Environmental Law Commons^™

Environmental Law Updates

Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law

No abstract provided.

Paper Or Plastic? The Importance Of Effective Environmental Review Of Ordinances Regulating The Use Of High Consumption Consumer Products. Save The Plastic Bag Coalition V. City Of Manhattan Beach, Chris Strobel

Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law

No abstract provided.

Environmental Law, Civil Rights And Sustainability: Three Frameworks For Environmental Justice, Eileen Gauna

Journal of Environmental and Sustainability Law

No abstract provided.

Environmental Law, Travis M. Trimble

Mercer Law Review

In 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the intervenors lacked standing to challenge on appeal a consent decree entered into by the main parties and approved by the district court in a Clean Water Act case. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, in a Clean Air Act case, excluded on Daubert grounds testimony of the government's experts purporting to establish that repair and replacement projects at several power plants in Alabama had in fact been major modifications to the plants that resulted in increased air pollutant emissions, which …

Paper On The Business Case For Transparency, Perrine Toledano

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

CCSI strongly supports the transparency of contracts and tax flows. CCSI shares the belief of many stakeholders that transparency is essential to leverage extractive industries for sustainable development and is in the mutual interest of all stakeholders. However, some industry players continue to voice the concern that increased transparency would be harmful for their business. Therefore, CCSI is working to also establish the business case for transparency.

In one such case, some industry players have been lobbying against the regulations developed by the Security and Exchange Commission to implement the mandatory disclosure provisions of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform …

Openness In Extraction, Lisa E. Sachs, Shefa Siegel

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

More than a decade before becoming President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer, observed that, among the branches of property law, the distribution of mining rights most elegantly reflects the vicissitudes of social and political relations. According to Hoover, mining rights were a "never-ending contention," as old as economic and civil conflict, among four principle classes – overlord, state, landowner, and miner. "Somebody," he concluded, "has to keep peace and settle disputes."

Today, with the prices of major natural-resource commodities – including oil, coal, copper, gold, and iron ore – doubling, tripling, or rising even faster, the …

Table Of Contents, Colorado Journal Of International Environmental Law And Policy

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

American Indian Water Right Settlements, Darcy Bushnell

Publications

No abstract provided.

Manure In The Bay: A Report On Industrial Animal Agriculture In Maryland And Pennsylvania, Rena I. Steinzor, Yee Huang

Faculty Scholarship

This report provides a substantive and detailed look at the concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) and other animal feeding operations (AFO) programs in Maryland and Pennsylvania, as well as a general overview of the federal CAFO program. The information in this report was gathered through publicly available resources as well as a series of interviews with agency officials and other individuals who work with the animal agricultural sector. This report identifies concrete and practical recommendations for improving how the waste generated by animal industrial agriculture is managed and controlled by EPA, the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE), and the Pennsylvania …

Blood Forests: Post Lacey Act, Why Cohesive Global Goverance Is Essential To Extinguish The Market For Illegally Harvested Timber, Sean H. Waite

Seattle Journal of Environmental Law

No abstract provided.

A Mighty Wind: The Turbulent Times Of America's First Offshore Wind Farm And The Inverse Of Environmental Justice, M.W. Marinakos

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

In 2001, Cape Wind Associates announced its proposal to construct America’s first offshore wind farm in the federal waters of Nantucket Sound. This declaration touched off a storm of law suits, fund raising, and protests in the press that still rages to this day. Political pundits and environmental groups of every stripe have taken some surprising positions, based solely on the location of the renewable energy source. The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, posing as an environmental concern, has risen as the archrival to the wind farm. Interestingly, a closer look under the surface of this group reveals a financial …

Environmental Justice On My Mind: Moving Georgia's Environmental Protection Division Toward The Consideration Of Enviornmental Justice In Permitting, David Deganian

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

Under the Obama Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is leading efforts to incorporate environmental justice measures into its inner-workings. So, too, are numerous other federal agencies. These efforts, however, have little practical effect at the state level where sources of pollution, such as coal-fired power plants and other industrial facilities are granted permits to pollute. Under the cooperative federalism framework that exists today, the federal government cannot directly compel states to consider environmental justice unless such action is required by federal law. Thus, federal guidance pertaining to environmental justice will do little to prevent the pattern of siting pollution …

The Village Of Kivalina Is Falling Into The Sea: Should Cercla Section 9626(B) Be Available To Move The Village From Harm's Way?, Robert J. Martin

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

The Village of Kivalina, and other similarly situated Native Alaska villages, are in danger of falling into the sea. Regional climate change is melting the permafrost that acts as the foundation of their communities. Sea ice that once acted as a barrier during storm season today melts earlier, and erosion rates are increasing. Kivalina’s situation is further worsened by the threat of contamination from a nearby open dump. Without permanent relocation, Kivalina and its residents face imminent harm.

Congress has given the President authority to permanently relocate an Indian tribe or Alaska Native village under CERCLA Section 9626(b). This article …

Validation Of Pcr-Based Assays And Laboratory Accreditation For Environmental Detection Of Aquatic Invasive Species, Invasive Species Advisory Committee

National Invasive Species Council

This white paper provides:

a) Background information on the use, accuracy and reliability of PCR-based assays such as environmentally sampled DNA (eDNA) for early detection of aquatic invasive species (AIS) and;

b) Recommendations for establishing a system for validating assays and accrediting laboratories that report on the presence or absence of AIS.

This white paper was developed by the members of ISAC and discusses the need for developing validation requirements for Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and other DNA-based molecular assays that are increasingly being used to detect AIS. It does not provide a simplified checklist for evaluation of their ability …

Invasive Species And E-Commerce, Invasive Species Advisory Committee

National Invasive Species Council

ISSUE

Internet commerce (hereafter e-commerce) is a growing and vital part of the United States economy. Total e-commerce sales in the United States for 2011 totaled $194 billion, an increase of 16% over 2010. From 2002 to 2011, the proportion of reported e-commerce sales in the U. S. grew from about 1.4% to 5.5% of total retail sales (United States Census Bureau News 2012). Globally, e-commerce is expected to increase at a rate of 13.5% annually, amounting to $1.4 trillion in yearly sales by 2015 (Enright 2011). A portion of this activity includes the sale and trade of living organisms. …

A Tale Of Two Projects; Nepa’S Eis V. Mitigated Fonsis, K.K. Duvivier, Ian London

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mossville Environmental Action Now V. United States: Is A Solution To Environmental Injustice Unfolding?, Jeannine Cahill-Jackson

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

This article chronicles and analyzes the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) case resulting from the petition: Mossville Environmental Action Now v. United States. Part I illuminates the harms faced by the residents of Mossville and the little that has been done to remedy their situation. It provides an in-depth look at the data that has been collected by the U.S. government and analyzed by the members of Mossville Environmental Action Now, which shows levels of dioxin contamination in both the people and the environment of Mossville and their significance. Part I also discusses environmental racism and environmental justice …

Leveraging Extractive Industry Infrastructure Investments For Broad Economic Development: Regulatory, Commercial And Operational Models For Railways And Ports, Perrine Toledano

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

The initial phase of the Leveraging Mining-Related Infrastructure Investments for Development project consisted of a worldwide survey of regulatory, commercial and operating case studies of shared use of mining-related infrastructure. This Policy Paper delivers the findings for mineral railways and ports.

Addressing Climate Change Mitigation And Adaptation Through Insurance For Overseas Investments: The Example Of The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Lise Johnson

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

In 2008, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) estimated that investments of between US$540–570 billion in physical assets and other financial flows will be needed to adequately reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to combat climate change; additionally, tens and possibly hundreds of billions of dollars may be necessary to enable countries to adapt to the phenomenon’s challenges. Through climate negotiations under the UNFCCC in Copenhagen and Cancun, developed country governments committed to provide developing countries roughly US$30 billion between 2010 and 2012 and to mobilize approximately US$100 billion per year by 2020 for climate change activities. …

Sediment Removal From The San Gabriel Mountains, Mary C. Ferguson

Pitzer Senior Theses

The issue of sediment removal from the San Gabriel Mountains has been a complex issue that has created problems with beach replenishment, habitat destruction and the need to spend millions of dollars at regular intervals to avoid safety hazards. Most recently 11 acres of riparian habitat, including 179 oaks and 70 sycamores, were removed for sediment placement. Other sites including Hahamongna Watershed Park and La Tuna Canyon also face a similar fate. This thesis questions: How did we get to this point of destroying habitat to dump sediment which is viewed as waste product? What are the barriers for creating …