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.

What effects will the second Obama Administration have on environmental law, policy, and practice in 2013? What are the implications of a new EPA Administrator for current regulatory trends? What priorities will the new Administration place on public land development and conservation? How will the U.S. energy policy change, if at all? On February 27, 2013, ELI invited four expert practitioners to discuss upcoming policies and regulatory agendas at EPA, DOJ, FERC, and DOI, among other regulatory agencies.

Resource managers, economists, and legal scholars consider water a natural resource. The fundamental tensions raised by the concept of international water management are legal, such as sharing water in international watercourses, conserving permanent sovereignty over natural resources, and trading water in international watercourses actively or shielding it from world market interference.