States have traditionally played a significant role in managing wildlife, but play a very small role in implementing the Endangered Species Act, and an even smaller role with other federal wildlife statutes. The disconnect between the federal government and states (where the local knowledge is strongest) results in both inefficiencies and harmful incentives. While states and local governments are best positioned to manage local habitat, federal oversight is needed to ensure that our widely shared benefits (biodiversity) are not lost to a tragedy of the commons problem.

The only certainty concerning predictions for the future of the environment is that most of them are likely to be wrong. This is illustrated by the fate of past predictions, such as those contained in Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb, Gregg Easterbrook’s A Moment on the Earth, and Bjørn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist. While it is difficult to guess at the future of the environment, predictions concerning environmental law are even more hazardous because they turn in large part on the future of politics.

The past 40 years have seen an increase in the involvement of private actors in environmental law. One of the best-known (and arguably best-loved) methods for public involvement is the citizen suit. This popular method of public enforcement of environmental permits (among other things) has been joined by the use of conservation easements. Conservation easements are increasingly used to meet permit mitigation requirements. When private nonprofits hold these exacted conservation easements, they assume the role of permit enforcers.

The call of this Article was to take “A Prospective Look” at Environmental and Natural Resources Law for the next 40 years with a special focus on law school teaching. Daunted by the hubris involved in prognosticating so far into the future, this piece more modestly explores three areas in which law school teaching is currently changing: I. Methods of Presentation; II. Use of Skills Exercises; and III. Influence of Digital Technologies and the Internet.

As part of the article selection process each year, Vanderbilt University Law School students assemble and review the environmental law articles written in the past year. In this Article, we draw on the results of the ELPAR article selection process to report on trends in environmental legal scholarship for academic years 2008-2009, 2009-2010, and 2010-2011.

The CWA and CERCLA were passed to clean up the environment and protect public health. Both statutes required Congress to set a standard for cleanliness. Under
CERCLA, Congress determined that Superfund sites had to meet applicable or relevant and appropriate requirements (ARARs), and under the CWA, Congress said water bodies must meet water quality standards and, if those fail, must meet TMDLs. TMDLs are not usually able to serve as ARARs, but there are a variety of solutions federal and state authorities could use to enable TMDLs to serve as ARARs.

Environmental law is under intense pressure to develop an adaptive framework. According to resilience science, interconnected ecological and social systems are dynamic, complex, and subject to abrupt and unpredictable change. In contrast, environmental law’s foundations assume that nature is relatively stable, changing primarily in linear patterns within a range of predictable conditions. Moreover, the U.S. legal system aims to create certainty and security in the distribution of resources, favors top-down “panacea” or “optimal instrument” solutions to problems, and uses linear processes.

As the Communist Party of China (CPC) is the leading political party of China and in effect determines the policies of the Chinese government, this Comment reviews the change in top CPC leadership during late 2012, and what that change means for environmental protection and environmental law.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an end product created by the combustion of carbon-based fuel. It is usually released to the atmosphere, and most scientists believe these emissions are a major contributing factor to climate change. Under both international law and U.S. domestic law, CO2 is a pollutant, but it cannot be controlled with the techniques used to control traditional air pollution. One option for preventing CO2 emissions from being released to the atmosphere is to require combustion sources to utilize carbon capture and storage (sequestration) (CCS).

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a landmark case about the federal government’s power to tax. Although the case involved the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s health care reform legislation, the Court’s analysis has greater impact. Its definition of the federal taxing power opens the door for the expanded use of environmental taxes. This Comment explores the environmental tax implications of this extraordinary case.