Since its inception in 1982, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section (ECS) has prosecuted over 1,000 individuals and 400 corporations, cumulatively resulting in 800 years of incarceration and nearly $1 billion in criminal fines. Criminal enforcement tends to accelerate restitution of environmental damages more than if civil enforcement were pursued alone, and the money generated by criminal fines can be used to restore environmental damages or as general revenue for the federal government.

Because of persistent legislative attacks on the Endangered Species Act (ESA), some conservationists have made a strategic choice not to propose substantial adjustments to it. But conservation recommendations are long overdue, and improvements to the ESA and its implementing regulations and policies seem more possible in the current political climate. The University of California, Irvine School of Law and the Environmental Policy Innovation Center convened a broad dialogue within the conservation community seeking perspectives on those improvements.

One legacy of the environmental justice movement is documenting the unequal distribution of environmental harms and benefits throughout American society. These inequalities are inscribed in our urban physical spaces by laws and policies designed to exclude African Americans and other minority groups from lands and spaces constructed and preserved for whites only.

Despite the fact that multilateral development banks (MDBs) have been criticized for their unsustainable practices and projects, they can play a key role in tackling climate change. In order to be successful in shaping climate-friendly policies and practices, MDBs must align with the goals of the Paris Agreement. The United States can influence MDBs to align with the Agreement, and the Biden Administration has already taken strides to do so. This Article explores ways in which the Administration can further influence and assist the MDBs in reaching climate goals.

In 2014, the central government of China announced a plan to create by 2020 a corporate environmental credit system (ECS), an incentive mechanism to deter companies’ environmental violations and promote a culture of environmental law compliance. The ECS was to be implemented at the provincial level, and by the end of 2020, all 31 provinces, provincial-level municipalities, and provincial-level autonomous regions (collectively “provinces”) of mainland China, with the exception of Beijing, had either published their own corporate environmental credit regulations or adopted in practice or via

When establishing regulations under the Kigali Amendment and the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, and to achieve environmentally and economically effective hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) phasedown strategies, this Comment asserts that the United States must consider what climate strategies have worked well in the past. Specifically, it looks at the history of U.S. climate action and presents market-based opportunities to phase down HFCs by providing examples of allowance-and-trading program successes.

This Comment responds to a July Comment from Paul Weiland and Dennis Murphy that responded to a September 2020 Comment addressing the challenges of managing small and declining populations of California Delta smelt under the Endangered Species Act and focusing on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's treatment of the species in a recent biological opinion.

Visible impacts of climate change, like the unprecedented winter storm in Texas, underscore the need to integrate climate adaptation as a principal factor in energy security. With appropriate weatherization and increased battery storage, many believe that renewables can help assure an energy-secure future that is more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

This abstract is adapted from Rory Van Loo, The New Gatekeepers: Private Firms as Public Enforcers, 106 Va. L. Rev. 467 (2020), which examines the rise of the enforcer-firm through case studies of the industries that are home to the most valuable companies in technology, banking, oil, and pharmaceuticals.

This abstract is adapted from Alexandra B. Klass, Eminent Domain Law as Climate Policy, 2020 Wis. L. Rev. 49 (2020), which contends that states should consider limiting eminent domain rights for fossil fuel projects and extending eminent domain rights for certain clean energy projects as part of their state climate policies.