency Inaction Under Federal Environmental Law, Daniel P. Selmi

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Environmental Regulation Of Oil And Gas Development On Tribal Lands: Who Has The Authority?, Richard B. Collins, Tom Shipps, Marla Williams, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Environmental Regulation of Oil and Gas Development on Tribal Lands: Who Has the Authority? (November 1)

14 pages.

Collection of 3 papers presented at the Hot Topics in Natural Resources Law program held on Nov. 1, 1995.

Includes bibliographical references.

Contents:

Environmental regulation of oil and gas development on tribal lands : who has authority? / Richard Collins -- Environmental regulation of energy resource development on Indian reservation land / Tom Shipps -- Colorado Oil and Gas [Conservation] Commission jurisdiction over environmental matters on Indian lands / Marla Williams

Jurisdiction to regulate the environmental impacts of oil and gas development on the reservation has been contested by tribes, the state, private land owners and federal agencies. …

Agenda: Challenging Federal Ownership And Management: Public Lands And Public Benefits, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Challenging Federal Ownership and Management: Public Lands and Public Benefits (October 11-13)

Conference organizers, speakers and/or moderators included University of Colorado School of Law professors David H. Getches, Michael A. Gheleta, Teresa Rice, Elizabeth Ann (Betsy) Rieke and Charles F. Wilkinson.

In the face of numerous proposals for privatizing, marketing, and changing the management of public lands, the Natural Resources Law Center will hold its third annual fall public lands conference October 11-13, at the CU School of Law in Boulder.

A panel of public land users and neighbors, including timber, grazing, mining, recreation, and environmental interests, will address current discontent with public land policy and management. There will also be discussion …

The Debate: Are Water Rights And Sustainable Water Use Compatible?, Stuart L. Somach

Sustainable Use of the West's Water (Summer Conference, June 12-14)

12 pages.

Contains footnotes and references.

Toward A Sustainable Urbanism: Lessons From Federal Regulation Of Urban Stormwater Runoff, Joel B. Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

This Article focuses on the particularly vexing challenge of forging a sustainable urbanism in Edge Cities and analyzes regulatory attempts to control urban stormwater runoff. If our task is to "describe the natural world and to evaluate our actions toward it in ways that presuppose ... [a] community between nature and mankind," we must also characterize and address this source of considerable pollution, which originates from thousands of dispersed locations. Unfortunately, environmental protection efforts have only begun to address the pollution of urban stormwater runoffs. Parts II and III of this Article detail these largely unsuccessful attempts and conclude that …

Changes In The Clean Water Act Since Kepone: Would They Have Made A Difference?, Wiliam Goldfarb

University of Richmond Law Review

In the anti-regulatory climate that currently pervades the American political scene, it is important to emphasize the palpable and significant accomplishments of environmental regulation. One measure of the success of environmental law during the past twenty-five years is that long-term, relatively localized environmental contamination-such as the pollution of the lower James River by Kepone between 1966 and 1975-probably can no longer occur in the United States. Major environmental statutes, enacted during the decade between 1976 and 1986, have precluded continuing environmental abuses of this scope and magnitude. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, establishes a compre- …

Facing A Time Of Counter-Revolution-- The Kepone Incident And A Review Of First Principles, Zygmunt J.B. Plater

University of Richmond Law Review

The Kepone contamination episode of 1966-75 was a milestone that focused an entire nation's attention on environmental hazards and our need to do better in recognizing and avoiding them. We have learned a great deal from that unfortunate story. The evolution of American environmental law since the Kepone debacle has repeatedly used the incident as a touchstone in identifying environmental pollution's causes, effects, and potential solutions.

Federal Minimums: Insufficient To Save The Bay, Roy A. Hoagland, Jean G. Watts

University of Richmond Law Review

In this era of deregulation, streamlining, and government reform, the voices of state government often ring out the philosophy of "no stricter than federal law" when discussing environmental initiatives. The argument that federal minimums can serve as a minimalistic, one-size-fits-all framework for environmental protection not only contradicts the same voices' arguments for flexibility and site-specific solutions, but also ignores the reality that federal minimums alone simply cannot and will not restore our waters, conserve our land, or protect our air.

Federal Minimums: Insufficient To Save The Bay, Roy A. Hoagland, Jean G. Watts

University of Richmond Law Review

In this era of deregulation, streamlining, and government reform, the voices of state government often ring out the philosophy of "no stricter than federal law" when discussing environmental initiatives. The argument that federal minimums can serve as a minimalistic, one-size-fits-all framework for environmental protection not only contradicts the same voices' arguments for flexibility and site-specific solutions, but also ignores the reality that federal minimums alone simply cannot and will not restore our waters, conserve our land, or protect our air.

From Kepone To Exxon Valdez Oil And Beyond: An Overview Of Natural Resource Damage Assessment, Danielle Marie Stager

University of Richmond Law Review

In July 1975, officials from the Virginia State Department of Health learned that employees of the Life Science Product Company ("Life Science"), in Hopewell, Virginia, had been poisoned by a toxic chemical known as Kepone. Life Science had produced Kepone under contract for Allied Chemical Corporation ("Allied Chemical"), the original developer and manufacturer. Shortly thereafter, state officials discovered that both Life Science and Allied Chemical had unlawfully discharged Kepone into freshwater tributaries of the James River. In addition to poisoning their own employees, Life Science and Allied Chemical had also contaminated Virginia's atmosphere, soil, and wa- terways with Kepone.

Oil And Gas Issues Involved In Cercla Reauthorization., Joseph R. Dancy, Victoria A. Dancy

St. Mary's Law Journal

After several decades of environmental legislation, the regulated community faces an extremely complex and costly matrix of obligations and responsibilities. For industry in general, the most expensive environmental statute enacted has been the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). CERCLA created the Hazardous Substances Superfund (Superfund) and established retroactive liability for remediation of hazardous substance contamination. President Clinton admitted CERCLA does not work and even labelled the Superfund a “disaster.” Even though public and private entities have already spent twenty billion dollars on the CERCLA program since its inception, only around ten or twenty percent of …

The Flathead Water Quality Standards Dispute: Legal Bases For Tribal Regulatory Authority Over Non-Indian Reservation Lands, Daniel I.S.J. Rey-Bear

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.