As climate change worsens, so does the risk of wildfires. This is especially so in already hot, dry areas such as the western United States. Adding to this problem is the rapid growth of the wildland-urban interface (WUI). As more and more houses are built in the WUI, wildfires will pose an even greater risk to lives and homes, they will be harder to fight, and letting natural fires burn will become impossible.  This Comment argues that end-consumers who live in the WUI should, to a much greater extent than is currently the case, internalize the full costs of their choices and actions under principles of environmental justice and other notions of fairness in law and policymaking.

Economywide legislation to address climate change will be ineffective unless it addresses greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land use. Yet incorporating these sectors into the most popular policy proposal—a carbon tax—carries legal risk that policymakers and legal commentators have ignored. This Article explores whether a carbon tax, as applied to agriculture and land use, is a direct tax within the meaning of the Constitution; it concludes that text, history, and Supreme Court precedent up through National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (2012) leaves such a tax open to challenge. Consequently, policymakers should avoid eliminating EPA’s regulatory authority over greenhouse gas emissions in exchange for a carbon tax.

Greenhouse gas emissions from transportation in the United States have remained persistently high. One cause is common low-density land use patterns that make most Americans dependent on automobiles. Reducing these emissions requires increasing density, which U.S. local government law makes difficult to achieve through the political process. Mount Laurel, a 1975 New Jersey Supreme Court case that addressed an affordable housing crisis by restraining local parochialism, provides a potential solution. Environmental advocates may be able to mount similar state-law challenges against low-density zoning based on the high carbon emissions it produces. Such a challenge is legally and normatively defensible in New Jersey and other states.