Environmental Law Commons^™

Environmental Law, Eleventh Circuit Review, Travis M. Trimble

Scholarly Works

In 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the intervenors lacked standing to challenge on appeal a consent decree entered into by the main parties and approved by the

district court in a Clean Water Act case. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, in a Clean Air Act case, excluded on Daubert grounds testimony of the government’s experts

purporting to establish that repair and replacement projects at several power plants in Alabama had in fact been major modifications to the plants that resulted in increased air pollutant emissions, which …

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

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 …

Global Public Goods, Governance Risk, And International Energy, Timothy L. Meyer

Scholarly Works

Scholars and commentators have long argued that issue linkages provide a way to increase cooperation on global public goods by increasing participation in global institutions, building consensus, and deterring free-riding. In this symposium article, I argue that the emphasis on the potential of issue linkages to facilitate cooperation in these ways has caused commentators to underestimate how common features of international legal institutions designed to accomplish these aims can actually undermine those institutions’ ability to facilitate cooperation. I focus on two features of institutional design that are intended to encourage participation in public goods institutions but can create the risk …

Laws, Institutions And Transboundary Pasture Management In The High Pamir And Pamir-Alai Mountain Ecosystem Of Central Asia, Michelle Mei Ling Lim

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Enhanced rangeland governance is a priority for the governments of the post-Soviet Central Asian states of the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan. Major transitional challenges confront the newly independent states of Central Asia. These challenges include the withdrawal of subsidies previously provided by the centralised Soviet government; moves towards privatisation and the conversion of administrative boundaries to international boundaries. In this context transboundary approaches to rangeland management are essential. This paper highlights the challenges for effective pasture management in the Pamir, Pamir-Alai ecosystem; the inadequacies of pasture-related legal instruments and the absence of institutions for the implementation of these instruments. Transboundary …

Toxins Targeted At Minorities: The Racist Undertones Of Environmentally-Friendly Initiatives, Kathleen Bonner

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The Big Fracking Deal: Marcellus Shale - Pennsylvania's Untapped Resource, Kristen Allen

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Buyer's Remorse Over Your Pennsylvania Gas Lease - The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Upholds Meager Royalty Payments And Protects The Profitability Of Marcellus Gas Drilling In Kilmer V. Elexco Land Services, Inc., Michael Morris

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Actually, We Did Start The Fire, And It Keeps On Burning: The Environmental Health Effects Of Military Burn Pits In Afghanistan And Iraq, Michael Riess

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Food Fight: The Impending Agricultural Crisis And A Reasonable Response To Price Volatility, Aaron Sternick

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The California Project: Federal Government Continues Trend Of Preempting State Law In The Field Of Nuclear Safety In Boeing Co. V. Robinson, Denis Yanishevskiy

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

A Slick Situation: The First Circuit Creates A Buzz And Turns To Nepa To Strengthen Federal Oil Spill Regulation In United States V. Coalition For Buzzards Bay, Sally Braeuer

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Providing Another Leg To Stand On - A Question Of The Zone Of Interests In Challenging Agency Decision-Making Under The Air Pollution Control Act, Bill Welkowitz

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Flooding The Possibility Of Recovery Under A Temporary Takings Analysis: The Drowning Effects Of Arkansas Game & Fish Commission V. United States, Magdalene Carter

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

The Success And Continued Challenges Of The Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area: A Grassroots Restoration, Rachael E. Salcido

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Madisonian Fair Use, Michael J. Madison

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Quest For A Sustainable Future And The Dawn Of A New Journal At Michigan Law, David M. Uhlmann

Articles

When I joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School in 2007, the first assignment I gave students in my Environmental Law and Policy class was John McPhee's Encounters with the Archdruid. It must have seemed like a curious choice to them, particularly coming from a professor who just three months earlier had been the Chief of the Environmental Crimes Section at the U.S. Department of Justice. The book was not a dramatic tale of courtroom battles. In fact, the book was not even about the law, and the clash of environmental values it depicted pre-dated the environmental …

Exporting Waste: Regulation Of The Export Of Hazardous Wastes From The United States, Jeffrey M. Gaba

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The international trade in hazardous wastes has been a subject of controversy for decades. Notorious examples of hazardous wastes being improperly disposed of in Africa have created concern about the legitimacy of developed western countries “dumping” the hazardous byproducts of their industrial development on less-developed countries.

This article examines the legal bases for EPA’s regulation of the exports of hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. It contains a detailed examination of EPA’s complex sets of export regulations and provides data on the actual scope of exports reported to EPA. It examines a series of questions regarding EPA’s …

Energy And Environmental Justice: How States Can Integrate Environmental Justice Into Energy-Related Proceedings, James M. Van Nostrand

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Environment In New York State, Michael B. Gerrard, Claire H. Woods

Faculty Scholarship

This article explores the environmental policy in New York State. Science is significant as a driver of environmental policy, but public opinion is even more important. The story of the New York State's water supply is dominated by the historic quest to supply water to New York City. The State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) has been the most fertile source of environmental litigation in New York State courts. New York's solid waste expenditures have soared as it has had to pay commercial landfills and incinerators to take waste that had previously been cheaply dumped at Fresh Kills. New York …

An Empirical Assessment Of Climate Change In The Courts: A New Jurisprudence Or Business As Usual?, J.B. Ruhl, David L. Markell

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

While legal scholarship seeking to assess the impact of litigation on the direction of climate change policy is abundant and growing in leaps and bounds, to date it has relied on and examined only small, isolated pieces of the vast litigation landscape. Without a complete picture of what has and has not been within the sweep of climate change litigation, it is difficult to offer a robust evaluation of the past, present, and future of climate change jurisprudence. Based on a comprehensive empirical study of the status of all (201) climate change litigation matters filed through 2010, this Article is …

Global Public Goods, Governance Risk, And International Energy, Timothy Meyer

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Scholars and commentators have long argued that issue linkages provide a way to increase cooperation on global public goods by increasing participation in global institutions, building consensus, and deterring free-riding. In this symposium article, I argue that the emphasis on the potential of issue linkages to facilitate cooperation in these ways has caused commentators to underestimate how common features of international legal institutions designed to accomplish these aims can actually undermine those institutions’ ability to facilitate cooperation. I focus on two features of institutional design that are intended to encourage participation in public goods institutions but can create the risk …

Clean Energy And The Price Preemption Ceiling, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Since the New Deal, federal preemption has precluded many state and local regulatory decisions that depart from wholesale electric prices determined under federal standards. Recent decisions treat prices that meet the federal standard as a preemption ceiling, which prohibits states from setting prices that exceed the wholesale price set in a competitive market. Both appellate courts and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - the primary federal agency responsible for the electric power sector - have recently applied a price preemption ceiling to clean energy policies. I argue in this Article that this price ceiling preemption approach hobbles the advancement of …

Wilderness, Water, And Climate Change, Sandra B. Zellmer

Faculty Law Review Articles

As the nation searches for climate mitigation and adaptation strategies, the pressure to develop water resources within wilderness areas and to exploit the timber, forage, wildlife, fish, and other virtually untapped components of wilderness will become more acute. This Article makes the case that managers and legislatures should not yield to this pressure and argues that, if anything, the need to preserve untrammeled wilderness characteristics is just as imperative today as it was in 1964 when the Wilderness Act was passed The Article examines the potency of the Wilderness Act and a trio of federal water law doctrines-federally reserved water …

Federal Water Law And The 'Double Whammy': How The Bureau Of Reclamation Can Help The West Adapt To Drought And Climate Change, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Public Funding Programs For Environmental Water Acquisitions: Origins, Purposes, And Revenue Sources, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Environmental Law, Civil Rights And Sustainability: Three Frameworks For Environmental Justice, Eileen Gauna

Faculty Scholarship

This article focuses on the domestic context, where the issues have more concretely crystallized around viewing environmental justice issues from a civil rights framework, and also from a competing environmental law framework. The article will begin with a discussion of the limitations of each of these frameworks, and will then explore the current "disconnect" between these two models, ending with an exploration of how the principles of sustainability fit into the picture. As to the latter point, sustainability is a double-edged sword. It might be used to maintain the inequity of the status quo; and, particularly in light of climate …

The Coming Water Crisis: A Common Concern Of Mankind, Edith Brown Weiss

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay argues that fresh water, its availability and use, should now be recognized as ‘a common concern of humankind’, much as climate change was recognized as a ‘common concern of humankind’ in the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and conservation of biodiversity was recognized as a ‘common concern of humankind’ in the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity. This would respond to the many linkages between what happens in one area with the demand for and the supply of fresh water in other areas. It would take into account the scientific characteristics of the hydrological cycle, address …

Water Rights, Markets, And Changing Ecological Conditions, Jonathan H. Adler

Faculty Publications

Conventional environmentalist thought is suspicious of private markets and property rights. The prospect of global climate change, and consequent ecological disruptions, has fueled the call for additional limitations on private markets and property rights. This Essay presents an alternative view. Specifically, this Essay briefly explains why environmental problems generally, and the prospect of changing environmental conditions such as those brought about by climate change in particular, do not counsel further restrictions on private property rights and markets. To the contrary, the prospect of significant environmental changes strengthens the case for greater reliance on property rights and market institutions to address …

Fugitive Emissions: The Marcellus Shale And The Clean Air Act, Joseph Minott, Jonathan Skinner

Publications

No abstract provided.

Introductory Remarks: International Energy Governance, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.