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The Constitutionality of Taxing Agricultural and Land Use Emissions

Economywide legislation to address climate change will be ineffective unless it addresses greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land use. Yet incorporating these sectors into the most popular policy proposal—a carbon tax—carries legal risk that policymakers and legal commentators have ignored. This Article explores whether a carbon tax, as applied to agriculture and land use, is a direct tax within the meaning of the Constitution; it concludes that text, history, and Supreme Court precedent up through National Federation of Independent Business v.

A Mount Laurel for Climate Change? The Judicial Role in Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Land Use and Transportation

Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation in the United States have remained persistently high. One cause is common low-density land use patterns that make most Americans dependent on automobiles. Reducing these emissions requires increasing density, which U.S. local government law makes difficult to achieve through the political process. Mount Laurel, a 1975 New Jersey Supreme Court case that addressed an affordable housing crisis by restraining local parochialism, provides a potential solution.

Overcoming Impediments to Offshore CO2 Storage: Legal Issues in the United States and Canada

Limiting future temperature increases and associated climate change requires immediate action to prevent additional carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere and to lower the existing atmospheric carbon dioxide load. This could be advanced through carbon capture and storage (CCS), which involves collecting carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released by power plants or similar facilities and injecting it into underground geologic formations, where it will remain permanently sequestered.

Planning for the Effects of Climate Change on Natural Resources

Climate change has important implications for the management and conservation of natural resources and public lands. The federal agencies responsible for managing these resources have generally recognized that considerations pertaining to climate change adaptation should be incorporated into existing planning processes, yet this topic is still treated as an afterthought in many planning documents. Only a few federal agencies have published guidance on how managers should consider climate change impacts and their management implications.

At the Confluence of the Clean Water Act and Prior Appropriation: The Challenge and Ways Forward

In the western United States, the management of surface water quality and quantity is highly compartmentalized. This compartmentalization among and within state and federal authorities is not inherently objectionable. To the contrary, it likely is necessary. Yet, the degree of compartmentalization appears to have so divided management of this resource that damage has been done to both sides. Opportunities exist for cooperation, coordination, and a more holistic perspective on water management with little or even no change in law.

The <i>Burlington</i> Court's Flawed Arithmetic

On May 4, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. United States. The decision is of major significance with respect to two areas of Superfund jurisprudence--"arranger" liability, and divisibility or apportionment of harm. This Article is concerned only with the latter issue and, moreover, only with one specific element of that issue.

 

Restatement for Joint and Several Liability Under CERCLA After <i>Burlington Northern</i>

This past May, the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time addressed two issues that the U.S. Congress left open in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). These issues are: (1) the scope of "generator" or "arranger" liability under the language of CERCLA §107(a)(3); and (2) the circumstances under which a liable party under §1073 may be held jointly and severally liable. Rejecting the position of the U.S.