Environmental Law Commons^™

Current Resiliency Projects And Potential Partnership Opportunities, Greg Hoffman

Sea Grant Law Fellow Publications

No abstract provided.

Increasing Infrastructure's Resiliency To Global Climate Change Effects: Seeking Non-Traditional Federal Partnerships In Rhode Island's Coastal Beach Zones, James Mcmahon

Sea Grant Law Fellow Publications

No abstract provided.

Virtual "Nets" And Law: Power Navigates The Supremacy Clause, Steven Ferrey

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

Net metering is the most utilized state incentive for renewable power nationwide, in place in more than eighty-five percent of all states. Utilities in all states have been required by federal law for the past seven years to make net metering available to all requesting customers. Yet a significant number of states have failed to comply with this federal law, and several other states have complied in a manner that has raised questions as to whether they have violated the Constitution's separation between state and federal jurisdiction over power. This article will not delve into the first issue of noncompliance …

Efficiency In The Regulatory Crucible: Navigating 21st Century ‘Smart’ Technology And Power, Steven Ferrey

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

The flow of money in U.S. energy policy choices has consequences, and the Obama administration’s 2009 federal stimulus package presents an interesting policy scenario. The current administration wants to pivot postindustrial America away from emitting global-warming gases and powering its economy with fossil fuels. Indeed, changing the energy technology and infrastructure of the United States has been the cornerstone of the Obama administration’s domestic policy. The federal government devoted significant amounts of stimulus funding to this agenda. It also maintained preferences for certain investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy through the tax code. A change of this significance revolving …

The Second Annual Environmental Law And Justice Symposium Issue, Randall S. Abate

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Second Annual Distinguished Lecture Florida A&M Environmental Law And Justice Symposium, November 3-4, 2011, Albert Mumma

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Environmental Justice With Chinese Characteristics: Recent Developments In Using Environmental Public Interest Litigation To Strengthen Access To Environmental Justice, Jingjing Liu

Florida A & M University Law Review

China's unprecedented economic growth and rapid urbanization in the past three decades has exerted a heavy toll on the country's environment. Set against the backdrop of China's daunting environmental challenges, this article will first discuss how the environmental justice issue manifests itself on Chinese soil and how its evolvement differs from the American experience. This discussion will be followed by an analysis on how environmental public interest litigation, inspired by citizen suits in the U.S., has been fermenting in China and advocated by environmentalists as a new approach to broaden and strengthen access to environmental justice. The article will then …

The Acf Water Crisis: A Major Challenge With A Feasible "Volunteer" Solution, Tremaine Reese

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Biopiracy In The Brazilian Amazon: Learning From International And Comparative Law Successes And Shortcomings To Help Promote Biodiversity Conservation In Brazil, Vanessa Danley

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Sweet It Isn't: Big Sugar's Power Politics And The Fate Of The Florida Everglades, Katherine Mohr

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Adios To Paradise: The Yacyreta Dam And The Destruction Of Environmental And Human Rights, Itzchak E. Kornfeld

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Environmental Rights In International Law: Explicitly Recognized Or Creatively Interpreted, Svitlana Kravchenko

Florida A & M University Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Custom Fit: Tailoring Texas Civil Jury Selection Procedures To Case Tiers., Jarod S. Gonzalez

St. Mary's Law Journal

Citizens serving on a civil jury are entrusted with making factual decisions about disputes that impact legal rights and remedies of litigants and set standards for the behavior of the public. Unfortunately, civil jury trials take place less frequently in twenty-first century Texas than in prior eras. Part of the justice system’s rejuvenation should involve a re-evaluation and improvement of the current process for selecting civil juries. Currently, the primary flaw in Texas jury selection procedures is the one-size-fits-all approach. Because some cases need twelve impartial jurors who are lay persons, and others require twelve people who are knowledgeable of …

Expanding Protective Order Coverage., Kellie K. Player

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Texas legislature should eliminate the relationship requirement for a protective order. Although the Texas legislature passed the Kristy Appleby Act, which expanded the definition of dating violence, some victims of domestic violence may still be unable to qualify for a protective order. Specifically, some third-party individuals in a love triangle may not be eligible to receive a protective order. In Texas, a potential or current victim of domestic abuse needs to demonstrate a relationship with the perpetrator. Despite the broadened definition of relationship, some potential victims may still be unable to meet this burden. If the person cannot, they …

The Double Irish Sandwich: Reforming Overseas Tax Havens., Stephen C. Loomis

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract Forthcoming.

The Judicial Assault On The Clean Water Act, Mark Squillace

Publications

No abstract provided.

Planetarian Identity Formation And The Relocalization Of Environmental Law, Sarah Krakoff

Publications

Local food, local work, local energy production--all are hallmarks of a resurgence of localism throughout contemporary environmental thought and action. The renaissance of localism might be seen as a retreat from the world's global environmental problems. This Article maintains, however, that some forms of localism are actually expressions, appropriate ones, of a planetary environmental consciousness. This Article's centerpiece is an in-depth evaluation of local climate action initiatives, including interviews with participants, as well as other data and observations about their ethics, attitudes, behaviors, and motivations. The values and identities being forged in these initiatives form the basis for timely conceptions …

Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (Ms4)--Assigning Responsibility For Pollutants That Reach The Nation's Waters, Robert Abrams

Journal Publications

The United States Supreme Court will review a ruling of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that found the Los Angeles County Flood Control District in violation of its permit under the Clean Water Act for its Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4) discharges into the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers. Segments of those rivers that constitute a part of the MS4 have been paved to improve flood control, and the pollution levels measured as the water moves through those segments and other monitoring locations exceed the amounts allowed by the District’s permit. The District claims that pollution is …

An Environmental Law Even Judge Learned Hand Would Violate: Ohio Epa Needs Non-Monetary Penalties To Enforce Construction Npdes Permits, David Emerman

Cleveland State Law Review

The Ohio EPA regulates construction sites by issuing NPDES permits that impose restrictions on the discharge of stormwater. Construction sites, however, have little incentive to follow these requirements. For many construction sites, it is more economical to be out of compliance and risk an unlikely fine than to comply with the permit. When these construction sites are out of compliance, stormwater runoff carries sediment into waterways and adversely affects water quality. In negligence torts, the Learned Hand Formula is used to determine what a reasonable person would do. The Learned Hand Formula, when applied to what an economically reasonable construction …

Managing Climate Change Through Biological Sequestration: Open Space Law Redux, John R. Nolon

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Climate change management involves strategies that mitigate its causes and adapt human communities to its consequences. This article describes a legal strategy that does both: a national biological sequestration policy. This policy will increase the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that biological sequestration currently removes from the atmosphere and will enable human settlements to adapt to the harsh effects of a changing climate, while realizing a number of other objectives that preserved open space preservation achieves. The article sketches the influences of international and national climate change law, which largely ignore the benefits of biological sequestration on privately owned land …

Virginia's Expanded Nutrient Trading Law: Will It Help Restore The Chesapeake Bay While Allowing For Growth, Margaret L. Sanner

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

On April 18, 2012, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell boosted the Commonwealth's pollution-reduction toolbox with an expanded nutrient trading program when he signed H.B. 176/S.B. 77 into law.' Sparked by the issuance of the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (the "Bay TMDL"), which updated pollution limits for the Chesapeake Bay and tributaries, and the Virginia Chesapeake Bay TMDL Phase I Watershed Implementation Plan (the "Phase I WIP"),2 the expanded nutrient trading program allows myriad new market participants to generate and sell certified "nutrient credits"3 to others to meet existing limits or to offset new pollution from expansion.4 If the program …

The Landsafe Socioecological Development Model For The Customary Commons Of Zambia: Evolution And Formalization, I.P.A. Manning

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

The Grass Is Always Greener: Keystone Xl, Transboundary Harms, And Guidelines For Cooperative Environmental-Impact Assessment, Wyatt Sassman

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

While general understanding of environmental harms has become more geographically sophisticated, environmental-impact assessment (EIA) law has lagged behind. Although nations now understand complex environmental processes and relationships that extend well beyond their borders, EIA law remains trapped in a domestic structure that is ill-prepared to assess harms outside its jurisdiction. By looking at the U.S. environmental assessment of the Keystone XL pipeline, this Note recasts the problem of transboundary environmental harms in EIA using recent, remarkable events. Key assumptions made in the Keystone XL assessment illustrate that the typical domestic structure of EIA law does not allow adequate assessment of …

Going Rogue: Stop The Beach Renourishment As An Object Of Morbid Fascination, Mary Doyle, Stephen J. Schnably

Articles

Scholarly response to the Supreme Court's decision in Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection has focused on the plurality's strong advocacy of a judicial takings doctrine. We take a different tack. While the concept of judicial takings is worthy of serious attention, it is wrong to treat the plurality opinion as an ordinary object of analysis. It is, instead, the emanation of a Court going rogue.

Three basic symptoms of the pathology stand out. First, sleight of hand. The plurality opinion purports to be about an institutional issue-can a state court commit a taking? - …

Human Security And Military Preparedness, Linda A. Malone

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Neoliberal Land Conservation And Social Justice, Jessica Owley

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Reading The Standing Tea Leaves In American Electric Power Co. V. Connecticut, Bradford C. Mank

University of Richmond Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court by an equally divided vote offour to four affirmed the Second Circuit's decision finding standing and jurisdiction in the case in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut. While not binding as precedent beyond the Second Circuit,the case offers clues to how the Court is likely to rule in future standing cases. This article discusses the likely identities of the four Justices on each side of the standing issue in the case, as well as how Justice Sotomayor might have voted if she had not recused herself. Furthermore, the article examines how the decision expand- ed on …

Paved With Good Intentions: The Fate Of Strict Liability Under The Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Kalyani Robbins

Akron Law Faculty Publications

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) contains a very broad ban on harming migratory birds, as well as a strict liability standard for misdemeanor violations. Without further limitation, the MBTA would theoretically apply to countless ordinary life activities, such as driving a car or having windows on one’s home. Naturally, there are due process concerns with such a scenario, so Congress expressly left it to the Department of the Interior to draft more detailed implementing regulations. Unfortunately, the existing regulations fail to adequately address the potential overbreadth of the MBTA’s misdemeanor application, forcing the courts to do so on an …

An Ecosystem Management Primer: History, Perceptions, And Modern Definition, Kalyani Robbins

Akron Law Faculty Publications

This chapter will first take the reader on a journey through the history of ecosystem management, providing a summary of how it has grown and developed over the past two decades. This will only naturally lead to the next part of the chapter, which focuses on the present understanding of how ecosystem management is to be defined and applied, as well as the variety in perceptions of this modern understanding. Finally, it will serve as an introduction to the remainder of the book, previewing the various contributions collected here, offered by some of the best-known scholars in the field of …

Chair's Message, Michael Herz

Articles

No abstract provided.