Natural Resources Law Commons^™

The Moral Imperative Of Green Nuclear Energy Production, Don Howard

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

A climate crisis is upon us. Human-caused global warming is already changing our planet's climate in dramatic ways, and the effects are forecast to become far worse by the end of the century without rapid and radical changes to the global energy economy and the other forms of human activity that generate CO2 and other greenhouse gases, such as methane. The ten hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with the past five years topping the list. We already see the disappearance of the arctic ice pack, massive glacial melting in Greenland, sea-level rise, massive wildfires in northern …

Note: Fracking Fluids: Regulatory Disclosure And Trade Secret Ingredients, Alison Ibendahl

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

The Note reviews current law, policy, and politics that are part of the discussion around disclosing fracking fluid trade secrets. Part I of this paper provides a background of fracking, why it is valuable, and intellectual property regimes used by owners of fracking relating to intellectual property. Part II reviews the regulatory takings doctrine, trade secret law and the interaction between them. Current disclosure laws, the policy considerations of disclosure law, and political attitudes towards fracking are discussed in Part III. This review concludes with general comments on current disclosure and the potential changes to regulations.

Electric Load Flexibility Analysis For The Clean Energy Transition, Peter Alstone, Mary Ann Piette

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

A clean energy transition on the electricity grid is underway with the addition of new renewable generation, improved capabilities for sensing and controls, and "distributed energy resources" (DER) that include efficiency, battery storage, flexible loads, and electrified heating and transportation. The complex interactions between these advances require new analytic techniques to support decisions by utilities, regulators, and enterprises developing and deploying new DER. In this paper, we describe an approach for estimating the potential of flexible loads (often also referred to as "demand response" (DR)) to contribute to the planning and operation of the grid. The analysis was developed in …

Moat Mentality: Onshore And Offshore Approaches To Wind Waking, K.K. Duvivier, Brendan T. Mooney

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

Wind energy developers are becoming increasingly aware of the damaging impact of wakes from turbines. To deal with the issue on land, many terrestrial developers have adopted a "moat mentality," creating buffer zones around their wind plants' to protect them from neighboring wind developments. While these "moats" may protect the investment of a particular wind developer, they render large areas that could be generating electricity into unproductive waste zones. US offshore wind development is in its nascence. This article will explore ways that offshore wind developers are addressing waking issues and whether they can find more collaborative solutions to maximize …

Note: The Weakest Link In Greenhouse Gas Emissions Regulation: A Comparative Study Of Methane Waste Law In The United States, Vienna Bottomley

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

In this comparative study, I will analyze the various methods employed by states for monitoring and curtailing methane leakage in comparison with approaches that have been employed at the federal level. I will juxtapose the regulatory regimes of Colorado, North Dakota, New York, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and California with the Obama Administration methane leakage regulations, including the 2016 Bureau of Land Management (BLM) "methane waste rule" regulations that the Trump Administration formally rolled back in September 2018. Finally, I will consider what the failure of the Obama Administration methane leak regulations means for climate change law in the United States …

Foreword, Peter C. Burns

Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies

There is still much work to do to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. Yet, we have made substantial progress in gaining a global understanding that using alternative energy sources will curb global warming and preserve Earth's resources. The hurdle of economic gain and political acceptance still remains a challenge. At the Center for Sustainable Energy at Notre Dame (ND Energy), we engage with faculty and associated researchers on these very issues and work to advance new technologies and energy systems in the hope of addressing these challenges and helping to attain the United Nations' …

Resource Nationalism And Zambia’S Oscillating Mining Taxation Regime, Edna Kabala, Rosemary Mapoma, John Lungu

Zambia Social Science Journal

The parcelling and privatisation of the large state-owned mining conglomerate Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) involved the signing of Development Agreements (DAs) between the Zambian government and the new private investors. These DAs were concessionary to the new investors, offering low taxation rates, tax exemptions and deductions. But in 2008, under political pressure from the opposition, then President Mwanawasa abrogated the DAs with a new Mines and Minerals Act, removing exemptions and deductions and increasing taxation rates. This action set in motion a decade long period of contestation over mining taxation in Zambia, with the introduction and retraction of numerous …

Remaking Environmental Justice, Clifford Villa

Faculty Scholarship

From movements for civil rights in the 1960s and environmental protection in the 1970s, the environmental justice movement emerged in the 1980s and 1990s to highlight the disparate impacts of pollution, principally upon people of color and low-income communities. Over time, the scope of environmental justice expanded to address concerns for other dimensions of diversity. New and continuing challenges tell us that we need to reframe our understanding of environmental justice to ensure better protection for people going forward. One way to reframe this understanding may be to apply the heuristic of vulnerability analysis as proposed by legal theorist Martha …

Getting Past Possession: Subsurface Property Disputes As Nuisances, Joseph A. Schremmer

Faculty Scholarship

Property rights in the subsurface of land are adapting to accommodate modern activities like massive hydraulic fracturing (fracing). Property rights will need to continue adapting if they are to accommodate other developing activities like large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS). Courts and commentators rarely approach the nature of subsurface property directly. They tend instead to discuss appropriate standards for tort liability when disputes arise—for example when artificial fissures from a frac treatment extend into and drain oil or gas from a neighbor’s land. The case law and literature generally approach unauthorized subterranean invasions as trespasses. Because the tort of trespass …

Northern Plains Resource Council V. United States Army Corps Of Engineers, Liz M. Forster

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Environmental activist and indigenous rights groups have challenged the validity of the Keystone XL Pipeline since its initial approval in 2010. In April 2020, less than a month after crews broke ground, the opposing groups notched a major win when the United States District Court for the District of Montana revoked a key permit for the project on the grounds that the United States Army Corps of Engineers had inadequately assessed the pipeline’s impact on endangered species.

The Public Trust Doctrine In The 21st Century, Nicholas A. Robinson

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In this Symposium's initial lecture, I will (a) provide a glimpse into life in Medieval England to explain the context from which Magna Carta arose, (b) describe the evolution of environmental rights from Magna Carta to the Forest Carter, (c) explore in a case study how “liberties of the forest” functioned for 800 years in England's Royal Forest of Dean, ultimately sustaining the ecological systems of Dean, (d) discuss the “liberties of the forest” in light of Elinor Ostom's common pool analyses, and (e) offer some views on the question just posed. I shall start by describing the English environment …

Acknowledgement, Melanie Mcnett, Julia Shaver

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Second Amici Curiae Brief Of Law Professors Et Al., Pine Mountain Preserve, Llp V. Commissioner, Filed In The U.S. Court Of Appeals For The Eleventh Circuit, Nancy Mclaughlin

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Second Amici Curiae Brief of Law Professors et al., filed in support of the government in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Pine Mountain Preserve, LLP v. Commissioner, on appeal from U.S Tax Court No. 8956-13, 151 T.C. 247 (2018).

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Texas Landfills: The Need For Administrative Reform Of The Texas Commission On Environmental Quality’S Permitting Process, William Todd Keller Jr.

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Plugging Problems: How States In The Ohio River Basin Can Address Orphan Oil And Gas Wells, Connor Hicks

Kentucky Journal of Equine, Agriculture, & Natural Resources Law

No abstract provided.

The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary: An Exploration Of Changing The Discourse On Conservation, Arielle Ben-Hur

Pitzer Senior Theses

In 2015, the Northern Chumash Tribal Council submitted a National Marine Sanctuary Nomination to establish the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary– a means by which to ensure the protection of one of the most culturally and biologically diverse coastlines in the world. On October 5, 2015, John Armor of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) responded to the nomination, adding it to the inventory of areas NOAA may consider in the future for national marine sanctuary designation.

In my thesis, I explore how the nomination of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary acts as a platform from which Traditional …

Governance Of Arctic Shipping: Rethinking Risks, Human Impacts And Regulation, Aldo Chircop, Floris Goerlandt, Claudio Aporta, Ronald Pelot

OER Texts

This open access book is a result of the Dalhousie-led research project Safe Navigation and Environment Protection, supported by a grant from the Ocean Frontier Institute’s the Canada First Research Excellent Fund (CFREF). The book focuses on Arctic shipping and investigates how ocean change and anthropogenic impacts affect our understanding of risk, policy, management and regulation for safe navigation, environment protection, conflict management between ocean uses, and protection of Indigenous peoples’ interests. A rapidly changing Arctic as a result of climate change and ice loss is rendering the North more accessible, providing new opportunities while producing impacts on the Arctic. …

Introduction, Aldo Chircop, Floris Goerlandt, Claudio Aporta, Ronald Pelot

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This chapter introduces a multidisciplinary collection of chapters addressing various aspects of governance of Arctic shipping written by leading international scholars. It investigates how ocean changes and anthropogenic impacts affect our understanding of risk, policy, management and regulation for safe navigation, environment protection, conflict management between ocean uses, and protection of Indigenous peoples’ interests in Canadian Arctic waters. The book is divided in three parts, together providing a multi-faceted and interdisciplinary view on governance of Arctic shipping. The first part addresses conceptual and empirical aspects of risk governance, management, and assessment in the Canadian Arctic. The second part focuses on …