Environmental Law Commons^™

Mcgirt V. Oklahoma, Allison Barnwell

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The United States Supreme Court ruled that large areas of Oklahoma, including much of the City of Tulsa, are reservation land. The case arose from an Oklahoma state court’s conviction of Jimcy McGirt on several criminal offenses. Mr. McGirt argued the State of Oklahoma lacked jurisdiction to prosecute because he was an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and committed his crimes on the Creek Reservation. Under the Major Crimes Act, only the federal government has the power to try tribal members for crimes committed on reservation lands. In a five to four decision, the Court held that …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

‘Troubling Incrementalism’: Is The Canadian Pension Plan Fund Doing Enough To Advance The Transition To A Low-Carbon Economy?, Cynthia Williams

Canada Climate Law Initiative

The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) is one of the world’s largest public pension funds, with $409.5 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2020. The mandate of the CPP Investment Board (CPPIB) is to manage the funds of the CPP in the best interests of Canadian Pension Plan contributors and beneficiaries, and to maximize investment returns without undue risk of loss. As CPP Investments CEO and President Mark Machin has recently observed, “our investment mandate and professional governance insulate our decision-making from short term distortions and gives us license to help shape the long-term future.” (In 2020, CPPIB …

The Rise And Fall Of Clean Air Act Climate Policy, Nathan Richardson

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The Clean Air Act has proven to be one of the most successful and durable statutes in American law. After the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, there was great hope that the Act could be brought to bear on climate change, the most pressing current environmental challenge of our time. Massachusetts was fêted as the most important environmental case ever decided, and, upon it, the Environmental Protection Agency under President Obama built a sweeping program of greenhouse gas regulations, aimed first at emissions from road vehicles, and later at fossil fuel power plants. It was the most …

What A Difference A State Makes: California’S Authority To Regulate Motor Vehicle Emissions Under The Clean Air Act And The Future Of State Autonomy, Chiara Pappalardo

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Air pollutants from motor vehicles constitute one of the leading sources of local and global air degradation with serious consequences for human health and the overall stability of Earth’s climate. Under the Clean Air Act (“CAA”), for over fifty years, the state of California has served as a national “laboratory” for the testing of technological solutions and regulatory approaches to improve air quality. On September 19, 2019, the Trump Administration revoked California’s authority to set more stringent pollution emission standards. The revocation of California’s authority frustrates ambitious initiatives undertaken in California and in other states to reduce local air pollution …

Litigating For The Homeland: An Indian Treaty Framework To Climate Litigation In The Wake Of Juliana, Evan Neustater

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Climate change is an increasingly pressing issue on the world stage. The federal government, however, has largely declined to address any problems stemming from the effects of climate change, and litigation attempting to force the federal government to take action, as highlighted by Juliana v. United States, has largely failed. This Note presents the case for a class of plaintiffs more likely to succeed than youth plaintiffs in Juliana—federally recognized Indian tribes. Treaties between the United States and Indian nations are independent substantive sources of law that create enforceable obligations on the federal government. The United States maintains a …

Look To Windward: The Michigan Environmental Protection Act And The Case For Atmospheric Trust Litigation In The Mitten State, Jonathan M. Coumes

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Failure to address climate change or even slow the growth of carbon emissions has led to innovation in the methods activists are using to push decisionmakers away from disaster. In the United States, climate activists frustrated by decades of legislative and executive inaction have turned to the courts to force the hand of the state. In their most recent iteration, climate cases have focused on the public trust doctrine, the notion that governments hold their jurisdictions’ natural resources in trust for the public. Plaintiffs have argued that the atmosphere is part of the public trust and that governments have a …

Implementing Nepa In The Age Of Climate Change, Jayni Foley Hein, Natalie Jacewicz

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The national government has a crucial role to play in combating climate change, yet federal projects continue to constitute a major source of United States greenhouse gas emissions. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, agencies must consider the environmental impacts of major federal actions before they can move forward. But agencies frequently downplay or ignore the climate change impacts of their projects in NEPA analyses, citing a slew of technical difficulties and uncertainties. This Article analyzes a suite of the most common analytical failures on the part of agencies with respect to climate change: failure to account for a project’s …

Reform Needs To Happen Pfast: The Importance Of Federal Per- And Polyfluoroalkyl Substance Regulation, Erin E. O'Brien

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transparency In The Extractive Industries: Getting Serious About Politics To Get Serious About Impact, Leila Kazemi, Michael Jarvis

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

PLUS POLITICS is a multi-part series of briefs from the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment that aims to encourage practitioners to apply a more systematic political lens to their work on governance in the extractive industries. Each brief will deal with a key governance issue and will provide a brief analysis of its political challenges and practical recommendations to address them.

Equipping The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation For The Low-Carbon Transition: How Are Other National Oil Companies Adapting?, Perrine Toledano, Martin Dietrich Brauch, Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye, Francisco Javier Pardinas Favela

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) persistent governance challenges have both hampered Nigeria’s oil sector development and deprived the country of public resources. The oil, climate, and COVID-19 crises and the ramp-up of the low-carbon transition exacerbate this reality, with the national oil company (NOC) delivering sub-optimal returns to its stakeholders.

Other NOCs have taken meaningful steps to become players in the low-carbon energy transition domestically or in­ternationally – for example, Sau­di Arabia’s Saudi Aramco, Norway’s Equinor, Brazil’s Petrobras, Malaysia’s Petronas, and Algeria’s Sonatrach. These NOCs can serve as sources of inspiration for NNPC. These five NOCs have also undergone …

Mining And The Sdgs: A 2020 Status Update, Responsible Mining Foundation, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In September 2015, the UN member states agreed on a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which represent the global agenda for equitable, socially inclusive, and environmentally sustainable economic development until 2030. Mining companies have the potential to become leading partners in achieving the SDGs. Through their direct operations, mining companies can generate profits, employment, and economic growth in low-income countries. And through partnerships with government and civil society, mining companies can ensure that benefits of mining extend beyond the life of the mine itself, so that the mining industry has a positive impact on the natural environment, climate …

Getting The Most Out Of Extractive Industries Transparency: How A More Explicit Treatment Of Political Considerations Could Strengthen The Impact Of Transparency Efforts, Columbia Center On Sustainable Investment

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

Work on transparency in the extractive industries (EI) has achieved important successes over the last two decades. For example, significant commitments to disclosure have been secured, the volume of publicly available information about critical activities has increased considerably, and norms around certain information being in the public domain have been established. There is also a growing library of use cases for this information. Nonetheless, important work remains to be done to translate these efforts into impact.

Political context is crucial to determining the fate of transparency efforts. Therefore, grappling with political context more effectively will also be key to unlocking …

Natural Resources And Natural Law Part Ii: The Public Trust Doctrine, Robert W. Adler

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Natural Resources and Natural Law Part I: Prior Appropriation analyzed claims by some western ranchers, grounded in natural law, that they have property rights in grazing resources on federal public lands through prior appropriation. Those individuals advocated their position in part through civil disobedience and armed standoffs with federal officials. They also asserted that their duty to obey theistic natural law overrode any duty to obey the Nation’s positive law. Similar claims that individual religious beliefs override positive law have been made recently regarding a range of other controversial issues, such as same-sex marriage, public insurance for birth control, and …

Transportation In A Changing Climate: Innovating To Create Resilient, Low-Carbon Systems, Vicki Arroyo, Annie Bennett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The climate is changing rapidly, bringing new temperature highs and weather extremes and affecting every individual, community, and sector of society—including transportation. Although, at times, climate change may feel like an insurmountable challenge, humanity is resilient and innovative. Transportation ultimately is about people: connecting people to places, to goods and services, and to each other. Because of its central role in the functioning of society, the transportation system—including its infrastructure, networks, and workforce—is an essential part of addressing and responding to climate change.

This article discusses challenges and opportunities for building resilient and low-carbon transportation solutions in the United States.

Improving Climate Change Mitigation Analysis: A Framework For Examining Feasibility, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Kristian S. Nielsen, Et. Al.

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Limiting global warming to 2`C or less compared with pre-industrial temperatures will require unprecedented rates of decarbonization globally. The scale and scope of transformational change required across sectors and actors in society raises critical questions of feasibility. Much of the literature on mitigation pathways addresses technological and economic aspects of feasibility, but overlooks the behavioral, cultural, and social factors that affect theoretical and practical mitigation pathways. We present a tripartite framework that ‘‘unpacks’’ the concept of mitigation pathways by distinguishing three factors that together determine actual mitigation: technical potential, initiative feasibility, and behavioral plasticity. The framework aims to integrate and …

Preemptive Attack: California's Sb 100, The Fpa, And Combatting Climate Change, Charles Kreuzberger

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

The United States contributes fifteen percent of the world’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions while making up only four percent of the world’s population. In recent years, the United States has made progress towards reducing the amount of GHGs we put into the atmosphere. However, there is the fear that the current administration is attempting to curtail regulations.

In 1935, the federal government passed the Federal Power Act creating two distinct jurisdictions over the energy market. This was in response to a gap in jurisdictional coverage between the states and federal government known as the Attleboro Gap. Interstate wholesale sales were …

V.11, 2020 Masthead

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

No abstract provided.

Heated Conflict: Investor-Owned Utility Liability For California Wildfires Under The Doctrine Of Inverse Condemnation, Samir A. Hafez, Jr.

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

This Article addresses California Investor-Owned Utilities’ liability for wildfire damage due to equipment failure and mismanagement. Part II highlights the doctrine of inverse condemnation and how California Courts apply the doctrine to cases involving investor-owned utilities. Part III provides an overview of the statutory and regulatory provisions that govern how a utility may recover costs through customer rates. Part IV addresses the apparent conflict between these frameworks and how utilities and regulators have sought to reconcile this conflict. Part V concludes with an overview and discussion of SB 901 which seeks to maintain utility financial stability while holding the entities …

Irena At 10: Post Paris Transitions And Energy Diplomacy Beyond Opec, The Energy Charter Treaty, And The Coronavirus, Nadia B. Ahmad

San Diego Journal of Climate & Energy Law

In understanding the post Paris energy transitions, this Article analyzes the intergovernmental organization, IRENA, as a means of working toward sustainable energy. Clean energy is an alternative to carbon emissions from fossil fuel extraction and generation. This Article looks at the formation and rise of IRENA and how the silencing of the climate controversy may continue to improve its efficacy. In other words, IRENA has steered away from the controversy of climate change i.e. climate denial. This Article will proceed in five parts. Part I explores the formation of IRENA and the positive outcomes of renewable energy deployment. Part II …