Imagine you run a Canadian company that mines precious metals. Your company owns a U.S. subsidiary that holds unpatented mining claims on federal lands known as the California Desert Conservation Area. You're optimistic that the U.S. government will approve your proposal to build and operate an open-pit, cyanide gold mine there because the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton, has just rescinded the denial of her predecessor, Bruce Babbitt--though she hasn't granted approval as yet.

The primary benefit of many important environmental regulations, as determined by the dollar value assigned by cost-benefit analysis, is the human lives that are saved. Thus, the methodology used to determine the value assigned to the lives that would be saved by an environmental program is central to the determination of whether such a program is justifiable on cost-benefit grounds. In 2000, the U.S.

Introduction

I. Introduction

On August 2, 1996, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) promulgated rules governing its Open Market Emissions Trading (OMET) program. With a goal to provide industry with a greater degree of flexibility in meeting federal air compliance directives and simultaneously support the state's progress toward the attainment of federal air standards, this program has now been terminated following scrutiny from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), environmental groups, and a new NJDEP administration.

I. Introduction

This Article begins with a bald and intentionally provocative claim: as we look ahead to the challenging and complex environmental problems that remain, conventional State-centric regulatory rules will turn out to be a less important part of the environmental management tool kit than is commonly supposed by legal scholars, environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and many others.

On August 2, 1996, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) promulgated rules governing its Open Market Emissions Trading (OMET) program. With a goal to provide industry with a greater degree of flexibility in meeting federal air compliance directives and simultaneously support the state's progress toward the attainment of federal air standards, this program has now been terminated following scrutiny from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), environmental groups, and a new NJDEP administration.

On September 28, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to review a case that has vast importance for land developers, private property owners, governments, redevelopment agencies, and others who are impacted by governmental redevelopment efforts: Kelo v. City of New London.

I. Introduction