Environmental Law Commons^™

Drilling For Common Ground: How Public Opinion Tracks Experts In The Debate Over Federal Regulation Of Shale Oil & Gas Extraction, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman

Publications and Research

Public interest in environmental and health impacts from shale oil and gas extraction (what the public calls “fracking”) is growing. Industry claims the public outcry against the new technology is not grounded in science. In February 2013, Resources for the Future (“RFF”) published a list of high priority “risk pathways” that experts from NGOs, academia, government, and industry all agreed were real concerns about fracking. This article used the risk matrix to evaluate whether public comments in dockets of federal agencies that proposed regulation concerning hydraulic fracturing tracked expert concern. The article found that the public tracked many of the …

Clean Power Policy In The United States, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Within the last year, the Obama administration has taken two significant and dramatic steps addressing the challenges of climate change and demonstrating a renewed leadership role for the US. First, as a signatory to the Paris climate agreements, the US has stepped forward to participate in that global effort after years of recalcitrance. The US, for example, signed the Rio Declaration in 1992 but five years later would not ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Now, though, the US has reversed course and has reentered the international climate conversation.

The second significant climate initiative came on the domestic front as the …

Regulation Of Fracking Is Not A Taking Of Private Property, Kevin Lynch

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

As the use of fracking has spread during the recent oil and gas boom, inevitable conflicts have arisen between industry and its neighbors, particularly as fracking has moved into densely populated urban and suburban areas. Concerned over the impacts of fracking – such as risks to health and safely, diminished property values, air and water pollution, as well as noise, traffic, and other annoyances – many people have demanded a government response.

Government regulation of fracking has struggled to catch up, although in recent years many state and local governments have taken steps to reduce the impacts of fracking in …

Oil & Gas Drilling In National Parks, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman

Publications and Research

While a great deal of public attention addresses the Halliburton loophole of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and Bureau of Land Management efforts to regulate hydraulic fracturing on public lands, less attention has been paid to the National Park Service “9B Regulations,” which provide a national regulatory framework governing the exercise of nonfederal oil and gas rights in national parks. This article begins with a review of law pertaining to oil and gas drilling in national parks. The article examines the tension in striking a balance between environmental protection, conservation of national lands and achieving energy independence, including National …

Air Pollution Emissions During Startups, Shutdowns, And Malfunctions, Arnold W. Reitze Jr.

Utah OnLaw: The Utah Law Review Online Supplement

Air pollution emission limitations on stationary sources are usually based on what is achievable during normal operation, but these requirements cannot always be met during the startup or shutdown of either specific processes or the entire facility. Moreover, malfunctions occur even at facilities that are well designed and operated. How startup, shutdown, and malfunction (SSM) events should be handled under the Clean Air Act (CAA) is controversial. The issue is complicated by the fact that under the CAA the implementation and enforcement of the Act is usually delegated to the states, which have parallel requirements in their federally approved state …

The Biodiversity Paradigm Shift: Adapting The Endangered Species Act To Climate Change, Kalyani Robbins

Faculty Publications

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) was designed to protect species that had been rendered more vulnerable to extinction as a result of human activity. As such, its implementation has traditionally focused on keeping human beings away from such species and giving the species (and their ecosystems) space to heal on their own. Climate change is altering the landscape everywhere on the globe, rendering the hands-off approach no longer sufficient. Active interventions will become more necessary as we get further into the changing climate. Taking decisive action in response to climate change will also require a fundamental shift in our approach …

Intellectual Property, Climate Change And Development, Dalindyebo Shabalala

School of Law Faculty Publications

Since the wave of independence that swept former European colonies in the middle to late twentieth century, access to technology and knowledge has been at the core of demands for restitution and aid by developing countries. The demands found their strongest expression in the Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) 1974 which sought, among other things:

“Giving to the developing countries access to the achievements of modern science and technology, and promoting the transfer of technology and the creation of indigenous technology for the benefit of the developing countries in forms and in accordance with …

Dynamic Governance In Theory And Application, Part I, David L. Markell, Robert L. Glicksman

Scholarly Publications

This Article is the first of two that grapple with a central policy challenge facing the administrative state: how to govern in times of dynamic change when challenges, and opportunities to address them, are both shifting rapidly. It suggests that, conceptually, process design that is likely to produce effective regulatory governance requires attention to three key distinct but interrelated variables: (1) the actors who are or should be involved in program implementation in different capacities; (2) the mechanisms (legal and otherwise) available to promote good governance; and (3) the tools available to advance desired results. To demonstrate the value of …

Throwing Shade On The Sunshine State: The Paris Agreement And How Florida Utility Companies Are Fighting To Control Solar Energy

Nova Law Review

In December 2015, leaders from 195 countries around the world gathered in Paris, France for the twenty- first session of the Conference of the Parties ("COP21").

Our Gmo Labeling Debate: Human Health, The Environment, And The Precautionary Principle, Kate Porfilio 16

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.

Article Iii Standing For Private Plaintiffs Challenging Greenhouse Gas Regulations, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

An important unresolved question is whether non-state plaintiffs have standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution to sue in federal courts in climate change cases. In Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court held a state government could sue the U.S. government to address climate change issues, and suggested, but did not decide, that private litigants might have lesser rights than states. In Washington Environmental Council v. Bellon, the Ninth Circuit held that private groups did not have standing to challenge Washington State’s failure to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from five oil refineries, and implied that private plaintiffs may …

Front Matter, Colorado Natural Resources, Energy & Environmental Law Review

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Enhancing Conservation Options: An Argument For Statutory Recognition Of Options To Purchase Conservation Easements (Opces), Federico Cheever, Jessica Owley

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The most dynamic component of the conservation movement in the United States for the past three decades has been land conservation transactions. In the United States, land conservation organizations have protected roughly 40 million acres of land through transactions. Most of these acres have been protected using conservation easements. Climate change threatens the vast conservation edifice created by land conservation transactions. The tools of land conservation transactions are, traditionally, stationary. Climate change means that the resources that land conservation transactions were intended to protect may no longer remain on the land protected. Options to purchase conservation easements (OPCEs) have long …

Transmission And Transport Of Energy In The Western U.S. And Canada: A Law And Policy Road Map, K. K. Duvivier, Nate Larsen, Nick Lawton, Sam Kalen, Stephen R. Miller, Melissa Powers, Tara Kathleen Righetti, Troy A. Rule, Amelia Schlusser

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This collection of short essays arose from the inaugural meeting of the Idaho Symposium on Energy in the West, which was held in November, 2014. The topic for this first Symposium was Transmission and Transport of Energy in the Western U.S. and Canada: A Law and Policy Road Map. The essays in this collection provide a notable introduction to the major energy issues facing the West today. Topics include: building a resilient legal architecture for western energy production; natural gas flaring; transmission planning for wind energy; utilities and rooftop solar; special considerations for western states and the Clean Power Plan; …

Factors And Frackers: A Look Into The Scientific Methods Used By The Epa To Study And Assess Air Pollution From The Shale Oil And Gas Industry, And Some Proposed Solutions, Elisabeth Rather Healey

Duquesne Law Review

No abstract provided.

Editor In Chief, Kevin Armonio

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Traditions That Appertain: Clarifying The Differences Between Appurtenant And T & C Water Rights In Hawai’I, Nathan Morales

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Haleakala Crater, Maui, Hawaii, Jonathan Sha

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Securing California’S Solar Future: Strategies To Mitigate The Effects Of The U.S.-Chinese Solar Trade Dispute On California’S New Renewable Energy Goals, Kevin Armonio

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

City Park, Porland, Oregon, Julianne Austria

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Beach, Jonathan Sha

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

California’S Groundwater Crisis: A Case For The Regulation Of Groundwater Substitution Transfers, Chelsea Scharf

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Defenders Of Wildlife V. Jewell: Environmentalists Win The Latest Battle In The Fight Over Gray Wolves, But Who Will Win The War?, Rachel Kenigsberg

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

La Jolla, California, Lauren Weihl

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Process And Reconciliation: Integrating The Duty To Consult With Environmental Assessment, Alastair Neil Craik

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

As the duty to consult Aboriginal peoples becomes operationalized within the frameworks of government decision-making, the agencies responsible for these decisions are increasingly turning to environmental assessment (EA) processes as one of the principal vehicles for carrying out those consultations. This article explores the practical and theoretical dimensions of using EA processes to implement the duties to consult and accommodate. The relationship between EA and the duty to consult has arisen in a number of cases and a clear picture is emerging of the steps that agencies conducting EAs must carry out in order to discharge their constitutional obligations to …

Achieving Very High Pv Penetration, Richard Perez, Karl R. Rábago, Mike Trahan, Lyle Rawlings, Ben Norris, Tom Hoff, Morgan Putnam, Marc Perez

Environmental Law Program Publications @ Haub Law

This article argues that optimally deployed intermittency solutions could affordably transform solar power generation into the firm power delivery system modern economies require, thereby enabling very high solar penetration and the displacement conventional power generation. The optimal deployment of these high‐penetration enabling solutions imply the existence of a healthy power grid, and therefore imply a central role for utilities and grid operators. This article also argues that a value‐based electricity compensation mechanism, recognizing the multifaceted, penetration‐dependent value and cost of solar energy, and capable of shaping consumption patterns to optimally match resource and demand, would be an effective vehicle to …

The Promise Of The Rule Of (Environmental) Law: A Reply To Pardy's Unbearable Licence, Jocelyn Stacey Assistant Professor

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

This short reply clarifies and defends the argument presented in "The Environmental Emergency and the Legality of Discretion in Environmental Law." It responds to the arguments that were made, and that could have been made, in Pardy's critique "An Unbearable Licence".

On Climate Change And Cyber Attacks: Leveraging Polycentric Governance To Mitigate Global Collective Action Problems, Scott J. Shackelford

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Although cyberspace and the atmosphere are distinct arenas, they share similar problems of overuse, difficulties of enforcement, and challenges of collective inaction and free riders. With weather patterns changing, global sea levels rising, and temperatures set to exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2100, climate change is a problem that affects the entire world. Yet its benefits are dispersed, and its harms are often concentrated. Similarly, much of the cost of cyber attacks is focused in a few nations even as others are becoming havens for cybercriminals. Yet it is also true that actions taken by a multiplicity of actors on …

Intellectual Property And Related Rights In Climate Data, Michael W. Carroll

Contributions to Books

This chapter focuses on the ways in which intellectual property law can act as a barrier to data sharing. Intellectual property laws supply exclusive rights that can enable a researcher, employer or funder to ‘own’ data; they can then bring legal claims against persons who access or reuse data without permission. Some of these rights attach automatically to data, data sets, or databases, and thus must be managed properly to enable robust data sharing in climate science. Other rights are created by contract, and the policies around such privately created rights must be understood and analyzed. This chapter briefly describes …

At What Costs? Environmental Regulations And Cost-Benefit Analysis In Michigan V. Epa, 49 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1257 (2016), Thomas Skelton

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.