Supreme 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 ...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Air Pollution–We’re Number One!
California officials and residents take justifiable pride in the state's continued leadership when it comes to controlling greenhouse gas emissions. But a recent report by the American Lung Association demonstrates that California still has a long, long way to go in addressing conventional air pollutants--especially in Southern California. According to the American Lung Association's just-issued State of the Air survey, Kern County in California's San Joaquin Valley ha...
CONTINUE READINGJustice Souter and the Environment
The news that Justice Souter is leaving the Supreme Court probably means little for environmental cases. Souter has been a reliable environmental vote, joining the majority in Massachusetts v. EPA, the Court's only case on climate change. He dissented with the liberal wing in Rapanos v. United States , the convoluted decision about the extent to which the Clean Water Act covers wetlands not directly adjacent to navigable waters of the United States. His environmen...
CONTINUE READINGFollowed by a moonshadow
Referencing the Apollo Program and our country's near-mythic success in achieving the goal of a first moon landing has become commonplace in the climate-and-energy debates. Here's Obama doing it in his address a few days ago to the National Academy of Sciences (a great speech, btw, defending the role of government in spurring scientific advances, transcript and analysis available here): Our future on this planet depends on our willingness to address the challenge p...
CONTINUE READINGDon’t breathe the air
For 186 million Americans, that's the message of the American Lung Association's State of the Air 2009 report. That's how many Americans live in areas with unhealthful levels of ozone or particulate air pollution. The ozone problem is much worse than the Association reported last year, primarily because EPA has tightened the ozone standard. But ozone pollution levels also have continued to climb in more than half of the cities with the worst ozone problems. The same is t...
CONTINUE READINGNew life for new source review
The Obama Administration is beyond its 100th day, but still busy on the environmental front undoing the work of its predecessor. One thing that means at EPA is breathing life back into the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program, which the Bush Administration had been busily trying to write out of existence. In the latest development on this front Lisa Jackson, Administrator of Obama's EPA, has agreed to review three controversial NSR regulations. NSR requires regulat...
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