The Oak Ridge Reservation is one of the largest U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facilities in the country, with areas that are highly contaminated by chemicals, metals, and radionuclides. DOE is in the middle of a multi-decade, multi-billion-dollar cleanup there, and a recent Superfund decision for one portion of the site raises a number of significant legal issues. This Article addresses some related questions: Should radionuclides get less stringent cleanup than other equally harmful pollutants like mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls?

Many chemicals and hazardous substances are kept in places that can withstand ordinary rain, but not severe storms or floods. If these events occur and the chemicals are released, people and the environment may be endangered. This Article discusses the hazards posed to chemical and waste disposal facilities by extreme weather events that would be worsened as a result of climate change, and how U.S. laws do (or do not) deal with these hazards; and considers how the law would need to change to cope with what would happen to these facilities in a potentially 4°C world.

Animal agriculture is one of the leading sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon offset markets allow entities to reduce their overall climate impact by financing projects that decrease emissions elsewhere. This Article analyzes the viability of an offset protocol that credits farms for transitioning from raising livestock to growing crops, based on the difference in emissions between these operations.

Superfund practitioners are waiting to see whether the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will designate perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctane sulfonate, two chemicals in the per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) group, as CERCLA hazardous substances. Such a designation may lead to selected remedies being modified and further work being required at Superfund sites where remedies were believed to be complete. This Article explores potential future liability by reviewing provisions of the 2021 Remedial Design/Remedial Action (RD/RA) Model Consent Decree.

While the environmental justice movement has gained traction in the United States, the relationship between agri-food systems and environmental injustices in rural areas has yet to come into focus. This Article explores the relationship between U.S. agricultural exceptionalism and rural environmental justice through examining right-to-farm laws.

This Comment responds to an article published in the February 2022 issue of ELR by Jaclyn Lopez. It discusses the significant agricultural benefits afforded by phosphate fertilizers; summarizes the U.S.

This abstract is adapted from Monte Mills & Martin Nie, Bridges to a New Era: A Report on the Past, Present, and Potential Future of Tribal Co-Management on Federal Public Lands, 44 Pub. Land & Resources L. Rev. 49 (2021), and used with permission.

The United States currently does not have capacity to recycle its waste domestically, nor can it export the amount of waste it once did. Many states are trying to solve this crisis through novel legislation, but states cannot solve this crisis on their own. This Article argues that the federal government should take the lead in developing new law and policy designed to increase national recycling rates.