Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 28th, 2011
Last month I presented a paper at the Vermont Law School Environmental Scholarship symposium, and the paper relied in some part on the idea that the most achievable (if modest) means of incorporating climate externalities into societal decisionmaking would be some form of cost internalization through the polluter pays principle — specifically by imposing retroactive [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 21st, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street protests have been characterized by their lack of a set of specific policy demands, so it may be that a short answer to the question “What does Occupy Wall Street mean for the future of environmental law?” is “not much.” As a left-leaning, anti-establishment counterpoint to the Tea Party movement with [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 14th, 2011
While the Deepwater Horizon spill has been out of the headlines for a year, oil continues to bleed into the Gulf of Mexico from many other drill rigs. Waterkeeper Alliance and several Gulf Coast Waterkeeper organizations have just given notice of their intent to sue one drilling rig, once owned by Taylor Energy (and since [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 6th, 2011
Clean Water Act § 316(b) requires facilities that discharge waste heat (primarily thermal electric steam generating power plants) to use the “Best Technology Available” (BTA) for minimizing or avoiding adverse environmental impact. The primary impact of these facilities is the impingement and entrainment of billions of fish and aquatic organisms annually in the cooling water [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Oct 3rd, 2011
by John R. Nolon The news coverage of the damage wrought by tropical storms Irene and Lee describes the perfect storm caused by a rapidly changing physical, financial, and political environment. Recent flooding is only the latest convincing evidence for us laymen that the overwhelming majority of respected scientists are right about climate change.
