Volume 49 (2022)

This is the culminating panel of Ecology Law Quarterly’s 2022 Annual Symposium entitled “Black Women Talk.” The moderators were Candice Youngblood and Alicia Arrington. Speakers included Savonala “Savi” Horne and Kimberly Leefatt.

The third panel of the Annual Symposium was entitled “Green Economy.” The moderator was Dan Farber and speakers included Renee Hatcher and Jose “JB” Tengco.

The Second Panel of the Annual Symposium was entitled “Government Transition.” The Moderator was Ted Lamm and speakers included Louise Bedsworth, Kate Gordon, and Alegría De La Cruz.

The first panel of the 2022 Annual Symposium was entitled “California Carbon Offsets.” The moderator was Colin Mickle, and speakers included Danny Cullenward and Neena Mohan.

This year, we are pleased to be publishing the direct transcripts from the Symposium. Our panelists provided a wealth of thoughtful commentary throughout four panels, and we know readers will appreciate the nuance and candor they brought to each discussion.

We hope this Article serves as a useful reminder that super-statutes aren’t super for all time. In 1970, in the wake of massive construction projects and rapid development across California, it was reasonable to believe that slowing construction down would help the environment. The foundational CEQA cases were decided accordingly. ...

This Article argues that litigation, when deployed critically and strategically, can have important material and cultural benefits for social movements. The Cricket Hollow Zoo campaign vividly demonstrates litigation’s positive direct and indirect effects. At the same time, the case study illustrates some of the risks and limits of relying on ...

In 2021, Wisconsin’s supreme court rejected the notion that Act 21 alters the DNR’s broad and explicit statutory charge to act as a trustee of the state’s waters, as written into sections 281.11 and 281.12 of the Wisconsin Statutes. The interviews with Water Specialists and their supervisors demonstrate that these ...

Going forward, both formal regulation and informal mechanisms are needed to create better accountability for large-scale environmental technology solutions. Despite the potential consequences, new technologies hold real promise for improving ecosystem health and environmental management globally. Many potential features could improve governance of these technologies, but it is essential that ...

Environmental law covers a lot of territory, intersecting with energy law and land use law. The range of topics in the Annual Review is a tribute to the diversity of the field. The contributions to this issue demonstrate that innovative legal analysis can not only advance legal doctrine, but can ...

The Court’s major questions doctrine is deeply flawed and should be renounced. There are several reasons for this conclusion: the doctrine lacks analytical rigor; it aggrandizes the judiciary at the expense of constitutionally mandated separation of powers principles; it is unnecessary, since existing mechanisms provide more than adequate judicial review ...

This Note proposes a new standard for review in the spirit of both the precautionary principle and the deference owed to agency decisions on technical matters. Such a standard is grounded in the ESA and the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill.

There are various possible methods for the United States to become more forward-looking, which is essential if we are going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect future generations from climate change. The United States is unlikely to follow precisely in the footsteps of France and Germany because Notre Affaire ...

The United States Forest Service (USFS) is the federal agency responsible for overseeing all national forests and grasslands. The agency’s forest management duties rest on a careful balancing of interests. This Note argues for transferring the duty to conduct such NEPA reviews to another agency entirely, the Environmental Protection Agency. ...

Climate events are only going to get worse. Water in the Pecos Basin is becoming more scarce. To apportion Pecos River water properly, Texas and New Mexico must work together to create a more comprehensive compact that delineates how to apportion losses from climate-related events. The Supreme Court need not ...

Clean Air Council is a victory for both states chafing under federal regulatory oversight and polluters seeking to reduce their compliance burdens. However, the decision creates new hurdles for the federal government’s efforts to mitigate air pollution and climate change. Working with incomplete information about air pollution, federal regulators will ...

The 2021 chlorpyrifos tolerance revocation is undoubtedly a victory for public health. However, the rule has not eliminated the risks that chlorpyrifos poses to agricultural workers, their families, and their neighbors. Many workers will continue to experience the health risks that the chemical poses, even as policymakers and the public ...

This Note sets out to evaluate the implementation problems surrounding Order No. 841 as they relate to the governance structures of RTOs. It argues that, in RTOs, poor implementation of the order roughly correlates with governance structures that prop up traditional energy interests to the detriment of alternative resources. FERC ...

The Supreme Court in Guam clarified a minor but important detail of CERCLA to ensure that states and territories, especially those impacted by U.S. military activity, that enter into settlements under environmental laws have clearcut options to recover cleanup costs. Guam’s holding maintains CERCLA’s cooperative federalism and respect for states’ ...

Knowing it will be judicially reviewed, an agency is pressured to produce well-reasoned and researched rules. This relationship creates a “lever” by which those who care about well-documented rules inside the judiciary and agencies can move those who act contrary to science or technical expertise. In Friends of Animals, the ...