Currents

For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, using cultural burning to generate carbon credits by way of the Australian savanna burning program annually provides $50 million AUD ($33 million USD) in revenue, achieves a reduction of more than one million tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and provides jobs, training, ...

As climate change experts increasingly warn that the world is approaching a breaking point, the question feels less theoretical and more urgent: can international law offer answers to the prospect of mass displacement in relation to climate change? This paper provides a concise overview of the conversation, examining the variety ...

“America, America has a problem.” That problem is lead: a highly toxic metal that contaminates our drinking water. Health disparities emerge, disproportionately impacting Black communities. This Article delves into America’s history of lead in drinking water, recent regulatory efforts, and proposed rulemaking that will lead to a lasting solution.

In Mulberry, Tennessee, residents have begun noticing the growth of a suspicious black fungus. The most likely culprit? Whiskey. This article explores the various challenges and opportunities associated with the community’s use of state law to address the growth of this fungus and find recourse for themselves.

This Article examines the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act. This Article argues that the definition of animal crushing should include the torture of low-value animals. Because the PACT Act presents a legitimate governmental interest in preventing animal cruelty, this interest could extend to low-value animals in other federal ...

In Part I, I review timber trespass under Louisiana law, including its triple damages provision. In Part II, I discuss the availability of mental distress damages for timber trespass. Finally, in Part III, I use Critical Race Theory to analyze the 1988 case of Johnny Evans v. B.R. Bedsole Timber ...

Using data collected by Professor Sarah Lawsky for her annual entry level hiring report, I analyzed trends in the hiring of environmental law professors (“ELPs”) from 2011 2022. With this Analysis, I provide insight into the hiring market for environmental law professors. I hope this Analysis is useful and edifying ...

This paper aims to unearth patterns, successes, and shortcomings of the legal landscape for cattle in the United States. While U.S. law occasionally works to protect cattle against human exploitation, it is not enough. Instead, the United States’ legal approaches to cattle activity should strive to develop empathy and compassion ...

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has underscored the racial, social, and economic disparities that have long plagued every part of American society—including the health of our environment. Given the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minority communities across the country, government officials have focused their efforts on an equitable COVID-19 response. These ...

This Article levels a critique of resource-driven capitalism and the associated, facilitative property rights from the position of ecosystem services. Pitting nature as resource against nature as ecosystem services reveals that the value of nature lies beyond the price of tradeable goods and that economic regicide results not from regulation ...

This Article will explore the little-known legal tools that North Korea has adopted in order to address environmental issues, with a specific focus on the Environmental Protection Law (1986) and the Environmental Impact Assessment Law (2005), because environmental impact assessment can serve as a barometer of the socialist country’s environmental ...

Popular news outlets have effectively covered how homeowners living in high fire risk areas find it increasingly difficult to obtain property insurance. However, there is very little public discussion of, and little scholarship on, how California’s rules against using current and future risk data – including cutting edge climate science ...

While much attention is shed upon the climate crisis, intimately intertwined—and arguably a bigger threat to human stability—is the biodiversity crisis. In particular, current industrial agricultural systems accelerate biodiversity loss and amplify climate change, which in turn intensifies widespread food insecurity and has left over 800 million people without adequate ...

Subnational governments, working with non-governmental advocates, drove climate action during the Trump administration while rebuffing federal rollbacks. Under the Biden administration, focus may initially shift towards the federal government, but the subnational network is critical to continued progress on climate change. I use the term “networked federalism” to describe how ...

As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency turns 50, the federal government remains a laggard on environmental justice. We offer three forward-facing remedies to provide more just outcomes for environmental justice communities through the legal system: refocusing criminal enforcement efforts to prioritize environmental justice communities, further conceptualizing environmental justice communities as ...

There are various public policy approaches to addressing passenger vehicle carbon emissions. In this article I review three possible approaches: raising emissions standards; alternative fuel vehicle subsidies; and congestion charging zones. I propose a set of criteria for evaluating these different policies, and apply those criteria to the three policies. ...

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) grants strong privacy rights, including allowing a consumer to opt out of the sale of her information to third parties, and to request that a business delete her information from its records. At the same time, the electricity industry is transitioning towards a decentralized ...

“The loftiest of purported motivations do not excuse anti-competitive collusion among rivals. That’s long-standing antitrust law.” So begins a USA Today opinion piece by Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General and head of the Antitrust Division. Delrahim was defending a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into four major automakers who had ...

Pursuant to the Endangered Species Act, in October 2019 the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) of the Trump Administration issued a new Biological Opinion (BiOp) for coordinated operations of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project (2019 USFWS BiOp). The 2019 USFWS BiOp issued by the ...

Typically, when a new product comes on the scene, it takes several generations to evaluate its use and environmental impact. However, synthetic plastics really only began to take over around 50 years ago, and we’re already seeing a movement to ban, or at least drastically reduce, the material.