The U.S. Supreme Court’s May ruling in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency sharply limited the scope of the federal Clean Water Act’s (CWA’s) protection for the nation’s waters. The Court redefined the Act’s coverage of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS), effectively removing protection from many wetlands that have been covered under the Act for almost a half century. On June 8, 2023, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts that analyzed the consequences of Sackett and discussed what actions can be taken to protect non-WOTUS waters.

This abstract is adapted from Justin R. Pidot & Ezekiel A. Peterson, Conservation Rights-of-Way on Public Lands, 55 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 89 (2022), and used with permission.

Climate change is ravaging the flora and fauna of the United States and contributes to ecosystem damage, including the conversion of Alaskan forests to savannah grasslands, rising sea levels that have destroyed the Key deer’s habitat, and warming regional temperatures that have stifled the growth of crops in the Northeast. What if there were a way for species to thrive away from the sinking coasts and changing landscapes that they have historically inhabited?

As overfishing has depleted wild fisheries, U.S. policymakers have pushed aquaculture as an ideal paradigm for ocean fisheries. However, the public perception and myths of finfish commercial aquaculture are far from its reality. This Article examines the industrial aquaculture debate through the lens of Gulf Fishermens Ass’n v. National Marine Fisheries Service, where conservationists and fishermen challenged the first-ever rulemaking to set up a new aquaculture industry in U.S. federal waters.

More severe storms and rising sea levels resulting from a changing climate pose a threat to ecosystems along the U.S. coast. These include beaches, dunes, wetlands, and marshes, which provide significant environmental, recreational, and economic benefits. Practices to sustain these ecosystems are available, but are not well understood, face legal and financial obstacles, and have not been widely implemented. On January 19, 2023, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts who explored measures and practices for sustaining coastal wetlands in the face of a changing climate.

In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. In a forthcoming book, leading legal scholars examine each of the SDGs and recommend a suite of government, private-sector, and civil society actions to help the United States achieve these goals. This Article is adapted from Chapter 15 of that book, Governing for Sustainability (John C. Dernbach & Scott E. Schang eds., ELI Press, forthcoming 2023).

October 18, 2022, marked the anniversary of the Clean Water Act (CWA), the primary federal law governing pollution control and quality of the waters of the United States. Though the Act has achieved vital successes, whether they can be sustained and how further progress can be made remain fundamental questions. On October 25, 2022, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts at its 2022 Annual Policy Forum to evaluate the past 50 years of the CWA, while looking ahead to the next 50 years.

This Article examines the nature of the threats that climate change poses and will continue to pose for salmon recovery, as well as possible legal responses to combat these threats. It also considers the future prospects of Pacific salmon in a world that will include significant climate change and other threats to preserving and equitably apportioning the salmon resource, whose environmental sensitivity and expansive life cycle will continue to pose substantial challenges for the foreseeable future.

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.

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.