Environmental Law Commons^™

Texas Private Real Property Rights Preservation Act: A Political Solution To The Regulatory Takings Problem Comment., George E. Grimes Jr.

St. Mary's Law Journal

Increasing environmental regulation has resulted in an antiregulation backlash and the growth of a property rights movement. Unable to successfully use the courts to protect private property from diminution in value due to government regulations, property rights advocates have looked to the federal and state legislatures for assistance. This has led to some states and the United States Congress to introduce private property rights protection. This protection generally takes one of two forms. The first requires the government to assess the possible effect on property rights before enacting regulations. The second requires the government to compensate property owners for the …

Too Much Waste: A Proposal For Change In The Government's Effort To Clean Up The Nation, Ian G. John

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

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.

Environmental Justice And Discriminatory Siting: Risk-Based Representation And Equitable Compensation, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Article proposes a new risk-based approach to representing and compensating not only minorities but any person affected by a siting decision. This proposal would create a formal mechanism for achieving the desire of many environmental justice advocates to empower those local residents most affected by a siting decision. The EPA or state siting agencies, however, would provide a technocratic framework for assessing the scope of risks, despite the limitations of risk and cost-benefit analysis; would set limits on the maximum amount of risk in any community; and would specify the minimum compensation required from a developer. Immediate neighbors, political …

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 …

Lender And Receiver Liability: A New Era Of The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation And Liability Act's Security Interest Exemption--Interpreted By The Epa's New Lender Liability Rule, Michelle Lynn Gibbens

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Policy In Wake Of The Incident, Gerald Mccarthy, W. Tayloe Murphy, Gerald Winegrad, Joel B. Eisen

University of Richmond Law Review

The goal of this panel was to examine the policies formed in the wake of the Kepone incident: the environmental laws, the regulations and policies that are designed to safeguard our natural resources to ensure that incidents such as the Kepone incident do not reoccur and if they do, to hold those responsible for environmental damage accountable for their actions.

Using Experience To Improve Superfund Remedy Selection, Robert H. Abrams

University of Richmond Law Review

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Cleanup, and Liability Act (CERCLA, a.k.a. "Superfund")' has earned its share of criticism, most volubly for the expense and unfairness of its cost allocation scheme, but also for its remedy selection process. In deciding how to remediate sites, CERCLA employs a lengthy formal process that, on average, takes over eight years from site awareness to the selection of a remedy. Less damningly, perhaps, only the last fifty-eight months of that time elapses after the site is scored as one serious enough to be placed on the National Priorities List as a site eligible to receive Superfund …

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.

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.

A Beginning And Not An End In Itself: The Role Of Risk Assessment In Environmental Decision-Making, John S. Applegate

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Civil Liability For Damage Caused To The Environment By Hazardous Waste: Lessons For The European Union From The Us Experience, Artemis Hatzi-Hull

LLM Theses and Essays

As environmental awareness has surged over the last two decades, environmental law has rapidly developed. In both agricultural and industrial countries, the environment is a sensitive and vital area where substantial economic interests are at stake. In the United States, many social, political, and economic reasons have spawned rapid expansion of environmental law. Congress has enacted numerous statutes and empowered federal agencies, primarily the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to adopt standards and enforce these new laws. A decade ago, environmental liability was not a major concern for US businesses and was rarely dealt with in commercial contracts. However, the situation …

Attorneys' Fees Are Costly, But Are They A Recoverable Cost Of Environmental Cleanup Under Superfund?, Robert H. Abrams

Journal Publications

No abstract provided.

What Comes After Technology: Using An Exceptions Process To Improve Residual Risk Regulation Of Hazardous Air Pollutants, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Section 112 of the Clean Air Act (the Act) governs the regulation of hazardous air pollutants. From 1970 to 1990, the statute required the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate hazardous air pollutants on a pollutant-by-pollutant basis. Environmental policy analysts generally acknowledge that this approach failed due to scientific uncertainties and unclear direction from Congress on how the EPA should balance the competing concerns of cost and safety. In an effort to improve the Act's effectiveness, Congress passed the 1990 Amendments (the Amendments) to the Act, which established a two-phased approach to regulation. First, subsection 112(d) requires the …

Communities Of Color And Hazardous Waste Cleanup: Expanding Public Participation In The Federal Superfund Program, Deeohn Ferri

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Superfund is the nation's program to clean up the most dangerous hazardous waste sites. The Superfund law mandates that parties responsible for hazardous waste sites (i.e., waste generators, site owners, site operators, and waste transporters) shall be financially liable for cleaning them. If responsible parties cannot be located, are unable to perform cleanups, or refuse to do so, EPA can conduct the cleanup action and seek recovery of associated costs from these delinquent parties. As the Superfund reauthorization effort ensues, it is clear that few unequivocally applaud past Superfund performance. Collectively, communities, industry, and government are critical about whether the …

Environmental Burdens And Democratic Justice, Gerald Torres

Fordham Urban Law Journal

To date, however, there has been relatively little academic discussion about how EPA and other federal agencies can achieve environmental justice. In addition, most legal academic literature has focused either on simply identifying the legal issues associated with race and environmental law or on developing a litigation strategy for remedying “environmental racism.” None of the legal academic literature has focused on the benefits of using an administrative framework to define or develop sustainable solutions to the distributional inequities of environmental laws. The purpose of this Article is to explain the benefits of pursuing an administrative model for change. Unlike other …

Reinventing The Regulatory Agenda: Conclusions From An Empirical Study Of Epa's Clean Air Act Rulemaking Progress Projections, Steven J. Groseclose

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Superfund's Second Master: The Uneasy Fit Of Private Cost Recovery Within Cercla, Alfred R. Light

St. Thomas Law Review

No abstract provided.

States As Innovators: It's Time For A New Look To Our "Laboratories Of Democracy" In The Effort To Improve Our Approach To Environmental Regulation, David L. Markell

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

How To Save The National Priorities List From The D.C. Circuit -- And Itself, John S. Applegate

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Water Quality Impacts Of The Point Of Diversion, Robert C. Helwick

Water Organizations in a Changing West (Summer Conference, June 14-16)

14 pages.

Contains references.

Divisibility Of Harm Under Cercla: Does An Indivisible Potential Or Averted Harm Warrant The Imposition Of Joint And Several Liability?, B. Todd Wetzel

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Race(Ial)Matters: The Quest For Environmental Justice Review Essay, Sheila R. Foster

Faculty Scholarship

The essays contained in Race and the Incidence of Environmental Hazards: A Time For Discourse and the recent report by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Environmental Equity: Reducing Risk For All Communities represent what appears to be a remarkable consensus that low-income and minority communities bear a disproportionate share of environmental exposures and health risks. These two works also reflect the synergy of efforts by various elements of both the traditional civil rights and mainstream environmental movements to address issues of "environmental racism." Indeed, the current "environmental justice," or "environmental equity,"' movement is a combined effort of grassroots …

Indian Tribal Sovereignty And The Environment, Sarah P. Campbell

University of Richmond Law Review

States and Indian tribes alike have compelling reasons for demanding regulatory jurisdiction over the Indian reservations' environments. Proponents of state regulation argue that "[a] state's ability to coordinate a successful and comprehensive hazardous waste management plan depends at least in part on state control of all hazardous waste activity within its borders." In some states, the reservations are not isolated from the activities and residents of the state. In Washington state, for example, some Indian reservations have a high percentage of non-Indian residents, and others contain cities, municipalities, and heavily industrialized areas. This "checkerboard" reservation developed from the federal government's …

Quality Meets Quantity: San Gabriel Valley, California: The Metropolitan Water District Of Southern California Proposal, Thomas M. Stetson

Uncovering the Hidden Resource: Groundwater Law, Hydrology, and Policy in the 1990s (Summer Conference, June 15-17)

19 pages (includes illustrations and maps).

Contains footnotes.

Regional Water Supply Aspects Of San Gabriel Basin Superfund Process, Victor E. Gleason

Uncovering the Hidden Resource: Groundwater Law, Hydrology, and Policy in the 1990s (Summer Conference, June 15-17)

19 pages (includes maps).

The Klein Water Treatment Facility: Model For The New Superfund Management Strategy – Or- The Importance Of Being In The Wrong Place At The Right Time???, David M. Brown

Uncovering the Hidden Resource: Groundwater Law, Hydrology, and Policy in the 1990s (Summer Conference, June 15-17)

12 pages.

Opportunities For Innovation: State Strategies For Groundwater Protection, Larry Morandi

Uncovering the Hidden Resource: Groundwater Law, Hydrology, and Policy in the 1990s (Summer Conference, June 15-17)

8 pages.

Contains references.

Setting The Standards: Federal Groundwater Protection Programs, Katharine (Joni) Teter

Uncovering the Hidden Resource: Groundwater Law, Hydrology, and Policy in the 1990s (Summer Conference, June 15-17)

22 pages.

Contains references.