Environmental Law Commons^™

Reasonable Inference Of Authority To Control Hazardous Waste Disposal Results In Potential Liability: United States V. Aceto Agricultural Chemicals Corporation, Anita Letter

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Microgrids: Legal And Regulatory Hurdles For A More Resilient Energy Infrastructure, Raquel Parks

Pace Environmental Law Review

Natural disasters and climate change have made it apparent that energy infrastructure needs to be modernized and microgrids are one type of technology that can help the electricity grid become more resilient, reliable, and efficient. Different states have begun developing microgrid pilot projects including California, New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. The City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is the first city to propose implementing “energy districts” of microgrids that will serve as critical infrastructure, in the first phase, and then expand to commercial and community settings. This large project involves many shareholders including public utilities, government agencies, and private entities. Utilizing microgrids ...

The Time Has Come For A Universal Water Tribunal, Tarek Majzoub, Fabienne Quilleré-Majzoub

Pace Environmental Law Review

Since its inception in 1981, the International Water Tribunal has emerged as a non-governmental body with a multidisciplinary composition and a mandate based on conventional and customary international water law, which holds public hearings in order to address water-related complaints. This Article describes the historical background of the proposed Universal Water Tribunal (“UWT”) and significant difficulties on the horizon facing the proposed Tribunal (including political, practical, and legal-technical considerations). It then summarizes the key factors of such Tribunal and, finally, touches upon the proposed model based on an expanded concept of jurisdiction. The main underlying thesis is that, whereas the ...

Law, Cultural Heritage, And Climate Change In The United States, Casey J. Snyder

Pace Environmental Law Review

Climate change is a reality. What happens climatically over the upcoming centuries is partially dependent on the comprehensiveness of a global response to curb emissions of greenhouse gases. However, within a century, forecasts predict a one-meter sea level rise that could have grave implications to our society: the loss of an incalculable extent of cultural heritage. This Article examines the threat climate change poses to physical cultural heritage, like archaeological sites and historic structures, and the current framework of law, regulation, and policy in the United States meant to protect these resources. This Article blends research and data from climate ...

State Public Nuisance Claims And Climate Change Adaptation, Albert C. Lin, Michael Burger

Pace Environmental Law Review

This Article explores the potential for state public nuisance claims to facilitate adaptation, resource protection, and other climate change responses by coastal communities in California. The California public nuisance actions represent just the latest chapter in efforts to spur responses to climate change and attribute responsibility for climate change through the common law. Part II of this Article describes the California public nuisance lawsuits and situates them in the context of common law actions directed against climate change. Part III considers the preliminary defenses that defendants have raised and could raise in the California public nuisance lawsuits, including the existence ...

Cleaning Up Our Toxic Coasts: A Precautionary And Human Health-Based Approach To Coastal Adaptation, Robin Kundis Craig

Pace Environmental Law Review

Hurricanes in the United States in 2005, 2012, and 2017 have all revealed an insidious problem for coastal climate change adaptation: toxic contamination in the coastal zone. As sea levels rise and violent coastal storms become increasingly frequent, this legacy of toxic pollution threatens immediate emergency response, longer term human health, and coastal ecosystems’ capacity to adapt to changing coastal conditions.

Focusing on Hurricane Harvey’s 2017 devastation of Houston, Texas, as its primary example, this Article first discusses the toxic legacy still present in many coastal environments. It then examines the existing laws available to clean up the coastal ...

Half A Century Of Supreme Court Clean Air Act Interpretation: Purposivism, Textualism, Dynamism, And Activism, David M. Driesen, Thomas M. Keck, Brandon T. Metroka

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article addresses the history of the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act, which now goes back almost half a century. Many scholars have argued that the Court has shifted from an approach to statutory interpretation that relied heavily on purposivism—the custom of giving statutory goals weight in interpreting statutes—toward one that relies more heavily on textualism during this period. At the same time, proponents of dynamic statutory interpretation have argued that courts, in many cases, do not so much excavate a statute’s meaning as adapt a statute to contemporary circumstances.

Rehabilitating The Nuisance Injunction To Protect The Environment, Doug Rendleman

Washington and Lee Law Review

The Trump Administration has reversed the federal government’s role of protecting the environment. The reversal focuses attention on states’ environmental capacity. This Article advocates more vigorous state environmental tort remedies for nuisance and trespass. An injunction is the superior remedy in most successful environmental litigation because it orders correction and improvement. Two anachronistic barriers to an environmental injunction are the New York Court of Appeals’ decision, Boomer v. Atlantic Cement, and Calabresi and Melamed’s early and iconic law-and-economics article, One View of the Cathedral. This Article examines and criticizes both because, by subordinating the injunction to money damages ...

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Manure Management For Climate Change Mitigation: Regulating Cafo Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under The Clean Air Act, Katrina A. Tomas

University of Miami Law Review

Climate change is the defining challenge of our time, which if unbridled, will imperil our communities and the viability of future generations. Efforts to reduce global temperature rise require more than merely reforming carbon dioxide emissions from the energy and transportation sectors. Notably, climate solutions cannot be reached without simultaneously addressing the more potent methane and nitrous oxide gases. In the United States, intensive factory farms, legally known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (“CAFOs”), are responsible for large emissions of these two greenhouse gases due to manure mismanagement. While there are no federal environmental regulations in place for mitigating CAFOs ...

A Dirty Waste—How Renewable Energy Policies Have Financed The Unsustainable Waste-To-Energy Industry, Hale Mcanulty

Boston College Law Review

The end of the 20th Century saw a major shift in the United States’ approach to energy policy. After decades focused on fossil fuel production, the country began to realize that renewable sources of energy were the way of the future. Motivated by environmental concerns and a realization that oil is a finite resource, the federal government and local governments began adopting economic policies that rewarded investment in and production of renewable, clean technology. Governments relied on both mandates and tax incentives to encourage the use of energy from sources like solar and wind power. Waste-to-Energy (“WTE”) power is another ...

Time To Act: Response To Questions Posed By The Expert Panel On Sustainable Finance On Fiduciary Obligation And Effective Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, Janis P. Sarra, Cynthia Williams

Faculty Publications

While there are numerous strategies to be deployed to move Canada to a financially sustainable future, this study addresses two critically important issues: fiduciary obligation of corporate- and pension-fiduciaries, and national action on environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) financial disclosure, including climate-related financial risk disclosure. The Canadian economy is facing significant challenges and disruptions in the transition to a lower carbon world. Absent clear and innovative steps to ensure our corporations and financial institutions act to address carbon emissions and other environmental, social and governance risks and opportunities, we will be seriously prejudiced in a world that is rapidly moving ...

Advancing The Aquaculture Industry Through The Federal Crop Insurance Program, Matthew H. Bowen

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

In recent times, the aquaculture industry has experienced dramatic growth. The growth of the industry is a direct result of an increase in demand for seafood, and a decrease in supply from wild fisheries. The industry, however, is also experiencing growing pains. Aquaculture species, compared to their wild counterparts, are at a higher risk of catastrophic loss from a variety of different perils. These perils make investment in the aquaculture industry significantly risky. The federal crop insurance program could be a tool that mitigates these risks, but the program was designed around terrestrial agriculture, and while aquaculture may be covered ...

Marine Renewable Energy Law And Policy In The Bay Of Fundy: The Impact Of Ambiguous Domestic Boundaries In Canada On Nova Scotia's Regulatory Framework, Esteban Salcedo

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Using a legal history methodology, this paper examines existing marine renewable energy law and policy in Nova Scotia with a focus on its application in the Bay of Fundy. This paper critically assesses the current approach to coastal management in light of recent recommendations summarized in the Fournier report. This paper argues that, despite clear calls to develop integrated ocean management and marine spatial planning in policies and regulations, Canada and Nova Scotia have failed to do so because of unclear federal-provincial boundaries. Ambiguous domestic borders in the Bay of Fundy have been at the source of an overly cautious ...

Whose Land Is It Anyway? Navigating Ghana's Complex Land System, Aimee Kline, Élan Moore, Elizabeth Ramey, Kevin Hernandez, Lauren Ehrhardt, Megan Reed, Morgan Parker, Samantha Henson, Taylor Winn, Taylor Wood

Texas A&M Law Review

This Article dives into Ghana’s complex land-registration system, which is influenced by both statutory and customary law. Section II discusses Ghana’s statutory land laws. Section III provides a brief overview of Ghana’s customary land laws. Section IV discusses several obstacles within Ghana’s land-administration system.

Wildearth Guardians V. United States Bureau Of Land Management, Seth Sivinski

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In WildEarth Guardians v. U.S. BLM, the District Court of Colorado showed that economic and developmental uncertainty is an area where agencies are given broad discretion in deciding whether an impact is reasonably foreseeable and requires a further conformity analysis under the Clean Air Act. This case exemplifies the tactical limitation of using climate change and the science around it to force greater analysis of projects undertaken by federal agencies. However, the court presented a potential roadmap for successful future challenges.

Solenex Llc V. Jewell, F. Aaron Rains

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Solenex LLC v. Jewell, the Secretary of the Interior cancelled a highly contentious oil and gas lease in Montana’s Badger-Two Medicine area, an environmentally sensitive and culturally significant area to the Blackfeet Tribe, nearly thirty years after the lease had been issued. Solenex, a Louisiana based oil and gas company and holder of the lease, brought this action to enjoin the cancellation. The District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with Solenex and found that the Secretary’s decision took an unreasonable amount of time and violated good-faith contractual obligations. On these grounds, the court found the ...

Sierra Club V. Virginia Electric & Power Company, Thomas C. Mooney-Myers

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The Sierra Club alleged Dominion violated the Clean Water Act by allowing arsenic to leak from coal ash storage pits into state waters. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found for the polluter, using a narrow definition of point source. Additionally, the Fourth Circuit deferred to agency interpretation of the polluter’s permit to find no violation occurred.

Developing Policy From The Ground Up: Examining Entitlement In The Bay Area To Inform California’S Housing Policy Debates, Moira O’Neill, Giulia Gualco-Nelson, Eric Biber

Hastings Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Cultural Property, Human Rights, And Sustainable Development: The Case Of The Ancient City Of Durrës, Helga Turku

Hastings Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.