Environmental Law Commons^™

California V. United States Bureau Of Land Management, Molly M. Kelly

Public Land & Resources Law Review

After President Trump’s Executive Order No. 13783 encouraging relaxing regulatory burdens on energy production, the Bureau of Land Management reevaluated its 2016 “Waste Prevention Rule” which addressed waste of natural gas from venting, flaring, or other leaks resulting from oil and natural gas production activities. The BLM sought to postpone the Rule’s compliance date to give the agency time to promulgate a new rule—effectively overruling the 2016 Rule. Plaintiffs challenged the agency’s compliance under the Administrative Procedures Act, and the court found the BLM did not properly follow APA requirements.

Innovators Beat The Climate Change Heat With Humanitarian Licensing And Patent Pools, Andrea Nocito

Chicago-Kent Journal of Intellectual Property

No abstract provided.

Albuquerque Journal Interviews Reed Benson, Supreme Court Hears Nm-Texas Water Dispute, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Article by Michael Coleman

Quote:

Reed Benson, a University of New Mexico professor specializing in water law, said the Supreme Court’s task in deciding the U.S. government’s role is “very legalistic – very much a technical reading of what is and is not in the compact.”

“I actually have thought that New Mexico’s chances in front of the nine justices may be a little bit better than some people thought,” Benson said. “Some of those justices may be persuaded by the plain text argument – that New Mexico’s obligations are measured at Elephant Butte and once New Mexico delivers to …

Hb 1 - Space Flight, Malissa Caroline Barger, Ethan L. Smith

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act limits the civil and criminal liability of a space flight entity for injuries sustained by space flight participants arising from ordinary negligence. The Act defines new terms and provides a statutory waiver form that participants with informed consent must sign. The Act mandates space flight participants sign the waiver before participating in any space flight activity. The Act does not limit the liability of space flight entities for gross negligence or intentional acts, nor does it prevent suits from anyone other than the space flight participant.

Bitterrooters For Planning, Inc. V. Montana Department Of Environmental Quality, Rebecca A. Newsom

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Bitterrooters for Planning, Inc. v. Montana Department of Environmental Quality, the Montana Supreme Court found that the Montana Department of Environmental Quality did not violate the Montana Environmental Policy Act when the department issued a wastewater discharge permit for a large retail merchandise store. This decision enforced a narrow interpretation of agency requirements under the Montana Department of Environmental Quality Act, focusing only on direct effects with a close causal connection to the agency action.

Can Non-State Regulatory Authority Improve Domestic Forest Sustainability? Assessing Interactive Pathways Of Influence In Cameroon, Sophia Carodenuto, Benjamin Cashore

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Transnational business governance can involve the use of non-state mechanisms to target the behavior of firms within domestic settings. Drawing on the implementation pillar of the TGBI framework, this chapter focuses attention on the interaction between state and non-state regulatory authority from two leading cases of TBG in tropical forest management: climate mitigation through avoided deforestation (REDD+) and timber legality verification through international trade agreements (FLEGT/VPA). A dominant justification among global elites for both interventions is that empowering marginalized domestic groups through technology transfer and capacity building will lead to more durable policy solutions on the ground. Drawing on empirical …

Local Practices, Transnational Solutions? The Role Of Host Cities In The Cyclic Process Of Environmental Regulation Of Sports Mega-Events, Rebecca Schmidt

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

The chapter uses a case study of the environmental protection and sustainability framework for Olympic Games to examine the interactive role of local government actors as innovators in the creation of transnational regulation. The host city level has been at the forefront of innovating this framework. Developments initiated at this level were later taken up by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and became mandatory for future host cities, in a dynamic the chapter terms ‘cyclical regulation’. The chapter makes two main claims about this process: First, in certain conditions, host cities and their local organizers can ratchet up social and …

Micro-Level Interactions In The Compliance Processes Of Transnational Private Governance, Graeme Auld, Stefan Renckens

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Transnational private governance has emerged in multiple issue areas to promote responsible business practices. While most studies assess its rule-setting function, much less research has been done on the compliance-assessment function. This chapter examines the various actors that are involved in this process—auditors, individual assessors and, to a lesser extent, accreditors—and their respective interactions. Using the Marine Stewardship Council as an empirical case, the chapter examines the level of competition among accredited auditors and assessors, and the degree of organizational interdependence. It argues that while the number of accredited auditors has increased over time, the degree of competition is rather …

Transnational Delegation, Accountability And The Administrative Governance Of Biofuel Standards, Phillip Paiement

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

The European Union’s 2009 Renewable Energy Directive delegated to privately run ‘voluntary schemes’ the task of monitoring biomass production sites and ensuring their compliance with the Directive’s sustainability requirements. This chapter assesses the consequences of the Commission’s delegation for the administrative governance architectures of non-state sustainable biofuel standards operating outside the EU, focusing in particular on the effects this governance interaction has on the involvement of vulnerable stakeholders in the governance of sustainable biofuels. Utilizing the Transnational Business Governance Interactions framework complemented by the theory of governance assemblages, this research provides a meso-level analysis of the character and effects of …

Structured Settlement Sales And Lead-Poisoned Sellers: Just Say No, Karen Czapanskiy

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Disclaiming Property, Michael Pappas

Faculty Scholarship

Can Congress pick and choose when it must follow the Constitution? One would expect not, and yet the Supreme Court has allowed it to do so. In multiple statutory programs, Congress has disclaimed constitutional property protections for valuable interests that otherwise serve as property. The result is billions of dollars’ worth of “disclaimed property” that can be bought, sold, mortgaged, or leased, but that can also be revoked at any moment without due process or just compensation.

Disclaimed property already represents a great source of value, and property disclaimers are at the core of major recent policies ranging from natural …

Polar Opposites: Assessing The State Of Enviromental Law In The World's Polar Regions, Mark P. Nevitt, Robert Percival

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Trademarks And Private Environmental Governance, David E. Adelman, Graeme W. Austin

Notre Dame Law Review

This Article examines the relationship between private environmental governance and trademark law. Over the past two decades, green trademarks and other forms of private governance have flourished in tandem with the retreat from national and international public law modalities of environmental regulation. The rising political opposition to environmental regulation partly accounts for this change. Also relevant is the rise of globalization, which due to jurisdictional and trade constraints has diminished the effective regulatory control countries have over products sold in their markets.

Private environmental governance is premised on consumers “voting with their wallets” by selecting products that reflect not just …

The Proposed New Federal Impact Assessment Act (Iaa) Under Bill C-69: Assessment & Reform Proposals, Meinhard Doelle

Research Papers, Working Papers, Conference Papers

This working paper starts with an overview of the proposed Canadian Impact Assessment Act (CIAA), introduced in Parliament in February 2018 as part of Bill C-69. The Bill was introduced following a multi-year consultation effort by the federal government on how to improve the federal assessment and decision-making process in Canada to regain public trust in the process and federal project decisions. Following a general overview of the key changes, the paper offers a detailed assessment of three key elements of the proposed reforms, the Review Panel process, public participation, follow-up, and the role of strategic and regional assessments under …

The Brand-X Effect: Declining Chevron Deference In The 21st Century, Stephen Johnson

Articles

Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. is the most frequently cited Supreme Court administrative law decision and has generated substantial scholarship over the past thirty-four ears. Almost three decades ago, Robert Glicksman and Christopher Schroeder examined the nature of judicial review of the actions of the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") by the federal courts during the agency's first twenty years of existence, focusing, in part, on the changing nature of that review in light of the Chevron decision. Glicksman and Schroeder concluded that the courts aggressively reviewed EPA's actions during the agency's early years, interpreting the …

Regulation Of Radioactive Fracking Waste, Elizabeth Ann Glass Geltman, Nichole Leclair

Publications and Research

Natural gas extracted form shale reached record production totals in 2015 in the United States and the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts natural gas production will continue to increase. Wastes from shale gas extraction can contain the radioactive isotopes radium-226 (Ra-226) and radium-228 (Ra-228), which decay further into radon (Rn). Exposure to radon, a form of naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM), is the leading cause of lung cancer in the United States, after smoking. This article explores how states handle the disposal of technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) and/or NORM waste from oil and gas operations to …

Empowering Consumers And Investors To Choose A Sustainable Future, Olivier Jamin

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

Compelled commercial disclosures have been an increasingly hot topic over the last few years, as illustrated by the GMO labeling controversy, finally enacted into law in August 2016. Typically, judicial challenges to such disclosure represent a clash between two distinct interests: the consumers’ “right to know” against companies’ freedom of speech under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Establishing a clear test to analyze the constitutionality of compelled commercial disclosures has proven difficult because of the Supreme Court’s confusing jurisprudence with regard to this issue.

This article aims at promoting two ideas. First, it seeks to refine the …

The Semicommons And Wisconsin Water Quality, David A. Strifling

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

From the Great Lakes to pristine northern streams, Wisconsin boasts a plentiful and valuable array of water resources. Yet water stress analyses show that this natural capital is deeply threatened in a variety of ways. The pressure results primarily from human activity, ranging from general overuse to colonization by anthropogenically introduced non-native species. Some of the greatest water quality problems, however, are caused by land use practices that lead to polluted runoff from farm fields and urban settings. The onset of climate change has the potential to further exacerbate all of this. These issues, coupled with the failure of existing …

Unleashing The Power Of The States: Broadening The Preemption Waiver So States Are Empowered To Combat Vehicle Emissions, Eric M. Feldpausch

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

A Fracking Mess: Just Compensation For Regulatory Takings Of Oil And Gas Property Rights, Kevin J. Lynch

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

As the Trump administration tries to roll back federal regulations on the oil and gas industry, constituents depend on state and local governments for protection from the worst impacts of industrial-scale fracking. Yet as the debate about proper regulation of the oil and gas industry continues, the specter of potential takings liability looms over the public discourse. Such liability is premised on the idea that government regulation of fracking might constitute a taking of private property that requires payment of just compensation — that is, the amount of money that should be paid to owners if indeed there is a …