The court holds that summary judgment cannot be granted on the issue of corporate officers' Comprehensive Environmental, Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) liability, but a successor corporation may be held liable under CERCLA. After a U.S. Virgin Islands clothing manufacturer dissol...
Editors' Summary: The Select Steel decision marked the first administrative Title VI complaint that EPA decided on the merits. The complaint challenged the state of Michigan's decision to grant a permit to the Select Steel Corporation for a steel mini-mill in Flint, Michigan. EPA ruled that Michigan did not violate Title VI because the permit decision would have no adverse impact and, thus, no disproportionate impact, on the surrounding community. This Dialogue examines the background and context for the Select Steel decision.
The court denies a landowner's motion for partial summary judgment on claims under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Pennsylvania Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act (PaHSCA) against a wire rope manufacturer that previously owned a portion of the cont...
The court holds that the owner of a contaminated landfill may only recover response costs from alleged generators of hazardous waste through a contribution action under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) §113. The court first holds that the owner of the l...
The court holds that the former owner and operator of a refinery may not bring cost recovery or contribution actions under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) against the subsequent and current owners. The court first holds that the former owner is a pe...
The court denies a corporation's motion to reconsider a ruling that disputed issues of material fact exist as to whether the corporation's neighbor can claim an innocent landowner defense, which would allow the neighbor to pursue a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Ac...
In a recent essay, David Coursen asks an important and unexamined question: Are environmental justice policies, which seek to avoid disproportionate environmental burdens on minority and poor communities, on a "collision course" with the Equal Protection Clause? In concluding that a potential collision is more illusory than real, Coursen offers a number of reasons why governmental actions to promote environmental justice have not been challenged in court and, even if they were to be, would not be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny.
Perhaps Congress should throw up its hands and move on to something more manageable than global climate change. Richard Lazarus asserts that the challenges of enacting effective national strategies for mitigating and adapting to changes in the Earth's climate are not just "wicked," but "super wicked," meaning they defy resolution.
The court holds that environmental groups did not show that New York City's plan to sell or bulldoze lots containing community gardens would have an impermissible adverse impact on minority communities. The groups opposed the city's plan claiming that it would violate U.S. Environmental Protection A...
The court holds that because Title VI proscribes only intentional discrimination, residents of a predominantly minority community do not have a right to enforce through 42 U.S.C. §1983 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Title VI §602 disparate impact discrimination regulations agai...