The Expanding Number of Environmental Law Teachers
In a previous posting, I remarked on the increase in the number of publications in environmental law. I thought it would be useful to look at the number of law professors in the field. This was not a rigorous social science survey, so the numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. Some caveats are listed at the end of this posting. Nevertheless, the trend seems quite striking: Years of Teaching Environmental Law 2004-2005 ...
CONTINUE READINGGray Wolf Litigation Summary
I previously discussed the wolf delisting rider to the budget compromise bill. I thought it would be useful to summarize here the recent court opinions concerning the wolf, and consider the effects of the rider on those opinions. As you may recall, the rider (which never mentions "wolf" or "delisting") requires the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) to reissue its April 2009 final rule (74 Fed. Reg. 15,123). That rule effectively delisted the "Rocky Mountain Populati...
CONTINUE READINGChanging Course on Consumption
The United States has been an extravagant user of energy and resources, and this trajectory is not sustainable. With only one-twentieth of the world’s population, the United States consumes a fifth of the fossil fuels, produces a quarter of the carbon dioxide, and a third of the paper and plastic use. From 1900-1990, U.S. population tripled, while the use of raw materials multiplied seventeen times. The U.S. also now uses a fifth of the world’s copper, a quarter of i...
CONTINUE READINGThe Mystery of Sierra Club v. Morton
Sierra Club v. Morton is rightfully viewed as one of the most significant environmental decisions in Supreme Court history. Although it hardly constituted a crimped or anti-environmental decision, it did go a long way to putting the brakes on environmental standing by ruling that the Sierra Club did not have the corporate standing to challenge the Interior Department's policies on the Mineral King development. Perhaps the case is best known for Justice Douglas'...
CONTINUE READINGWhat Do Environmental Law Scholars Write About?
Some of our readers who aren't in law schools probably wonder what environmental law professors actually do. (Some of our readers who are in law schools might be wondering the same thing!). I thought it might be helpful to provide a sample of recent scholarship. Here are recent lists of working papers from SSRN.com, which provides on-line prepublication access to papers. From the Climate Law list: Expediting Innovation: The Quest for a New Sputnik Moment by Sarah...
CONTINUE READINGJohn Muir’s Birthday
If environmentalism had saints John Muir, born on April 21, 1838, would surely be on the list. He is best known for founding the Sierra Club and fighting to save Yosemite....
CONTINUE READINGHome Solar Good for More Than a Guilty Conscience
Despite all of the tax breaks, utility rebates, and net metering potential, the common assumption is that rooftop residential photovoltaics are not economical for many customers. Some people figure that you install a solar system if you want to feel good about yourself, or make a statement about the environment, but you had better expect to lose money. A new study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggests that solar might not be such a bad investment afte...
CONTINUE READINGRemembering Rachel Carson
Earth Day seems an appropriate time to recall past leaders in environmental thought. Few have played a greater role in the development of U.S. environmental law than Rachel Carson (1907-1964), whose books did much to spark the environmental movement. It is good to hear that her books have been reprinted as ebooks by Open Road Media in time for Earth Day, seventy years after she published her first book. I still remember reading The Sea Around Us and Silent Spring whe...
CONTINUE READINGThink Tanks, Advocacy Tanks, and the Kleiman Rule
Dan is absolutely right to distinguish between real think tanks and what I called "fake think tanks" (and what he calls, more generously, "advocacy tanks."). But what we need is some criterion for distinguishing the two: one key move of the modern Conservative Movement has been to dismiss all study as simply being the product of ideology. No wonder that Josh Marshall, in a wonderful piece, described George W. Bush as "The Postmodern President." So how does one jud...
CONTINUE READINGSolicitor General Katyal Flunks Supreme Court History
At least he did at the oral argument in Connecticut v. AEP yesterday: [Lawyer for the state plaintiffs Barbara] Underwood, pressed to cite past court cases that might show this particular lawsuit could work in court, had no close parallels to rely upon. Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., had pressed her to come up with an answer to Solicitor General Katyal’s argument that the Court, in 222 years, “had never heard a case like this before.” Uh -- that's an easy ...
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