NEPA: middle-aged, but still vigorous
The National Environmental Policy Act, which became law on January 1, 1970, is the oldest of the major federal environmental laws. It has been a model for environmental assessment laws in numerous states and other nations, but it still comes in for a lot of criticism at home. Some criticisms are surely justified. As Dan pointed out here, NEPA has yet to fulfill the promise of its lofty goals. NEPA has never quite managed to make environmental impacts central to federal ...
CONTINUE READINGSection 7 status quo reinstated
Last week, Interior Secretary Salazar and Commerce Secretary Locke issued a press release announcing that they were withdrawing the Bush administration's midnight rules relaxing the ESA section 7 consultation requirements. (Background on the Bush rules is here, here, and here.) The notice formalizing that decision has now been published in the Federal Register. As Congress authorized them to do in the omnibus spending bill, the Secretaries have flat-out withdrawn the Bus...
CONTINUE READINGMarketing climate change policies
Writing in the New York Times last week, John Broder reported that ecoAmerica, described as "a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington," has been researching the best rhetoric to build political support for legislation addressing greenhouse gas emissions. I confess that this story makes me a bit queasy. As an academic, I'm committed to the notion that at some level ideas should substantively speak for themselves, and that no one should be ...
CONTINUE READINGYou do need a weatherman to know which way the political winds blow
When I was in Spain in 1993, an older man there complained to me about an unusual rain storm during the normally-dry summer. "It's the fault of you Americans and radiation from your nuclear bomb," he told me, half-teasingly. Little did he know that he was proving the thesis of a new study by NYU professors Megan Mullin and Patrick J. Egan. They found that people's opinions on climate change tend to vary with local weather events. The estimated effect of weather on be...
CONTINUE READINGHas the Court Made it Harder to Prove Environmental Crimes?
Today’s Supreme Court decision relating to identity theft, Flores-Figueroa v. United States, may indirectly make it more difficult to prosecute environmental crimes. The decision suggests that the prosecutor might have to prove additional facts about the defendant’s state of mind in an environmental case, such as awareness that a given chemical is on a prohibited list or that the company doesn’t have the required permits. Of course, this creates an incentive fo...
CONTINUE READINGSupreme Court Narrows Hazardous Waste Liability
The Supreme Court decided an important Superfund case today, BURLINGTON NORTHERN & SANTA FE RAILWAY. CO V. UNITED STATES. The case narrowed a theory under which companies can be held liable for clean-up costs as “arrangers” of waste disposal. It also made it easier for lower courts to divide up liability between defendants, rather than holding all of them liable and letting them fight amongst themselves over how to divide liability. Details after the jump. ...
CONTINUE READINGJack Kemp’s Death
Jack Kemp died a few days ago. He had served as a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise institute, where he worked on environmental matters:Jack Kemp is a distinguished fellow at CEI. The CEI page on him states: His work at CEI centers on promoting rational, free-market environmental policies. He has spoken out against the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and other international efforts to curb economic growth, and he has championed free and open trade as the key to pro...
CONTINUE READINGNew and Noteworthy from the Ecology Law Quarterly
The latest issue of ELQ -- full content available free here -- is centered on two broad themes: 1) learning from other states, countries and international experiences and 2) the failures of administrative law as an environmental management tool. The issue includes the following articles: * The Transformation of Modern Administrative Law: Changing Administrations and Environmental Guidance Documents by Sam Kalen *Synthesizing TSCA and REACH: Practical Principle...
CONTINUE READINGAnother Batch of Free On-Line Classes
In case, the headline is misleading: no, we don't give credit to on-line viewers. Maybe someday soon Berkeley Law will get into the distance education business, but not yet. So you won't get credit, but you'll still learn a lot. Law 271.71 - International Environmental Law - Cymie Payne (Spring 2009): http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details_new.php?seriesid=2009-B-49982|2009-B-49985&semesterid=2009-B Law 272.1 - Water Resources Law - Antonio Rossmann (Fall 2...
CONTINUE READINGSharing the Burden of New Transmission Lines to The Sun and the Wind
The sense of urgency for building new electric transmission lines to transport large quantities of solar and wind power has spurred a national debate about the proper role for the federal government and the states in siting those lines. Although land use decisions such as these usually reside in the states, many worry that states might be too slow to approve new lines, or hesitant to allow towers and cables that benefit states other than their own. Some say that the ...
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