Measuring Environmental Justice: Analysis of Progress Under Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump
President Donald Trump’s environmental policies appear detrimental to the environmental justice (EJ) movement, but little work has been done to test their true impact on EJ. This Article offers a method for evaluating progress (or lack thereof) across the last three presidential administrations, proposing three metrics for progress: access to legal recourse, consideration of climate change as an EJ issue, and signaling actions.
An Enduring American Heritage: A Substantive Due Process Right to Public Wild Lands
I magine, on account of an economic downturn associated with massive defense spending, or a change in regulatory philosophy, or a pandemic, the U.S. Congress enacted legislation duly signed by the president to sell virtually all federal wild lands to the highest bidder without restriction. Would such action be constitutional?
Safeguarding Against Distortions of Scientific Research in Federal Policymaking
The appropriate use of science in policymaking depends upon integrity in scientific research and in the ways in which that research is communicated and applied throughout the policymaking process. On May 22, 2019, the University of California, Irvine School of Law’s Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources (CLEANR) and the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) convened a roundtable that brought together leading scientists, scholars, advocates, and policymakers to explore potential safeguards to protect scientific research and its use in feder
Environmental Rights, Public Trust, and Public Nuisance: Addressing Climate Injustices Through State Climate Liability Litigation
This Article focuses on an area of rapidly evolving jurisprudence—climate liability litigation. It examines in depth the state attorney general’s complaint filed in Rhode Island v. Chevron Corp. in 2018, alleging various state-law tort claims. It explores the intensely sustained legal battles taking place between states and fossil fuel companies over whether federal courts or state courts should have jurisdiction, which in many respects is the “ballgame issue” for both plaintiffs and defendants.
How President Trump's War on Science Undermines Cost-Benefit Analysis of Climate Policies
This Article discusses the Trump Administration’s main actions to undermine the role of science in public policy and the consequences for cost-benefit analysis involving climate change policies. It analyzes the specific attacks on science and their impact on relevant policies, namely, the rollbacks of the Clean Water Rule, the pesticides ban, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Power Plan, as well as modification of the National Environmental Policy Act and regulations promoting fuel efficiency, and the flexibilization of environmental enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Environmental Deconfliction 2020: The National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2020
As in prior years, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 contains a variety of provisions setting U.S. Department of Defense priorities for energy, environmental, and natural resource issues. These include measures that represent some degree of consensus on these often-politicized topics.