Statutes of Limitations, Statutes of Repose, and Latent Harms
Can plaintiffs harmed years after exposure to toxic substances seek relief?
You may not have heard of CTS Corp. v. Waldburger. At a glance, it is relatively unremarkable, a private nuisance suit between landowners and a retired manufacturing facility. Much of the work on the plaintiffs’ side has been handled by students. In a sense, the case hasn't even begun yet—a judge found that the plaintiffs waited to long to sue. But the case is getting noticed. After a successful appeal by the plaintiffs, and another appeal by the defe...
CONTINUE READINGGoing, Going, Gone
Despite it's depressing subject, Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction is a great read. She travels around the world, from a "hotel" for endangered frogs in Panama to an outdoor biodiversity experiment in the Peruvian rainforest to an endangered rhino's rectal exam in Cincinnati. Yet, there's no denying that the topic is a downer. The title implies that we are in the midst of a wave extinctions akin to the five great extinctions in the geological record such ...
CONTINUE READINGFukushima + 3
Three years after the meltdowns, the cleanup is still underway and the safety of the nuclear fleet is still unclear.
It's been a little more than three years since the Fukushima accident began. Where do things stand? At Fukushima itself, the reactor owner is still struggling to get conditions under control. For instance, Asahi Shimbun reported last month, Treatment of radioactive water at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant has been suspended indefinitely after a malfunction shut down the entire purification process and fouled up storage conditions, the plant operator said. Th...
CONTINUE READINGWill Regulatory Takings Always Be A Mess?
Takings law is a legal quagmire. It's likely to stay that way.
I recently reread an article that my late colleague Joe Sax published exactly fifty years ago. It's a striking piece of scholarship, all the more impressive so early in his career. But one particular statement made a particular impression on me: "Nevertheless, the predominant characteristic of this area of law is a welter of confusing and apparently incompatible results." That remains just as true today, fifty years later. But why? It seems to me that there are t...
CONTINUE READINGIn Harm’s Way
Millions of people are in the path of rising seas. The time for action is now.
The NY Times has run a series of articles in the past few days dealing with disaster issues. Taken together, they highlight the urgency of government action to protect populations in harm's way. One article dealt generally with the threat posed by sea level rise. Miami is something of a poster-child for these problems, given its low elevation, proximity to the sea, and exposure to hurricane threats. But it's far from the only place in the world facing seriou...
CONTINUE READINGAs Oil by Rail Gains Momentum, Is California On Track to Protect Human Health and the Environment?
A closer look at the data and key legal issues
California will soon see a surge in the number of trains carrying crude oil into the state, as oil production in North Dakota's Bakken region and Canada continues to increase, sending more crude to California refineries. Last week, the California Senate Environmental Quality Committee and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the safety of rail transportation of crude oil in California, focusing on emergency response. It was clear from that hearing and recent ...
CONTINUE READINGBiofuels and Food Prices
A recent economics paper suggests strongly that biofuels have raised food prices for the world's poor.
Berkeley economist Brian Wright has a disquieting article in the Winter 2014 issues of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, which just crossed my desk. JEP is published by the American Economic Association and is a great resource for those of us who are interested in economics but aren't professional economists. This article is a case in point. Wright's methodology is simple, at least in principle. He first creates a model for grain prices based on three facto...
CONTINUE READINGJustice Roberts Should Welcome EPA’s Proposed New Wetlands Rule
The Environmental Protection Agency today issued a proposed new rule that seeks to clarify exactly how far the federal government’s jurisdiction reaches in requiring permits for the dredging and filling of wetlands. In doing so, President Obama’s EPA is responding directly to Chief Justice John Roberts’ lament in his concurring opinion in Rapanos v. United States that the agency had failed to clarify its jurisdictional authority. Under Justice Roberts’ explic...
CONTINUE READINGBerkeley and UCLA Law Students Take Top Spots at State Environmental Law Negotiations Competition
Students bargain for environmental protection, economic benefits at annual event
Last Friday, the California Bar Association held its 15th Annual Student Environmental Negotiations Competition, at UCLA School of Law. Negotiations competitions stand beside mock trial and moot court programs as means for students to gain experience with the kind of work they'll be doing after law school. The CalBar competition is open to all California schools, and involves California or federal environmental laws and issues. In this competition, two-student tea...
CONTINUE READINGSea Level Rises, Premiums Not So Much
Congress apparently just couldn't resist restoring subsidies for coastal homeowners.
The President has now signed an important modification of the flood insurance program. The changes are hard to understand, in part because the bill changed an earlier 2013 law that itself amended the basic statute. So you have to work through the whole sequence to see what is going on. Before I go into more details, there seem to be three major changes: 1. The original law provided subsidized rates (roughly, at half price) for buildings that were there when a...
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