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Volume 51.3 Front Matter

Sophie Allan

September 15th 2025

Ecology Law Quarterly Volume 51.3 Front Matter

Volume 51.3 Table of Contents

Sophie Allan

September 15th 2025

Ecology Law Quarterly Volume 51.3 Table of Contents

Public Trust and Water Rights: A Western States Update

Sophie Allan

September 15th 2025

Through a state-by-state review, this Article explores the diverse state responses to the public trust doctrine. This overdue review provides valuable context for practitioners, scholars, and jurists wrestling with the integration of the public trust and water rights. The article sets the stage for the next forty years of water ...

Shifty Air: Environmental Justice and the Working Class

Sophie Allan

September 15th 2025

This Article sets out to expose and examine an overlooked dimension of environmental justice scholarship—the differential treatment of the working class.

Overselling BIL and IRA

Sophie Allan

September 15th 2025

This Article argues that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) were less likely to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions than believed when enacted, and that a misconceived narrative of spending effectiveness undercut the perceived urgency of further legislative action on climate change in the United States.

Private Law for Land Back

Sophie Allan

September 15th 2025

This Article describes the emerging role of private entities in returning land and land access to Indigenous peoples.

Volume 51.2 Front Matter

Malia Libby

April 10th 2025

Ecology Law Quarterly Volume 51.2 Front Matter

Foreword for Ecology Law Quarterly, Volume 51.2

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

We are honored to introduce Ecology Law Quarterly’s Annual Review for 2023–24 presented in this 51.2 edition. The Annual Review represents a unique opportunity to highlight the academic scholarship of Berkeley Law students. This year’s selection of cases range from covering landmark decisions on our nation’s foundational environmental statutes to ...

Establishing Incentives for Building Electrification through Congress: How to Strengthen and Accelerate Local Decarbonization Efforts

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This Note argues that Congress can and should pass new federal building electrification legislation to protect, incentivize, and accelerate local electrification efforts.

Extraterritorial Toxics: Regulating California Hazardous Waste After National Pork Producers Council v. Ross

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This Note analyzes and applies the Supreme Court’s reasoning in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross (NPPC) to make two arguments. First, it argues the majority’s analysis of extraterritoriality in NPPC reinforces the case for overruling the previous “garbage cases” and refocusing the Dormant Commerce Clause (DCC) on protectionism. Second, ...

A Textualist’s Guide to “Waters of the United States” and Federal Environmental Statutes

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This Note first examines how textualism’s plain meaning rule requires the enacted purposes canon. Next, it examines the Clean Water Act and its purposes section, which is ideal for interpretation under the enacted purposes canon because of its clarity, specificity, and comprehensiveness. Finally, it examines the conservative split in Sackett ...

“Tó éí iiná”—Water is Life: Repairing the Indian Trust Doctrine With an “Environmental Justice-Plus” Agency Approach

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This Note focuses on the Navajo Nation’s unqualified right to divert water from the Colorado River, the decreed rights of the Nation versus undecreed rights, and how administrative agencies can employ an EJ-plus lens to provide the Nation with administrative solutions.

How Can a Mandatory Right-to-Repair Address the Global E-Waste Problem?

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

Focusing on the tail end of the material life cycle of e-products, this Note raises issues regarding e-waste pollution including how the global trade of this hazardous waste creates informal economies that can be harmful to human health and the environment. It proposes a domestic policy measure that could reduce ...

Turning Tides: The D.C. Circuit Will Not Give the Benefit of the Doubt to Endangered Species

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This In Brief explores Maine Lobstermen’s Association v. National Marine Fisheries Service. It argues that the D.C. Circuit’s textualist approach to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and refusal to give the benefit of the doubt to the endangered North Atlantic right whale (NARW) limits the scope of agency interpretations when ...

Reeling in Commercial Fishing: Federal Jurisdiction and the San Francisco Bay Herring Population

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This In Brief explores how the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in SF Herring Association was based primarily on statutory interpretation of the GGNRA Act distinguished from ANILCA and therefore was a narrow holding on the Park Service’s ability to administer the waters of the San Francisco Bay. However, the ruling has ...

Using the European Sustainability Reporting Standards to Address Climate Change

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This In Brief examines the role of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) in climate change action, including the evolution of sustainability reporting and materiality assessment nuances. To mitigate the non-disclosure issue, this In Brief argues that it is necessary to interpret the ESRS to recognize climate change issues as ...

Klamath Irrigation District v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation: Defending Tribal Treaty Rights in the Drought-Stricken West

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This In Brief highlights that in Klamath Irrigation Dist., the Ninth Circuit signaled that where government, private, and Tribal interests conflict, courts will be wary of non-Tribal entities alleging they adequately represent Tribal interests. The Court emphasized that Tribes could protect their treaty rights by asserting their sovereign immunity in ...

Seeing the Forest Through the Trees: A Look at Murphy Company v. Biden and the Reclassification of Federal Timberlands

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This In Brief explores Murphy Company v. Biden, in which the Ninth Circuit ruled that the O&C Act and the Antiquities Act did not conflict and that Proclamation 9564 was a proper use of presidential authority. While the Ninth Circuit held that Proclamation 9564 was consistent with the O&C Act ...

Major Federal Inaction: Harrison County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Bonnet Carré Spillway

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This In Brief analyzes the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Harrison County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Harrison County). It argues that while the decision aligns with precedent, Harrison County is out of step with the urgent need for the Corps to incorporate climate change into its decision making. It ...

Vacating Vacatur: How Remedies Are Fashioned Under the National Environmental Policy Act

Sophie Allan

April 10th 2025

This In Brief explores how the Tenth Circuit’s failure to vacate the applications for permits to drill (APDs) in Diné Citizens v. Haaland was a missed opportunity to operate an effective check on agencies taking advantage of NEPA’s broad language. NEPA and the standard of judicial review associated with NEPA ...

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