The Tana River in northernmost Norway is the most diverse Atlantic salmon river in the world. Its native salmon population has declined dramatically and resulted in a fishing ban that has affected indigenous life and distressed the local economy. Concern is mounting over the secondary infestation of Pacific pink salmon, transplanted decades ago, which creates a potential threat to the river’s genetic diversity and challenges the regime structures of international fisheries.

Seventy phosphogypsum stacks are scattered throughout the United States, concentrated in low-wealth and Black, indigenous, and people of color communities. These radioactive waste heaps have a long history of failures, and present a substantial hazard and unreasonable risk of harm. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should swiftly move to regulate these environmental and public health hazards. This Article examines the regulatory failures that have given rise to the proliferation of phosphogypsum stacks in vulnerable communities and sensitive environments in the United States.

This Article discusses how disparate environmental burdens can be addressed using environmental justice (EJ) screening tools. It identifies states that have developed state-specific EJ screening tools, analyzes these tools’ functions, and identifies strategies to overcome resistance to them. The authors conducted interviews with multiple stakeholder groups to understand how state-specific screening tools are used, and make a series of recommendations for states to follow as they proceed in their efforts to develop EJ screening tools.

More than 50 years ago, Franklin Kury drafted and championed an Environmental Rights Amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution. His book, The Constitutional Question to Save the Planet: The Right to a Healthy Environment (ELI Press 2021), expands upon the story of his amendment to demonstrate how its principles can be the basis for addressing climate change in the rest of the world.

Evaluating government programs is a relatively new idea for China’s government and policymakers. Many policies and programs continue to be evaluated based on procedural standards rather than on actual performance. This Article investigates how program evaluations and the knowledge they produce find their way into China’s environmental policy.

As in prior years, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 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.

This Comment asserts that hiring outside counsel in complex, specialized matters and recovering enforcement costs is crucial for local jurisdictions across the nation, especially in the code enforcement and nuisance abatement context, and discusses the California Court of Appeal's decision in City of Norco v. Mugar as a signal to cities and counties that access to outside legal counsel in the realm of code enforcement is squarely permissible and clearly necessary under California law.

Despite existing laws, communities across the United States are exposed to dangerous environmental conditions that can have devastating effects on public health. One emerging mechanism to address these issues are “green amendments,” self-executing provisions added to a state constitution that recognize and protect the rights of all people, including future generations, to pure water, clean air, and a stable climate.

When the Internal Revenue Service began disallowing gifts of perpetual conservation easements for claimed failures of perpetuity requirements, it tumbled land trusts, landowners, and the U.S. Tax Court down the rabbit hole to a baffling land below. The Service’s drop into matters beyond valuation and into elements intended and necessary for easement durability and flexibility has caused a confusing array of Tax Court decisions.

Faced with interconnected crises—affordable housing, and environmental and climate injustice—in low-income, disadvantaged, and Black and Brown communities, this Comment asserts that President Joseph Biden should adopt the same or similar approach of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and challenge Congress to enact sweeping environmental and climate justice legislation in the first 100 days.