Natural Resources Law Commons^™

Building Resilient Communities In The Wake Of Climate Change While Keeping Affordable Housing Safe From Sea Changes In Nature And Policy, Shelby D. Green

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article will explore the twin interests of responding to climate change and preserving accessible and affordable housing. Part II will give a broad overview of the scientists' climate change predictions. Part III will discuss what these predictions portend for populations, housing, and communities. Part IV will describe the broad responses that the federal, state, and local governments are making to climate change to create communities that are thriving and resilient. Part V discusses the efficacy of these responses and their potential impact on the poor, housing, and communities. Part VI looks for parallels between the resilient cities movement and …

The Reasonable Use Doctrine In California Water Law And Policy, Brian E. Gray

Faculty Scholarship

The cardinal principle of California water law is that all water rights, and all uses of water, must be reasonable. This seemingly simple and innocuous sentence masks a world of meaning and complexity, however, because the requirement of reasonable use embraces at least four interrelated concepts. The determination of reasonable water use is utilitarian: the law seeks to encourage relatively efficient, economically and socially beneficial uses of the state’s water resources. It is situational: the evaluation of individual reasonable use concerns not only the water right holder’s own uses but also other competing demands (both consumptive and ecological) on the …

Clean Water Act, Section 404 Applicants: May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor, Jason Bailey

American University Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Governance Gap: Extractive Industries, Human Rights, And The Home State Advantage By Penelope Simons And Audrey Macklin, Sara Seck

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Governance Gap is a long-awaited contribution to the literature, advocating a stronger role for home state governments in the regulation of extractive companies operating abroad. Tis book arises from the experience of the authors as members of the Harker Commission on human security in the Sudan in the late 1990s.3 Written by Penelope Simons4 and Audrey Macklin,5 Te Governance Gap provides a detailed case study of Canadian company Talisman Energy Inc. and its operations in the Sudan between 1998 and 2003—a period during which the Sudan was “in the midst of a violent civil war” and Talisman was operating …

Eco-Environmental Risk Management, Jonathan B. Wiener

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Can Be Done, If Anything, About The Dangerous Penchant Of Public Trust Scholars To Overextend Joseph Sax’S Original Conception: Have We Produced A Bridge Too Far?, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article examines the tendency of many legal scholars to overextend the scope of a previous scholar’s original idea—in this case, Professor Joseph Sax’s reconceptualization of the largely moribund common law public trust doctrine. Legal scholars are induced to write immoderately either to enhance their standing within the academic community or, more selflessly, to achieve law reform. These expansionist tendencies, however, are not without risk—a common law doctrine that becomes too unmoored from its historical shackles may lose the support of the courts that is required for its implementation. The Article examines whether a combination of academic norms and hortatory …

Rethinking The Geography Of Local Climate Action: Multilevel Network Participation In Metropolitan Regions, Hari M. Osofsky

Utah Law Review

As the United States and the world become increasingly urbanized, cities are a key site for addressing the problem of climate change. However, urban climate change action is not simply about local officials making decisions within their cities. In major U.S. urban areas, “local” involves multiple layers of government, including county and metroregional entities. Moreover, many of the cities taking action on climate change also participate in and shape networks of local governments based at state, regional, national, and international levels.

This Article argues that multilevel climate change networks could be more effective by embracing this geography of local action …

Environmental Privacy, Katrina F. Kuh

Utah Law Review

The purpose of this Article is not to anticipate whether or how the Fourth Amendment might apply to specific efforts to collect information about environmentally significant individual behaviors. The purpose is to discern the considerations that have proven salient in balancing environmental regulation and privacy to date that may likewise be relevant to navigating privacy concerns that arise with respect to policy directed to environmentally significant individual behaviors.

In this regard, the Article’s survey suggests that neither the fact that environmentally significant individual behaviors must be aggregated to produce environmental harm nor the fact that individuals, as opposed to commercial …

The Keystone Xl Pipeline And The Dormant Commerce Clause: Would Action By Congress Preclude Adequate Environmental Regulation At The State Level?, S. Shane Stroud

Utah Law Review

The Commerce Clause significantly limits the ability of States and localities to regulate or otherwise burden the flow of interstate commerce, but it does not elevate free trade above all other values. As long as a State does not needlessly obstruct interstate trade or attempt to place itself in a position of economic isolation, it retains broad regulatory authority to protect the health and safety of its citizens and the integrity of its natural resources.

They Had Nothing, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Report Of The Special Rapporteur On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples On The Situation Of Indigenous Peoples In The Republic Of The Congo, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

Report Of The Special Rapporteur On The Rights Of Indigenous Peoples On Extractive Industries And Indigenous Peoples, S. James Anaya

Publications

No abstract provided.

"Greatest Good Of The Greatest Number In The Long Run": Tr, Pinchot, And The Origins Of Sustainability In America, Charles Wilkinson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Following New Lights: Critical Legal Research Strategies As A Spark For Law Reform In Appalachia, Nicholas F. Stump

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

The nascent “critical legal research” movement applies the constellation of critical theory to the American legal research regime. Work in this discourse has unpacked the means through which commercial print and online legal resources (e.g., Westlaw and Lexis) insidiously channel the efforts of legal researchers, essentially predetermining research outcomes. Although legal research is commonly conceived as a normatively neutral paradigm, such commercial homogenizing agents (paired with traditional methods of legal analysis) in fact reflect and perpetuate society’s dominant interests. As grounded in the existing literature, this Article outlines novel strategies that may together constitute one potential version of a critically …

The Tragicomedy Of The Commons, Brigham Daniels

BYU Law Review

Scholarship on the commons focuses on a diverse set of problems, ranging from crashing fisheries to crowded court dockets. Because we find commons resources throughout our natural and cultural environments, understanding old lessons and learning new ones about the commons gives us leverage to address a wide range of problems. Because the list of resources identified as commons resources continues to grow, the importance of gleaning lessons about the commons will also continue to grow.

That being said, while the resources that make up the commons are certainly diverse, so too are the ways scholars depict it and the challenges …

Agglomerama, Lee Anne Fennell

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Our Global Commons, Brigham Daniels, James Salzman

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Surprising Commons, Carol M. Rose

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Texas Groundwater And Tragically Stable “Crossovers”, Zachary Bray

BYU Law Review

One recurring question in the academic literature on common-pool resources relates to the persistence of “tragic” commons regimes—systems that encourage, or at least tolerate, the inefficient, wasteful, hazardous, or unfair exploitation of a resource that is easily accessed for and diminished by individual use and consumption. Of course, not all commons are tragic: some common-pool resources invite individual access in efficient, fair, and durable ways. Yet many commonly held resources do lie under systems of governance that are not just tragic but persistently and stubbornly so. Often the tragic aspects of such commons regimes are well known; indeed, for some …

Naming The Tragedy, Eric T. Freyfogle

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Isolated Wetland Commons And The Constitution, Blake Hudson, Mike Hardig

BYU Law Review

Isolated wetlands provide great ecological and economic value to the United States. While some states provide protection for isolated wetlands, a great many do not. These wetlands are also left outside the ambit of federal wetland regulatory protections under the Clean Water Act, with its murky jurisdictional reach. Notwithstanding jurisdictional questions under current federal statutes, the U.S. Supreme Court has gone so far as to call into question the constitutionality of federal isolated wetland regulation. This Article makes a normative argument that, in the absence of state or local programs providing holistic isolated wetland protection, federal action is needed. The …

Local Governments And Global Commons, Jonathan Rosenbloom

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law Of The Sea - Deep Seabed Mining - United States Position In Light Of Recent Agreement And Exchange Of Notes With Five Countries Involved In Preparatory Commission Of United Nations Convention On The Law Of The Sea, Katherine Dixon

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Habitat And Harvest: The Modern Scope Of Tribal Treaty Rights To Hunt And Fish, Whitney Angell Leonard

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Appeal No. 0856: City Of North Royalton, V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Chief's Order 2013-181; Mandatory Pooling (Callas #8HD Well; Cutter Oil Company)

Appeal No. 0867: M&R Investments Ohio Llc, V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Chief's Orders 2014-129, Chief's Orders 2014-130 (Alfman AP #1 Well and Ruth Porter #1 Well)

Appeal No. 0868: M&R Investments Ohio Llc, V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Chief's Orders 2014-129, Chief's Orders 2014-130 (Alfman AP #1 Well and Ruth Porter #1 Well)

Appeal No. 0861: Big Sky Energy, Inc., V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Chief's Orders 2014-43 & 2014-44; (Miller #1 Well; bond forfeiture; Cincinnati Insurance Co.)

Appeal No. 0860: Big Sky Energy, Inc., V. Division Of Oil & Gas Resources Management, Ohio Oil & Gas Commission

Ohio Oil & Gas Commission Decisions

Chief's Orders 2014-43 & 2014-44; (Miller #1 Well; bond forfeiture; Cincinnati Insurance Co.)