Environmental Law Commons^™

Standing To View Other People's Land: The D.C. Circuit's Divided Decision In Sierra Club V. Jewell, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

In its divided 2014 decision in Sierra Club v. Jewell, the D.C. Circuit held that plaintiffs who observe landscape have Article III standing to sue in federal court to protect those views even if they have no legal right to physically enter the private property that they view. The D.C. Circuit’s decision could significantly enlarge the standing of plaintiffs to sue federal agencies or private parties over changes to private lands that the plaintiffs have no right to enter. Because the Supreme Court has inconsistently applied both strict and liberal approaches to standing, it is difficult to predict how it …

Scale Economies, Scale Externalities: Hog Farming And The Changing American Agricultural Industry, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

American agriculture is inexorably concentrating into the hands of a small number of large conglomerates. Expanding farms pursuing scale economies would normally have to abide by a system of environmental and other laws that would, in theory, require farms to account for negative externalities. If those laws were observed and enforced, they would help strike a balance between the greater profitability and the larger externalities of scaling up. But these laws are not widely observed nor rigorously enforced, which upsets this balance and gives large-scale farms a cost advantage while insulating them from corresponding responsibilities.

Perhaps nowhere in agriculture is …

A Look At The Interim Guidelines At Their Mid-Point: How Are We Doing?, Colorado River Research Group

Books, Reports, and Studies

4 pages.

The Democratization Of Energy, Joseph P. Tomain

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The electricity industry is changing in dramatic ways.Most significantly, as demonstrated by the Obama Administration's Clean Power Plan, the country is witnessing the merger of energy and environmental regulation. Historically, energy regulation was driven by the need to produce more power for economic growth. By contrast, environmental regulation attended to the pollution of the environment. Production of energy depends upon the use of natural resources, and throughout the fuel cycle from extraction and transportation to the burning and disposal of those resources, the environment is directly affected. Most dramatically, greenhouse gas emissions present climate change challenges. In order to effectively …

Environmental Justice As Civil Rights, Wyatt G. Sassman

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

Environmental justice litigation using the Equal Protection Clause and civil rights statutes has largely failed. This article explains that failure as a result of a general shift by federal courts to limit the scope of civil rights law rather than an improper characterization of environmental justice as a civil rights issue. This explanation is important to both encourage and caution environmental justice advocates and scholars as they approach claims under Title VIII. I suggest that Title VIII's ability to bridge property and dignity may still present a powerful and much-needed tool for bringing equality to environmental law, but that, based …

Do We Need A Human Right To A Healthy Environment?, Rebecca Bratspies

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

A Blanket Of Immunity Will Not Keep Florida Dry: Proposed Adjustments To Florida's Drainage Regulations And Sovereign Immunity Laws To Account For Climate Change Impacts, Theresa K. Bowley

Florida A & M University Law Review

Addressing stormwater drainage in Florida has been an ongoing challenge since the middle of the twentieth century when the State began to experience rapid growth. Drainage problems already occur in Florida during seasonal high tides, heavy rains, and in storm surge events, and the impacts projected by climate change will exacerbate flooding. Identification of deficiencies in Florida’s existing drainage systems should include the responsibility and liability of drainage systems to be retrofitted to adapt to climate change. Part I of this paper explains the connection between global climate change and its effects on stormwater drainage in Florida. The existing governmental …

The Public Trust Doctrine, Private Water Allocation, And Mono Lake: The Historic Saga Of National Audubon Society V. Superior Court, Erin Ryan

Scholarly Publications

This Article tells the epic tale of the fall and rise of Mono Lake—the strange and beautiful Dead Sea of California—which fostered some of the most important environmental law developments of the last century, and which has become a platform for some of the most potentially important developments in the new century. It shares the backstory and legacy of the California Supreme Court’s famous decision in National Audubon Society v. Superior Court, 658 P.2d 709 (Cal. 1983), known more widely as “the Mono Lake case.” Inspired by innovative legal scholarship and advocacy, the decision spawned a quiet legal revolution in …

A Sour Battle In Lago Agrio And Beyond: The Metamorphosis Of Transnational Litigation And The Protection Of Collective Rights In Ecuador, Manuel A. Gomez

Faculty Publications

This article intends to explore the interplay between different dispute processing mechanisms and fora in the realm of transnational litigation, through the lens of the Chevron-Ecuador legal saga. My goal is to discuss the transformation of a transnational complex case and the challenges faced by the parties, their procedural strategies, and the perceived advantages of the different mechanisms. In this regard, I will also address the development of mechanisms for the protection of diffuse rights involving the environment; the role of the courts in supervising compliance with judicial remedies, their engagement in activities that go beyond their traditional role as …

Rationing Environmental Law In A Time Of Climate Change, Rachael E. Salcido

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

The Gardener And The Sick Garden: How Not To Address The Planet's Environmental Issues, Jan G. Laitos, Juliana E. Okulski

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

A truly workable environmental strategy would start by being grounded in better, more realistic and empirically accurate models of how nature works, how humans behave, and humankind's relationship to nature. Such an environmental policy would realize that the gardener and the garden are not separate, but one. And this environmental policy would embrace two correlative legal norms: (1) we should recognize a positive right, held by both humans and their natural surroundings, to environmental conditions that may sustain human survivability'; and (2) we should impose an affirmative duty on humans to promote and support natural systems.

Recognition Of Environmental Rights For Pennsylvania Citizens: A Tribute To Chief Justice Castille, John C. Dernbach, Marc Prokopchak

Duquesne Law Review

No abstract provided.

Natural Resources Law, Jan G. Laitos, Sandra B. Zellmer

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This treatise is a thorough assessment of the important and growing field of natural resources law. It provides comprehensive coverage of the laws, policies, and decision-making processes pertinent to the "core "commodity natural resources - rangeland, timber, mineral resources, energy resources, and water. It also covers the management and protection of non-commodity resources, such as wildlife, wilderness, and other types of preservation and recreation lands. As an essential addition to any environmental, natural resources, or public lands library, the book puts natural resources law in context with a review of the National Environmental Policy Act, a history of natural resources …

It's Not Just The Effort That Counts: Conservation Endangerment For At-Risk Species, Robert T. Caccese

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

The listing determination factors nestled within Section 4 of the Endangered Species Act can be best described as the controversial heart and soul of the statute. Federal courts, charged with reviewing listing determinations, need specific criteria to provide better consistency and clarityfor the arbitrary and capricious judicial review standard In its current state, the standard has not been stated with any particularity, leaving adequacy to be based upon case-specific analysis by various federal judges regarding listing decisions of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Most crucial are contexts pertaining to conservation effort reliance. Federal agencies' increased reliance on agreements and …

Tribal Authority To Protect Water Resources And Reserved Rights Under Clean Water Act Section 401, Paula Goodman Maccabee

William Mitchell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Starfish, Carmen King

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Rainy Day On The Willamette River, Patrick Thacher

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Yosemite Valley From The Wawona Tunnel Lookout, Kelsey Ryburn

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

The Definitive Guide To Tree Disputes In California, Ellis Raskin

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.

Monterey, California, Ashley Bumatay

UC Law Environmental Journal

No abstract provided.