Environmental Law Commons^™

Private Governance And The New Private Advocacy, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Benjamin Raker

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Environmentat governance today involves more than just actions by government. It involves new standards by retailers that restrict the toxic chemicals in thousands of products and private certification and standards programs directed at fish, forests, and many agricultural products. It also includes investor-driven organizations that create pressure for carbon disclosure, tender-driven requirements for environmental assessments, and private-sector initiatives that drive demand for renewable power. This is the world of private environmental governance. Private environmental governance (PEG) occurs when private organizations perform the environmental protection functions traditionally assigned to government. See Michael Vandenbergh, Private Environmental Governance, 99 Cornell L. Rev. 129, …

Community Management And Governance Of Comatsa-Sud New Protected Area (Ambalamanasy Ii Commune), Allison Tennant

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Community-based natural resource management is an increasingly more popular choice for governments to delegate power back to local communities to conserve the resources they rely on. In Madagascar, where much of the rural population provides for their livelihoods by using natural resources, this governance structure, in cooperation with delegated manager for assistance, presents an opportunity for economic development in cooperation with conservation efforts. This paper aims to better understand the role of community, NGO, and governmental actors in creating and executing community management structures. Through Participatory Rural Analysis and structured and semi-structured interviews, it explores what management transfers look like …

Citizen Scientists, Data Transparency, And The Mining Industry, Madison Condon

Faculty Scholarship

What happens when a community feels that the standards imposed by state and federal laws are insufficient to protect its health and environment? Or when the responsible government agencies lack the funding, competency, or political will for full enforcement of the law? One of the greatest hurdles facing citizen environmental advocates in these situations is a lack of access to environmental monitoring data. All routes available for policing industry—whether it be rallying community support for protest, petitioning a government agency for enforcement action, or bringing a citizen suit—require, as a first step, an understanding of whether and what pollution has …

Center For Biological Diversity V. Jewell, Lowell J. Chandler

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The ESA protects threatened or endangered species, and species likely to become threatened or endangered within the foreseeable future, throughout all or a significant portion of their range. In Center for Biological Diversity v. Jewell, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona overturned a Fish and Wildlife Service policy defining the significant portion of range language in the ESA. The policy interpretation limited ESA protections to apply only when a species faced risk of extinction throughout its entire range. The court deemed this policy impermissible because it effectively rendered the significant portion of range language meaningless. …

Save Our Cabinets V. U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Jaclyn Van Natta

Public Land & Resources Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fracturing Misconceptions: A History Of Effective State Regulation, Groundwater Protection, And The Ill-Conceived Frac Act, Wes Deweese

Oklahoma Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Whatcom County V. Hirst, Et Al, Stephanie A. George

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Upending decades of common practice in water management and building in the state of Washington, the Washington Supreme Court found Whatcom County violated the state’s Growth Management Act. Whatcom County used the Department of Ecology’s Nooksack Rule in evaluating permits for buildings and subdivisions that rely on permit-exempt wells. This decision affects families across the state of Washington.

V.1 No. 9

Conservation Law Center Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Pain In The Ash? Epa's Proposed Regulation Of Fly Ash And The Impending Economic Threat To Sustainable Concrete, Briana Novian

Oklahoma Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Force Majeure In Public International Law, Myanna Dellinger

Pace Law Review

Climate change is one of today’s most significant and complex problems. The number and level of severity of extreme weather events is increasing rapidly around the world. One year after the next, we learn that heat records have been broken once again. Climate change has been traced to a wide range of severe problems around the world, ranging from the obvious damage caused by hurricanes, floods, extreme rainfall, prolonged droughts, wildfires and a host of other weather-related issues to the perhaps less obvious such as physical and mental illnesses, “civil unrest, riots, mass migrations and perhaps wars caused by water …

Energy Conservation Grants Under The National Energy Conservation Policy Act Of 1978, Gerald C. Tobin, Reuben & Proctor, Chicago, Illinois

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: A Review Of The Historic Civil And Criminal Liabilities, And Resulting Funding Streams, From America’S Worst Environmental Catastrophe, Stephen L. Tatum, Henrik Strand

Student Scholarship

This article provides a concise review of the major parties involved in the accident, the cases and settlements that produced the historic penalties and fines, and the major funding streams through which those penalties and fines are administered.

Not All Land Exchanges Are Created Equal: A Case Study Of The Oak Flat Land Exchange, Katharine E. Lovett

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Colorado Natural Resources, Energy & Environmental Law Review

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Something New Under The Sun: The Drecp And Utility-Scale Solar On The New Energy Frontier, Brent Resh

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Address At The Lincoln Charter Of The Forest Conference, Bishop Grosseteste University: The Charter Of The Forest: Evolving Human Rights In Nature, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This conference is a singular event, long over due. It has been 258 years since William Blackstone celebrated “these two sacred charters,”1 Carta de Foresta and Magna Carta, with his celebrated publication of their authentic texts. In 2015, the Great Charter of Liberties enjoyed scholarly, political and popular focus. The companion Forest Charter was and is too much neglected.2 I salute the American Bar Association, and Dan Magraw, for the ABA’s educational focus of the Forest Charter, as well as Magna Carta. Today we restore some balance with this conference’s searching and insightful examination of the Forest Charter’s significance.

Peace Like A River: Institutionalizing Cooperation Over Water Resources In The Jordan River Basin, Philip A. Williams

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Collateral Damage: The Gun Debate Moves Into America's National Parks, Clare E.M. Mack

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Bleached! The Catastrophe Management Of Corals, Irus Braverman

Journal Articles

Corals have recently emerged as both a sign and a measure of the imminent catastrophic future of life on earth and, as such, have become the focus of intense conservation management. Bleached! draws on in-depth interviews and participatory observations with coral scientists and managers to explore the management of the corals’ ecological catastrophe to come. The article starts by describing the unique life of corals, the importance of calculability in catastrophe management, and the coral scientists’ preoccupation with classifying, counting, and seeing in their attempt to comprehensibly monitor corals and anticipate their decline. Algorithmic models and elaborate temporal analyses are …

Tourism Business Resilience For Coastal Virginia Assessment Report, Lindsay Usher, Michelle Covi, Juita-Elena Yusuf, Kaitlin Giles, Elizabeth Armistead Andrews, Angela King, Sashenka Brauer, Rebecca Ribley

Virginia Coastal Policy Center

This report summarizes the results of the Tourism Business Resilience Project conducted by the Commonwealth Center for Recurrent Flooding Resiliency and Virginia Sea Grant. This project was a joint effort by faculty and students from the Old Dominion University Resilience Collaborative and the Virginia Coastal Policy Center at the William & Mary Law School.

Agriculture, Water Pollution, And The Future Of Epa’S Regulatory Authority In A Post-American Farm Bureau Federation V. U.S. Epa America, Henry Brudney

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

Until the recent decision of American Farm Bureau Federation v. U.S. EPA, the EPA’s total maximum daily load (TMDL) regulation under the Clean Water Act contained no substantive standard for water quality. However, in this decision, the Third Circuit added such substantive criteria to the TMDL, which should have a monumental effect on the improvement of water quality standards in the United States.

Of Mines And Men: Toward A Foundational Theory Of The Rise, Evolution And Decay Of Property, Guillermo Arribas Irazola

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

Why and how is property created? Through a historical analysis, this paper proposes that property is created not out of ideology, but by chance. Depending on the resources encountered by newcomers, a rising civilization will establish property through a centralized controlling government (a top-down system) or through people’s recognized possession (a bottom-up or Lockean system). In the former, the government will create and allocate property at its own discretion, while in the latter, the government will recognize and provide protection for the property of individuals.

When the Spaniards conquered Peru in the 1528, they found immense amounts of gold and …

Deep Seeded Problems: A Look At Seed Bank Regulations, Jasmine Patel

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

This paper examines the importance of preserving plant biodiversity through the use of genetic seed vaults, and how effective global legal and regulatory plans aimed at such preservation are in comparison to approaches being undertaken in the United States. An example of such initiatives, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, is meant to act as a global back up for other nation’s seed vaults. However, Norway’s laws do not allow for genetically modified organisms (“GMOs”) to be imported, including seeds from genetically modified plants. The United States needs to make sure that domestic vaults are protected by proper regulations …

Environmental Regulations And The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Using Investor-State Dispute Settlement To Strengthen Environmental Law, Ai-Li Chiong-Martinson

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

The highly publicized Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement has reignited a long-running debate between environmentalists and free trade advocates about the impacts of the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system on the global economy and environmental preservation. The ISDS provision potentially gives foreign investors the right to challenge domestic regulations intending to protect the environment if those regulations discriminate against foreign investors and result in substantial monetary loss to the investors’ property. Critics of the TPP argue that we should learn from the troubling legacy of the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which, according to critics, overwhelmingly favored investors over states …

Hanford Nuclear Site: Remediating To A Standard Safe For All Or Some?, Dylane Jacobs

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

The cleanup of the Hanford Nuclear Site is one of the largest cleanups undertaken in the U.S. and is governed by many Federal and State environmental statutes. While CERCLA and the later SARA amendments should require the U.S. Department of Energy to clean up the site to a level acceptable for Native American tribes, thus far they have failed to do so. The U.S. Department of Energy can, and should, act to be more effective at remedying the injustices and cleanup of Hanford to the level needed for the historical use of the land.

Are Critical Area Buffers Unconstitutional? Demystifying The Doctrine Of Unconstitutional Conditions, Brian T. Hodges

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

Washington’s cities and counties are increasingly demanding that owners of residential shoreline properties dedicate large, predetermined critical area buffers as a mandatory condition of any new development. Such demands, when imposed without regard to the specifics of the land use proposal, would appear to violate the essential nexus and rough proportionality tests established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Nollan v. California Coastal Commission, 483 U.S. 825 (1987), and Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374 (1994). Early decisions from Washington courts faithfully applied these tests, invalidating open space and buffer dedications. But in a series of …

The Aftermath Of Care V. Cow Palace And The Future Of Rcra In Cafo Cases, Lauren Tavar

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Water, Water, Nowhere: Adapting Water Rights For A Changing Climate, Caleb Hall

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Ridding Pes Systems Of The “Pay To Pollute” Principle: Pes Optimization Strategies, Kelly Carlson

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

Indoor Aquaponics In Abandoned Buildings: A Potential Solution To Food Deserts, Lisa Tomlinson

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.