Environmental Law Commons^™

The Current Controversy Regarding Tmdls: Contemporary Perspectives "Tmdls And Pollutant Trading", Ann Powers

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The article first summarizes CWA requirements relevant to TMDLs and outlines elements of an effective trading program. It then examines the program recently established by the State of Connecticut to allow trading of nitrogen credits among sewage treatment plants on Long Island Sound to achieve an established TMDL, and the CWA issues presented. Finally, it gives a brief comparison to the program being designed for the Chesapeake Bay, for which no TMDL has been established. Current brief descriptive summaries of several often cited programs are appended.

Standing To Sue In Citizen Suits Against Air And Water Polluters Under Friends Of The Earth, Inc. V. Laidlaw Environmental Services (Toc), Inc., Steven A.G. Davison

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Considering The Trend Toward Local Environmental Law, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this symposium issue of the Pace Environmental Law Review we take a close look at the advent of local environmental law. With the editors of the Review and a number of distinguished scholars and practitioners, we define what this new field is and consider what it means for public policy and the practice of law. The intent of this issue is to invite lawyers, scholars, practitioners, legislators, regulators, students, and citizen leaders to consider this burgeoning new field: local environmental law. It is my task to introduce the reader to the field and frame the issues for its further …

Textualism’S Limits On The Administrative State: Of Isolated Waters, Barking Dogs, And Chevron, Michael P. Healy

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County (SWANCC) v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Supreme Court recently held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) does not have authority under the Clean Water Act (the Act or the CWA) to regulate the filling of “other waters.” This decision demonstrates a major shift in the Court's approach to statutory interpretation, particularly in the context of reviewing an agency’s understanding of a statute. The significance of the case is best gauged by contrasting it with United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Inc. There, the Court, acting …

It's Been 4380 Days And Counting Since Exxon Valdez: Is It Time To Change The Oil Pollution Act Of 1990, Browne C. Lewis

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The first Part of this Article examines the liability scheme that existed prior to the EXXON VALDEZ oil spill. In the second Part, the Article analyzes the liability scheme that was created by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA). The final Part of the Article evaluates whether the OPA's liability scheme would be able to effectively deal with an oil spill of the magnitude of the EXXON VALDEZ oil spill.

The Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy, Arctic Council And Multilateral Environmental Initiatives: Tinkering While The Arctic Marine Environment Totters, David Vanderzwaag, Robert Huebert, Stacey Ferrara

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Arctic marine environment is not pristine, as commonly imagined, but is facing numerous pressures,' the most serious arguably coming from outside the region. Melting of sea ice, linked to global warming, threatens the long-term survival of various species including polar bears and has potential to seriously disrupt ocean currents. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), including pesticides, industrial compounds and combustion by-products, are transported via air and water currents from regions outside the Arctic and become concentrated in the fatty tissues of animals." The pollutants threaten not only the well being of wildlife but the health of northern residents heavily dependent …

The Clean Air Act And The Constitution, Lisa Heinzerling

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the summer of 1997, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) strengthened the air quality standards for two air pollutants, particulate matter and ozone, based on mounting scientific evidence of the harmfulness of these pollutants at levels allowed by the existing standards. With respect to particulate matter (PM), the agency found that numerous epidemiological studies had established an association between PM levels and premature deaths in humans, especially in the elderly population. Indeed, one study on which the EPA relied had found that approximately 60,000 premature deaths in the United States alone could be attributed, annually, to particulate matter. The scientific …

Barriers And Incentives To The Adoption Of Iso 14001 By Firms In The United States, Magali A. Delmas

Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum

No abstract provided.

Brief For Respondents Massachusetts And New Jersey, American Trucking Associations, Inc. V. Browner, Nos. 99-1257 & 99-1426 (U.S. Sep. 11, 2000), Lisa Heinzerling, Richard J. Lazarus

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Is The Clean Air Act Unconstitutional?, Cass R. Sunstein

Michigan Law Review

This Article deals with two linked questions. The first involves the future of the Clean Air Act. The particular concern is how the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") might be encouraged, with help from reviewing courts, to issue better ambient air quality standards, and in the process to shift from some of the anachronisms of 1970s environmentalism to a more fruitful approach to environmental protection. The second question involves the role of the nondelegation doctrine in American public law, a doctrine that shows unmistakable signs of revival. I will suggest that improved performance by EPA and agencies in general, operating in …

Is There A Private Cause Of Action Under Epa's Title Vi Regulations?: The Need To Empower Environmental Justice Plaintiffs, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This article will apply the Chester three-factor test to find a private right of action implied in the administrative regulations promulgated by various agencies to implement Section 602 of Title VI. This article also proposes that it would be inconsistent to apply today's more stringent standard for inferring congressional intent in deciding whether a private right exists under Section 602. Such inconsistency arises as a result of the Supreme Court's application of a more lenient standard in recognizing a private right of action under Section 601.

Environmental Justice And Title Vi: Making Recipient Agencies Justify Their Siting Decisions, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Title VI prohibits federal agencies from providing funds to state or local agencies that discriminate. Environmental justice advocates have filed over fifty Title VI complaints with the EPA alleging that state or local environmental agencies have granted permits that will cause disparate impacts against minority groups. In February 1998, the EPA promulgated an Interim Guidance on Title VI to help the agency resolve these complaints. A wide range of state and local officials has criticized the Guidance because its vague definition of "disparate impact" may give the EPA too much discretion to find discrimination. This Article demonstrates, however, that the …

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance law in the year 1998-1999.

Singapore's Environmental Management System: Strengths And Weaknesses And Recommendations For The Years Ahead, Douglas L. Tookey

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Environmental Impacts: The Dark Side Of Outdoor Recreation?, Scott G. Miller

Outdoor Recreation: Promise and Peril in the New West (Summer Conference, June 8-10)

14 pages.

Contains 4 pages of references.

Unreason In Action: A Case Study In The Wrong Approach To Construing The Liability Insurance Pollution Exclusion, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

For more than twenty-five years, a significant component of the scholarly commentary on insurance law has focused on the so-called “reasonable expectations doctrine” enunciated by then-Professor (now Judge) Robert Keeton in his justly celebrated 1970 article. The reasonable expectations principle made a seemingly sudden emergence with the appearance of Keeton's article and has held particular attraction to academics while simultaneously prompting resistance from elements of the bench and bar, and particularly from the insurance industry. The doctrine's life to date can be described as one of early growth followed by subsequent retreat and dilution, with continuing controversy.

However, despite the …

Reason And Pollution: Construing The "Absolute" Pollution Exclusion In Context And In Light Of Its Purpose And Party Expectations, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Responding to the flurry of environmental coverage litigation over the application of the “sudden and accidental” pollution exclusion, the insurance industry during the mid-1980s largely adopted new standard pollution exclusion language for commercial general liability (CGL) policies. Since the mid-1980s, the standard form CGL has included the so-called absolute pollution exclusion, which provides that the insurance does not apply to bodily injury or property damage “arising out of the actual, alleged or threatened discharge, dispersal, seepage, migration, release, or escape of pollutants.” A “pollutant” is defined as “any solid, liquid, gaseous or thermal irritant or contaminant, including smoke, vapor, soot, …

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance Law in years 1998 and 1999.

Recent Case Developments, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

Recent case developments in Insurance law in the year 1998.

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 …

Revitalizing Environmental Federalism, Daniel C. Esty

Michigan Law Review

Politicians from Speaker Newt Gingrich to President Bill Clinton, cheered on by academics such as Richard Revesz, are eagerly seeking to return authority over environmental regulation to the states. In the European Union, localist opponents of environmental decisionmaking in Brussels rally under the banner of "subsidiarity." And in debates over international trade liberalization, demands abound for the protection of "national sovereignty" in environmental regulation. All of these efforts presume that a decentralized approach to environmental policy will yield better results than more centralized programs. This presumption is misguided. While the character of some environmental concerns warrants a preference for local …

The Impact Of War And Military Operations Other Than War On The Marine Environment: Policy Making On The Frontiers Of Knowledge, Ronald A. Demarco, John P. Quinn

International Law Studies

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 …

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), …

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.

Protecting The Environment For Future Generations: A Proposal For A Republican Superagency, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Part I of this Article introduces the principle that the present generation owes duties to future generations. Part II argues that current environmental laws fail future generations. Part III argues that neither Congress nor the executive branch can protect future generations from environmental harms due to short-term political pressures. Part IV evaluates the current capabilities of agencies to plan for long-term environmental problems. Part V evaluates whether agencies may be capable of better long-term planning by creating a dialogue with the public. Part VI proposes a Superagency to protect the environmental interests of future generations. The Superagency would be independent …

Controlling The Environmental Consequences Of Power Development In The People's Republic Of China, Homer Sun

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note proposes a strategy to mitigate the environmental degradation resulting from China's power development. Part I introduces China's power industry - its excessive dependence on coal, its antiquated and inefficient infrastructure, its pollutive effects, and its projected expansion. Part II appraises the ways in which China's environmental laws, macroeconomic controls, and foreign investment restrictions influence the growth of power development and its corresponding effect on the environment. Part III assesses the role that governments, development banks, and international organizations can play in curbing the environmental impact of Chinese power projects. Considering the problems associated with current Chinese and international …

United States Pollution Control Laws, Jeffrey G. Miller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The environmental assessment process established by NEPA has been a success and was a step forward on the path of integrating environmental and economic policy. The national pollution abatement laws that were adopted in the decade after NEPA, however, operate in a very different fashion. They, too, have been very successful in a number of important respects, but have achieved less than we had hoped for because of certain flaws in their design. To analyze these laws for us, I would like to introduce another colleague, Professor Jeffery Miller, who has also travelled in Argentina. In fact, Professor Miller conducted …

Book Review, Lakshman D. Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

International Law, Industrial Location, And Pollution, Duane Chapman, Jean Agras, Vivek Suri

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The dominant position of economists on trade and environment is that

increasing trade raises living standards, which provide the economic

basis for reduced pollution. Professors Chapman, Agras, and Suri

present a perspective that raises very different points. First, the dramatic

growth of manufacturing in East Asia for global markets is

based entirely (or nearly so) on the importation of processed

pollution-intensive raw materials. For a typical product in this global

system, a U.S. consumer purchasing an Asian product made from

imported resources benefits from a lower price and a cleaner local

environment; however, energy use and pollution associated with the …