Environmental Law Commons^™

Emerging Shadows In National Solar Policy? Nevada's Net Metering Transition In Context, Lincoln L. Davies, Sanya Carley

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Nevada recently overhauled its net energy metering policy, and instituted a new net billing program in its place. Nevada’s decision received significant attention across the nation, and raised the question whether other states will follow suit. This article reviews the process and decisions in Nevada that led to these policy changes, and puts Nevada’s experience in the context of national solar industry and net metering policy trends. Observing that pressure to change net metering policies is likely to increase across the U.S., the article concludes with insights that other states can glean from Nevada’s experience.

Promised Lands: The Anabaptist Immigration To Paraguay And Bolivia And Its Unintended Consequences For The Environment, Sarah M. Hanners

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

There is a human dimension to the slaughter of the Amazon that does not always make its way into the conventional deforestation narrative. This note examines the destruction of the Amazon through the very human experience of the Anabaptists: religious outliers who fled Europe for the Americas, seeking freedom from persecution and a promise of greener pastures. They have since indelibly transformed the landscape of the Amazon in Bolivia and Paraguay, and their efforts have caught the attention of huge agricultural conglomerates, whose bottom lines have little respect for forest life. The environmental regulations of these countries fall short of …

Mineral Estate Conservation Easements: A New Policy Instrument To Address Hydraulic Fracturing And Resource Extraction, Robert B. Jackson, Jessica Owley, James Salzman

Journal Articles

In a few short years, hydraulic fracturing has transformed the oil and natural gas industries and changed the landscape of energy policy, while generating major conflicts over local land use decisions. Individuals and communities have turned to the law to restrict oil and natural gas production with mixed success. While little explored, there is also potential for private efforts to restrict fracking.

We propose a novel tool, the Mineral Estate Conservation Easement (MECE), to provide landowners with the ability to restrict hydraulic fracturing and other oil and gas subsurface activities in areas of particular social or ecological vulnerability. The article …

Wyoming V. United States Department Of The Interior, Arie R. Mielkus

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Responding to an overpopulation of wild horses on the BLM lands in the state, Wyoming sued the Secretary of the Interior and the BLM for failure to manage the excess numbers. Wyoming’s claim, based on the Wild Horses and Burros Act and Administrative Procedure Act, jumped the gun by bringing it before the BLM made its determination that removal was necessary to manage the overpopulation.

V.1 No.3

Conservation Law Center Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Oecd Guiding Principles On Transfrontier Pollution, Robert E. Stein

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Conference Of Soviet And American Jurists On The Law Of The Sea And The Protection Of The Marine Environment, Milton Katz, Richard R. Baxter, O. V. Bogdanov, William E. Butler, Thomas M. Franck, Richard Frank, P. P. Gureev, John L. Hargrove, L. A. Ivanaschenko, Y. Kasmin, V. A. Kiselev, B. M. Klimenko, H. G. Knight, O. S. Kolbasov, A. L. Kolodkin, V. M. Koretsky, F. N. Kovalev, V. N. Kudrjavtsev, B. A. Kuvshinnikov, M. I. Lazarev, A. L. Makovsky, Charles W. Maynes, P. A. Moiseev, John N. Moore, A. P. Movchan, T. M. Starzhina, Robert E. Stein, Grigory I. Tunkin, E. T. Usenko, A. F. Vysotsky, A. K. Zhudro

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

Included in the papers for the Conference of Soviet and American Jurists on the Law of the Sea and the Protection of the Marine Environment:

Introduction by Milton Katz and Richard R. Baxter, p. 1

Freedom of Scientific Research in the World Ocean by A.F. Vysotsky, p. 7

The International Law of Scientific Research in the Oceans by Richard R. Baxter, p. 27

Responsibility and Liability for Harm to the Marine Environment by Robert E. Stein, p. 41

Liability for Marine Environment Pollution Damage in Contemporary International Sea Law by A. L. Makovsky, p. 59

Protection of the Marine Environment …

Scientists & Librarians Turn To “End Of Presidential Term” Web Archive To Safeguard Climate Change Data, Alyssa S. Rosen

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In anticipation of president-elect Donald Trump’s taking office, scientists have been working round the clock to safeguard federal government climate change data. Many academics and librarians share the concern that federal .gov climate data and information, for example from the EPA and NOAA websites, will be lost or become unavailable with the transition to the new administration. Fact is, a large percentage of information on federal government servers, including digital federal records, reports, and research, is not protected by any law or agency mandate, and can vanish within days of the arrival of a new president.

The Ambiguity Of Redesignation: What Is 'Applicable' Under The Clean Air Act?, Andrew Miller

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

V.1 No.2

Conservation Law Center Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Helping Hand Tools V. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Emily A. Slike

Public Land & Resources Law Review

When the EPA decided to treat biomass fuel sources differently within the BACT analysis, the Ninth Circuit continued Chevron’s legacy and granted the agency deference. The Bioenergy BACT may develop as science continues to evolve, but because the EPA took a “hard look” during a thorough permit review, the court held that agency issuance of new BACT guidelines was reasonable.

Urban Development Legislation For Cities, By Cities, Kellen Zale

Maine Law Review

Thank you so much for inviting me to speak as part of this symposium. It is a great honor to be here in the company of such distinguished speakers to learn about the impressive legacy of Senator Muskie. My presentation today connects the legacy of Senator Muskie, and specifically, his work on urban development and Model Cities, to contemporary urban development legislation. Thus, this presentation picks up where my co-panelist, Don Nicoll, left off, by considering how the Model Cities legacy is both a foundation of and a counterpoint to contemporary urban development policies and programs. While urban development legislation …

Model Cities, Senator Muskie And Creative Federalism, Donald E. Nicoll

Maine Law Review

The odd couple partnership of Senator Edmund S. Muskie and President Lyndon B. Johnson in the passage of the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan Development Act of 1966 is a story with several subplots and insights into their different approaches to the art of democratic governance. For Senator Muskie, the president’s proposal was based on valid concepts, but he doubted the legislation’s viability in the Senate and he had serious reservations about its timeliness and capacity to address the problems the legislation was supposed to solve. The President was determined that the ambitious initiative, developed by a secret task force he …

Edmund Muskie's Creative Federalism And Urban Development Today, Peter Pitegoff

Maine Law Review

How fitting it is to view urban development policy today with reference to Edmund Muskie and his role as U.S. Senator from Maine in the 1966 enactment of the Model Cities Program. The University of Maine School of Law is honored that the Maine Law Review 2014 symposium is part of this centennial celebration of Ed Muskie’s life and work. His wide-ranging career brought Muskie from Maine—where he served as state legislator and Governor—to national and global affairs as Senator, Secretary of State, and Vice Presidential nominee, and in other prominent leadership roles. We are fortunate to welcome Don Nicoll …

Senator Edmund Muskie's Enduring Legacy In The Courts, Richard J. Lazarus

Maine Law Review

More than any other legislator in the nation’s history, Senator Ed Muskie is environmental law’s champion. Over forty years ago, Muskie helped secure passage of an extraordinary series of ambitious and demanding air and water pollution control laws that sought no less than to redefine the relationship of humankind here in the United States to our natural environment. The upshot has been the nation’s enjoyment, for more than four decades, of enormous economic growth without the kind of accompanying environmental destruction witnessed during the same time period in the nations lacking such controls. While President Richard Nixon is properly credited …

Edmund S. Muskie: A Man With A Vision, Leon G. Billings

Maine Law Review

At Senator Muskie’s funeral I noted that I had been on his staff for fifteen years, but had worked for him for thirty. In a way I am still working for him, or at lease, because of him. This fall my colleague and minority counsel, Tom Jorling, and I are team-teaching a course entitled “Origins of Environmental Law” at Columbia University. Preparing for that course, reading old memos to the Senator, re-reading his floor statements, interrogatories, and speeches and going back to the transcripts of Subcommittee discussion has been revealing, inspiring, and refreshing. I am not sure that, at the …

Edmund S. Muskie: The Environmental Leader And Champion, Joel K. Goldstein

Maine Law Review

Leon Billings has referred to Edmund S. Muskie as America’s “most important environmental leader”1 and Richard Lazarus has called him “environmental law’s champion.”2 Indeed he was. Their essay in this volume make evident Muskie’s enormous and enduring legacy in shaping the environmental laws that have protected health and life for more than forty years and the remarkable extent to which executive agencies and courts continue to look and rely upon the work he did roughly four decades ago. To the extent there are inadequacies in the regulatory regime, Muskie cannot fairly be blamed. He left Congress more than thirty-five years …

Nepa, Flpma, And Impact Reduction: An Empirical Assessment Of Blm Resource Management Planning In The Mountain West, John C. Ruple, Mark Capone

Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and the Environment publications

This Article reviews Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) completed in conjunction with Resource Management Plan (RMP) revisions conducted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming between 2004 and 2014. Based on our review of sixteen EISs, we found that RMP revisions increased application of more protective surface use stipulations by statistically significant amounts without causing a statistically significant change in either the number of jobs created or the pace of oil and gas development. In fact, both the number of jobs created and wells drilled increased slightly despite strengthened environmental protections. We also found that …

Nepa And The Energy Policy Act Of 2005 Statutory Categorical Exclusions: What Are The Environmental Costs Of Expedited Oil And Gas Development?, Mark Capone, John C. Ruple

Wallace Stegner Center for Land, Resources, and the Environment publications

A decade ago, concerned that National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) compliance caused delays in permitting oil and gas (“O&G”) development on federal land, Congress enacted Section 390 of the Energy Policy Act (“EPAct”) of 2005. Section 390 is intended to expedite the environmental review of O&G development projects on federal lands. To effectuate that end Congress created several statutory categorical exclusions (“CEs”) to NEPA that apply to O&G development. Prior to the EPAct, the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) would permit new O&G development after conducting an Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) or Environmental Assessment (“EA”). EISs and EAs were the …

Governance Interactions In Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Errol Meidinger

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

“Supply chains” are a major site of transnational business governance, and yet their dynamics and effectiveness are usually more assumed than interrogated in regulatory governance discourse. The very term “chain” implies a more determinist and simplistic understanding of supply relationships than is empirically supportable. Supply chains in practice are complex, dynamic, and highly variable networks. Based on peer-group presentations by over 60 supply chain professionals, this paper analyzes sustainable supply chain management practices in terms of the interactions conceptions of the Transnational Business Governance Interactions framework. It discusses possible refinements of the framework and suggests that sustainable supply chain management …