Environmental Law Commons^™

California V. U.S. Bureau Of Land Management, Oliver F. Wood

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction against the Bureau of Land Management from implementing the Suspension Rule, which would delay the requirements of the Waste Prevention, Production Subject to Royalties, and Resource Conservation Rule. Additionally, the court denied the BLM and intervening third parties’ motion to transfer venue to the District of Wyoming. The court held the plaintiffs were entitled to a preliminary injunction because the BLM did not provide a reasoned analysis for the Suspension Rule. This failure to provide meaningful notice and comment was an arbitrary and capricious abuse …

"Un-Designating" Marine Sanctuaries?: Assessing President Trump's America-First Offshore Energy Strategy, Kevin O. Leske

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Climate Change Litigation And Narrative: How To Use Litigation To Tell Compelling Climate Stories, Grace Nosek

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Reframing Humans (Homo Sapiens) In International Biodiversity Law To Frame Protections For Climate Refugees, Jullee Kim

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Currently, application of international environmental law assumes that humans are separate from nature. Yet, the terminology commonly adopted for persons displaced as a result of climate change, “climate refugees,” represents the ultimate expression of the nexus where impacts from both natural and human systems coalesce. “Climate” represents the physical conditions appearing as a result of climate change and altering a person’s home to render it no longer habitable. While suitability of the term “refugees” in the climate change context is debated, it represents the political and societal conditions forcing the person to flee from their home, potentially across national borders, …

Requiescat In Pace: The Cemetery Dedication And Its Implications For Land Use In Louisiana And Beyond, Ryan M. Seidemann

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Incentive Compatible Climate Change Mitigation: Moving Beyond The Pledge And Review Model, Gabriel Weil

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Climate change represents a global commons problem, where individuals, businesses, and nation-states all lack sufficient incentives to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to levels consistent with meeting their collectively agreed upon mitigation goals. The current “pledge and review” paradigm for global climate change mitigation, which many see as a major breakthrough, relies primarily on moral pressure, reputational incentives, and global public opinion to foster cooperation on mitigation efforts over and above those driven by maximization of narrow conceptions of national interests. Given the scale of the emissions reductions required to meet stated mitigation goals, the substantial economic costs of deep …

The Environment And Nafta Policy Debate Redux: Separating Rhetoric From Reality, Linda J. Allen

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Hawai'i Wildlife Fund V. County Of Maui, Lowell J. Chandler

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Hawai’i Wildlife Fund v. County of Maui, the Ninth Circuit held that the plain language of the Clean Water Act provides jurisdiction over indirect discharges of pollutants from a point source into groundwater that is shown to be connected to navigable waters. The court found that studies confirmed pollutants entering the Pacific Ocean were fairly traceable to the County of Maui’s sewage disposal wells. In affirming the district court’s ruling, the Ninth Circuit held that Maui County violated the Clean Water Act by discharging pollutants into a navigable water without the required permit. The court also concluded the …

Atlantic Richfield Company V. Montana Second Judicial District Court, Molly Kelly

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Landowners in Opportunity, Montana sought restoration damages from ARCO, Anaconda Copper Mining Company’s successor, to their property from over a century of processing ore at the Anaconda Smelter. ARCO argued that CERCLA preempted and barred any claim for restoration damages. The Montana Supreme Court held: landowners could bring their state common law claims seeking restoration damages; the state district court had subject matter jurisdiction; and landowners’ proposed restoration fund did not challenge EPA’s selected remedy under CERCLA.

An Ecological, Cultural, And Legal Review Of Pacific Lamprey In The Columbia River Basin, Adam Wicks-Arshack, Matthew Dunkle, Sammy Matsaw, Christopher Caudill

Idaho Law Review

Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus) is an anadromous species in an ancient lineage of jawless fishes. The species is native to the North Pacific and its marine-accessible freshwater rivers and streams. Pacific lamprey are understudied relative to other anadromous fishes and has severely declined in abundance throughout the Columbia River Basin. Indigenous people of the Snake and Columbia River Basins have long recognized the ecological role and value of lamprey through their spiritual and cultural practices connected to Pacific lamprey. The combined effects of poor passage at dams, historic and continued habitat degradation, and altered marine host conditions have contributed to …

Structuring Better Caps For Sustainability Incentive Programs, Courtney Moran, Casey Ball

Idaho Law Review

Policymakers who are eager to promote the development and adoption of environmentally sustainable technologies too often ignore certain important regulatory principles when crafting incentive programs. Some approaches to limiting and winding down sustainability incentive programs have proven to be inefficient and unjust. Too often, the winding down process only begins when lawmakers face unpredicted budgetary constraints. This article argues that state and federal lawmakers could better promote economic efficiency and equity in sustainability-oriented policy design by more consistently adhering to the principles of gradualism, adequate notice, and respect for investment-backed expectations. Using examples of deficiencies in certain net metering program …

Transboundary Pollution And Cercla Liability: International Manufacturers' Ability To Exploit Aerial Depositions, Connor M. Callahan

Idaho Law Review

The Trail Smelter has a long and extensive history of pollution issues. The most recent claim against the Trail Smelter is the aerial deposition of hazardous waste theory. The Ninth Circuit has rejected attaching Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) liability to the Trail Smelter under the aerial deposition theory, but this holding cannot be accepted if the goal is to control pollution. Many issues arise with controlling transboundary pollution, including the enforcement of international agreements on the matter. In the absence of establishing an enforceable international treaty between the United States and Canada, CERCLA presents a viable …

An Ecological Theory Of Statutory Interpretation, Nicholas S. Bryner

Idaho Law Review

Canons of construction serve as a set of ground rules that judges rely on in interpreting statutes. Substantive canons of construction, in particular, are principles and presumptions that point judges in a specific policy direction in order to serve underlying public values. Many of these substantive canons share a common justification: judges have developed them to mitigate threats of irreversible harm to vulnerable and underrepresented interests and to incentivize clarity in the legislative process. This Article argues that environmental interests—the interests of present and future generations in maintaining ecological conditions that support life—merit similar protection. Therefore, judges should employ an …

Environmental Issues For The '90s: Golden-Cheeked Warblers And Yellowfin Tuna, Ernest E. Smith

Maine Law Review

Environmental issues have transformed the areas of law that I have taught for the last thirty-one years. A decade ago environmental law went virtually unmentioned in courses in property, domestic oil and gas law, and international transactions. By 1995 environmental concerns had moved from the periphery to center stage in these legal fields. To someone who teaches and writes about these subjects, the clearest manifestation of this development has been that virtually every first-year property casebook, mining or oil and gas law casebook, and international business transactions casebook, written in the last five years now includes segments on environmental law. …

Paris When It Sizzles: What Agenda 21 Can Tell Us About The Likely Success Of The Paris Agreement, Jennifer Devlin Calkins

Washington International Law Journal

The Paris Agreement seeks to address the problem of climate change, a pressingly urgent issue, and one that is extraordinarily difficult to tackle. A primary mitigation mechanism is the requirement that member countries report their nationally determined contributions (“NDCs”) goals and provide metrics for measuring progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is a “bottom-up” mechanism that does not bind parties to particular emissions targets, but acts to shift party behavior by making progress transparent. To predict the potential effectiveness of this mechanism, this Comment investigates the effectiveness of a similar mechanism contained in Agenda 21, a plan of action …

Food Localization: Empowering Community Food Systems Through The Farm Bill, Joshua Ulan Galperin, Brian Fink, Alexandra Schluntz

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Our intent in this Article is not to delineate foods that are local or not local, nor is it to lionize one agricultural production method over another. Rather, we hope to build on the literature that for many decades has documented how local communities have emerged as influential actors on the American food system through establishing control over local supply chains often alongside national and global supply chains. We begin with Part I, which explores how some food-system scholars have conceptualized these democratic changes occurring. We look to Thomas Lyson’s concept of civic agriculture, which attempts to move corporation-oriented communities …

Directors’ Liability And Climate Risk: Canada-Country Paper, Janis P. Sarra, Cynthia Williams

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

The Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI) is examining the legal basis for directors and trustees to take account of physical climate change risk and societal responses to climate change, under prevailing statutory and common (judge-made) laws. These are the first comprehensive legal assessments of the discharge of directors’ duties in the climate context for four Commonwealth common law countries: Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. These have been complemented by conferences in Australia (August 2016), Canada (October 2017), South Africa (January 2018) and the UK (June 2016).

The national legal papers follow a uniform structure and can …

Disclosure Of Information Concerning Climate Change: Liability Risks And Opportunities, Cynthia A. Williams

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

The Commonwealth Climate and Law Initiative (CCLI) has published two legal research papers on Canadian fiduciary duties and disclosure obligations in the climate change context. In Obligations in Business and Investment: Implications of Climate Change, legal analysis by Dr Janis Sarra, Presidential Distinguished Professor and Professor of Law University of British Columbia, shows that directors, officers and pension fund trustees must identify and address climate-related financial risk or they may be personally liable for breach of their fiduciary obligation or duty of care. In Disclosure of Information Concerning Climate Change: Liability Risks and Opportunities, Cynthia A. Williams, Osler …

The Fragile Menagerie: Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, And The Law, James M. Chen

Indiana Law Journal

I. THE HIPPODROME OF THE GODS: RACING AGAINST ECOLOGICAL AND

EVOLUTIONARY APOCALYPSE....................................................................... 304

II. ACROSS THE APOCALYPSE ON HORSEBACK: LEGAL RESPONSES

TO BIODIVERSITY LOSS .................................................................................... 310

A. OVERKILL ........................................................................................... 310

B. ALIEN INVASIVE SPECIES ..................................................................... 316

C. HABITAT DESTRUCTION AND PUBLIC LAND MANAGEMENT .................. 321

1. ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY .............................................................. 321

2. PUBLIC LANDS MANAGEMENT..................................................... 325

III. THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: FROM PRIVATE LANDS TO

GLOBAL COMMONS .......................................................................................... 329

A. ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT MECHANICS .............................................. 330

1. LISTING ENDANGERED AND THREATENED SPECIES....................... 330

2. CRITICAL HABITAT ..................................................................... 333

3. INTERAGENCY CONSULTATION .................................................... 333

B. HABITAT CONSERVATION ON PRIVATE LANDS...................................... 335

C. …

Property Provisions Of The Joint Operating Agreement: An Update For The New 2015 Form Joa, Alex Ritchie, Gary B. Conine

Faculty Scholarship

The joint operating agreement (JOA) in the oil and gas industry helps coordinate joint operation efforts that facilitate exploration and unitization of tracts, and conservation of a depleting resource. Professor Conine’s 1988 article expanded, limited, and defined the property interests of the parties both inside and outside the contract area. This article is an update to those prior works with greater emphasis on the 1989 Form JOA, cases and developments since its publication, and the implications of the revisions to the JOA in the new 2015 Form JOA published by the American Association of Professional Landmen (AAPL).

The purposes of …