In December 2015, the U.S. Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, the first multi-year federal transportation bill enacted in a decade. Almost unnoticed among nearly 500 pages of transportation law were 21 pages containing new, highly detailed procedural rules for federal agencies to follow in issuing permits for most major infrastructure and other capital projects, as well as authorization for a large administrative apparatus within the Executive Office of the President.

Betting on Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform before the 2016 presidential election is anything but a sure thing. While most remain optimistic, with each passing day, the window of opportunity is narrowed. One possibility is that some version of reform will be passed, requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to grapple with the demands of implementation. Another possibility is that TSCA reform is not enacted, and life as we know it goes on.

The number of earthquakes felt in the central and eastern United States has increased dramatically; the scientific consensus is that injection of oil and gas wastewater fluids is the most likely culprit. Regulations and voluntary industry efforts are likely the best mechanisms to mitigate the risks associated with induced seismicity, but the common law remains relevant. This Article explores whether and to what extent a nuisance framework can be applied.

This Article, the fifth in a series of five, completes the author’s detailed analysis of how federal courts have interpreted each element of the Clean Water Act (CWA) offense.

On March 30, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Hawkes Co. v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit asks whether a wetlands jurisdictional determination (JD)—the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ official stance on whether a wetlands areas is subject to Clean Water Act  §404 permitting requirements—constitutes a final agency action that is subject to judicial challenge under the Administrative Procedure Act.

A changing climate means that storms, floods, wildfires, and even coastlines cannot be expected to adhere to historical patterns. Federal agencies responsible for risk management and disaster recovery have begun giving priority to this fact, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is among them. But HUD has just one foot in the boat—the other foot is still on the dock.

On December 12, 2015, nearly 200 countries created a major new agreement on climate change, accompanied by national commitments to act. The Paris Agreement has rightly been celebrated as a breakthrough, but was unquestionably constrained by the need for compromise, and its details will continue to be developed at the international, national, and local levels.

Through the Endangered Species Act’s Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) program and California’s Natural Community Conservation Planning program, endangered species conservation in the United States has evolved considerably. In particular, areawide, multiagency HCPs, many of which developed in California, introduced the possibility of a more comprehensive, adaptive, and collaborative approach to conservation.

Litigation over national forest management has received substantial attention from members of Congress who claim that “environmental obstructionists” are abusing the legal system; conversely, litigants criticize the U.S. Forest Service’s practice of collaborative management as insufficiently protective, leaving courts as the best resort. The authors review the emergence and increasing use of collaboration and some of the claims and counterclaims regarding Forest Service litigation.

Fragile but economically, culturally, and ecologically important, Louisiana’s wetlands comprise 40% of all wetlands in the United States, but its wetland loss is 80% percent of the national total. The state loses the equivalent of a football field of wetlands to the Gulf of Mexico every hour—this, despite a decades-old national policy calling for “no net loss” of wetlands. The United States has a complex wetlands-protection regime that purports to protect wetlands, but instead has resulted in irreversible destruction of natural wetlands.