Environmental Law Commons^™

#Betterrules: The Appropriate Use Of Social Media In Rulemaking, Stephen M. Johnson

Articles

In December 2015, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) use of various social media tools in a rulemaking under the Clean Water Act violated prohibitions in federal appropriations laws against publicity, propaganda, and lobbying. Although academics previously explored whether the use of technology in rulemaking might violate the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), the Paperwork Reduction Act, or the Federal Advisory Committee Act, none predicted that one of the first firestorms surrounding the use of social media in rulemaking would arise out of federal appropriations laws. ...

As the Administrative Conference of the United States …

Chile, The Biobio, And The Future Of The Columbia River Basin, Jerrold A. Long

Articles

No abstract provided.

Regulating With Reasonable Use:Lessons From Drought Management In The Russian River Watershed, John Ugai

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

A Us Clean Energy Transition And The Trump Administration, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The Obama administration undertook several steps giving the US federal government a leadership role in a clean energy transition. Among other actions, the administration develop a Climate Action Plan, successfully negotiated higher fuel vehicle standards with car manufacturers, passed the Clean Power Plan, and signed the Paris Climate Agreement. Although the United States had been party to other international climate agreements and was a signatory to the Rio Declaration, other federal efforts were lax at best.

During his election campaign, Donald Trump promised his supporters to eliminate the Clean Power Plan, withdraw from the Paris Agreement, curtail the Environmental Protection …

From Gorsuch To Gorsuch: Family Reformation On Agency Power, Matthew Noxsel

Florida A & M University Law Review

Although Chevron has drawn extensive scholarship examining its doctrinal origins,17 evolution,18 and impact,19 this is not one of those inquiries. Instead, this Comment seeks to address some of the circumstances and rationale motivating certain people behind Chevron, and therefore the doctrine and its impact will be discussed in short form. Accordingly, Part II of this Comment will use Anne Gorsuch’s service at the EPA as a lens through which to view the conservative revolution that occurred before and during the Reagan years, with an eye toward a subtle change in thinking from previous generations regarding agency regulations. Part III of …

Access To Trade Secret Environmental Information: Are Trips And Trips Plus Obligations A Hidden Landmine?, Dalindyebo Shabalala

School of Law Faculty Publications

Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs) have been fundamental to enabling access to environmental information. The effectiveness of domestic and international environmental regulatory standards has been dependent on ensuring strong information access regimes, especially for information submitted to governments by firms. However, there has been an ongoing tension between providing and accessing complete regulatory information on the one hand, and the interest in maintaining the economic value of trade secrets. Such tensions have historically been managed at the domestic level within constitutional structures balancing access to information, privacy interests, and economic interests. However, the almost simultaneous advent of international norms and …

Why Environmental Policies Fail, Jan G. Laitos, Juliana Okulski

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Proposing environmental policy which is consistent with the laws of nature, this book is for those who are not just interested in the ways humans have harmfully altered their environment, but instead wish to learn why the many governmental policies in place to curb such behaviour have been unsuccessful. Since humans began to exploit natural resources for their own economic ends, we have ignored a central principle - nature and humans are not separate but are a unified interconnected system, where neither is superior to the other. Policy must reflect this reality. We failed to follow this principle in exploiting …

Constitutional Protection For Future Generations From Climate Change, Ylam Nguyen

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Mono Lake, Matthew J. Brown

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Editor In Chief Note, Matthew J. Brown, Morgan B. Mcgill

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

California’S Drought And The Environment: An Introduction, Leon F. Szeptycki, Brian E. Gray

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Conjunctive Use On The Yuba: Lessons From Drought Management In The Yuba Watershed, John Ugai

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Ad-Hoc Drought Management On An Overallocated River: The Stanislaus River, Water Years 2014-15, Philip Womble

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Low Flows, High Stakes: Lessons From Fisheries Management On Mill, Deer, And Antelope Creeks During California’S Historic Drought, Elizabeth Vissers

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Reviewing Reservoir Operations: Can Federal Water Projects Adapt To Change?, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

This Article begins by reviewing the purposes for federal water projects, and identifies some of the trade-offs involved in operating projects for certain purposes. It then addresses the legal factors that determine or influence project operations, beginning with project authorizing statutes and ending with federal environmental laws. The Article examines Corps and Bureau policies regarding project operating plans, the reasons for agency reluctance to review and revise their plans, and some of the factors that prompt the agencies to proceed with reviews. It then summarizes periodic review requirements in two analogous contexts—federal land management plans, and hydropower project licenses—and considers …

New Strategies For Reducing Transportation Emissions And Preparing For Climate Impacts, Gabriel Pacyniak, Kathryn Zyla, Vicki Arroyo

Faculty Scholarship

The transportation sector is becoming the largest source of greenhouse gas ("GHG") emissions in the United States. The Obama Administration put in place federal vehicle and fuel standards that are significantly reducing emissions. However, these regulations will be insufficient to put the United States on track to achieve needed reductions needed long-term. This is especially true if the 2025 standards announced by the Obama Administration are rolled back by the new Trump Administration. Because current federal standards alone will not attain ambitious climate goals and may be rolled back, state and local activity is essential to make progress towards meeting …

Shooting Stars And Dancing Fish: A Walk To The World We Want, Tony Oposa

Environmental Law Program Publications @ Haub Law

From the foreword by Durwood Zaelke, President, Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, Washington, DC.

“Since the beginning of time, human knowledge and culture have been passed down through stories. Short stories, songs, prayers, poems, even paintings can stick in your mind forever. These have always been the most powerful ways we learn and remember.

Tony is not only one of the world’s greatest lawyers, he is also one of the world’s greatest storytellers.

This book, in which he generously shares his experiences, his scars, and most importantly his humanity, is Tony’s gift to generations to come.

But he does …

A Study On The United States Renewable Energy Policy Design And Outcomes, Dmitry Zelik

SJD Dissertations

Energy is essential for the existence of modem civilization, and the amount of energy consumed by society is constantly growing. In 2015, the United States alone generated about 4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity. About 67% of the electricity generated was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum). The United States' high dependence on fossil fuels leads to numerous problems, such as increased greenhouse gas emissions, urban air pollution, as well as geopolitical and military tensions. There are two primary ways that scholars and politicians are trying to address the problem of fossil-fuel consumption--either by reducing the population's dependence on …

"No Ordinary Lawsuit": Climate Change, Due Process, And The Public Trust Doctrine, Michael Blumm, Mary Christina Wood

American University Law Review

On November 10, 2016, just two days after the election of President Donald Trump, the federal district court in Oregon handed down Juliana v. United States. This remarkable decision refused to dismiss a lawsuit brought by youth plaintiffs who claimed that the federal government's fossil fuel policies over the years, which have produced an atmosphere with dangerous levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs), violated the federal public trust doctrine (PTD) and their federal constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. The court found a constitutional right to a stable climate system, determining that the PTD was an implicit part of …

Garbage Day: Will Italy Finally Take Out Its Trash In The Land Of Fires?, Jason A. Slaybaugh

Washington International Law Journal

The illegal dumping and burning of waste and toxic waste in southern Italy has caused such immense environmental damage that the disaster is now known as “Italy’s Chernobyl”. In early 2014, the Italian Senate passed the Land of Fires Decree, a sweeping new law aimed at solving a problem that Italy has historically failed to adequately address. Despite the broad grants of power and the new crime created, the lack of political will renders these new tools useless and means little will likely change. Italy can no longer put this fire out by itself. As such, Italy should look to …

The Baseline Bar, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Blood Biofuels, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Trust Or Bust: Complications With Tribal Trust Obligations And Environmental Sovereignty, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Trust Me, I'M A Pragmatist: A Partially Pragmatic Critique Of Pragmatic Activism, Joshua Ulan Galperin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Pragmatism is a robust philosophy, vernacular hand waiving, a method of judicial and administrative decisionmaking, and, more recently, justification for a certain type of political activism. While philosophical, judicial, and administrative pragmatism have garnered substantial attention and analysis from scholars, we have been much stingier with pragmatic activism — that which, in the spirit of the 21st Century’s 140-character limit, I will call “pragtivism.” This Article is intended as an introduction to pragtivism, a critique of the practice, and a constructive framework for addressing some of my critiques.

To highlight the contours of pragtivism, this Article tells the story of …

Defining And Closing The Hydraulic Fracturing Governance Gap, Joshua Ulan Galperin, Grace Heusner, Allison Sloto

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

As recent examples in Texas and Colorado have shown, if local governments ban fracking, they risk pushback from state governments. This pushback, in turn, can result in preemption making an outright local ban on fracking self-defeating because it could ultimately result in less local control over the impacts of hydraulic fracturing. Given this potentially self-defeating nature of local fracking bans, local governments should address the impacts of fracking through more traditional local governance mechanisms that do not pose as great a risk to local authority.

On this premise, this Article seeks to make the case for the importance of, and …

Zoning’S Centennial: A Complete Account Of The Evolution Of Zoning Into A Robust System Of Land Use Law—1916-2016 (Part Iv), John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Fracking is happening and local governments are subjected to many of its associated risks. They either need to act, or know—clearly and convincingly—why they should not. The federal government has stopped far short of comprehensive regulation of fracking; the states’ regulations range from fair to poor, sometimes preempting local regulation but most often sharing regulatory authority over land use impacts.

Farming And Eating, Margot J. Pollans

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This essay argues that the “us versus them” rhetoric that dominates food and agriculture policy today drives a wedge between farmers and food consumers. Together, farmers and food consumers could form a powerful coalition to challenge the true obstacle to sustainable and equitable food production: concentration of market and political power elsewhere along the food chain.

Value Hypocrisy And Policy Sincerity: A Food Law Case Study, Joshua Ulan Galperin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

t is tempting to say that in 2017 there is a unique problem of hypocrisy in politics, where words and behaviors are so often in opposition. In fact, hypocrisy is nothing new. A robust legal and psychological literature on the importance of procedural justice demonstrates a longstanding concern with developing more just governing processes. One of the important features of this scholarship is that it does not focus only on the consequences of policymaking, in which behaviors, but not words, are relevant. Instead, it respects the intrinsic importance of fair process, lending credence not only to votes but also to …

A Call To Action For New Yorkers, Jeffrey Gracer, Michael Mahoney

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

President Donald Trump's announcement last week that he will begin the process of withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Change Agreement is a deeply disappointing decision, one that jeopardizes the future of the planet and cedes U.S. leadership on international climate action.

Downstream And Upstream Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Proper Scope Of Nepa Review, Michael Burger, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Recently, legal controversies have arisen regarding the scope of greenhouse gas emissions that should be considered in environmental reviews of fossil fuel extraction and transportation proposals under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”). The key question is whether and how agencies should account for emissions from activities that occur “downstream” from the proposed action, such as the combustion of fossil fuels, and emissions from activities that occur “upstream” of the proposed action, such as the extraction of fossil fuels. This question is important, because consideration of such emissions can alter the balance of costs and benefits for a proposed project …