• Environmental Law Review Syndicate - Scholarship

    FERC Relicensing and its Continued Role in Improving Fish Passage at Pacific Northwest Dams

    Skylar Sumner, Lewis & Clark Law School. This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate.  I. Introduction The history of the American west is inextricably intertwined with damming rivers.[1] Whether for navigation, irrigation, or hydroelectric power, nearly every American river has been dammed.[2] In fact, stretching back to the day the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, determined Americans have finished an average of one large-scale dam every day.[3] Currently, there are at least 76,000 dams in this country.[4] While these dams have vastly contributed to America’s efforts to settle the west, they have come with significant costs.…

  • Environmental Law Review Syndicate - Scholarship

    MS4 Regulation and Water Quality Standards

    Matt Carlisle, Vermont Law School, JD Candidate 2017 This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. Read the original here and leave a comment. 1. Introduction Storm water is a major polluter. As one judge put it, “Storm water runoff is one of the most significant sources of water pollution in the nation, at times ‘comparable to, if not greater than, contamination from industrial and sewage sources.’”[1] Storm water “runoff may contain or mobilize high levels of contaminants, such as sediment, suspended solids, nutrients (phosphorous and nitrogen), heavy metals and other toxic pollutants, pathogens, toxins, oxygen-demanding substances (organic…

  • Environmental Law Review Syndicate - Scholarship

    The SB 32 Scoping Plan Update, Waivers, and ZEVs

    Garrett Lenahan, UCLA School of Law, JD Candidate 2017 This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. Read the original here and leave a comment. I. Scoping Plan Background  Two prominent pieces of Californian legislation that seek to address climate change are Assembly Bill 32 (“AB 32”) and Senate Bill 32 (“SB 32”). AB 32 required California to reduce its greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions to the 1990 level by 2020. It tasked the Air Resources Board with creating a Scoping Plan for reaching those levels. The original scoping plan contained a range of programs that would reduce GHG emissions…

  • Environmental Law Review Syndicate - Scholarship

    Repurposing Ecolabels: Consumer Pressure as a Tool to Abate Human Rights Violations in International Fisheries

    By Andrew Miller Andrew Miller is a law student at Berkeley and Articles Editor at Ecology Law Quarterly. This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. Introduction In March of 2015, the Associated Press (AP) published AP Investigation: Slaves May Have Caught the Fish You Bought.[1] It was the first in a series of articles the AP would publish over the next eighteen months detailing the squalor and oppression faced daily by thousands of Southeast Asian fishermen.[2] What caught readers’ attention, however, was not merely the unmasking of abuse.[3] It was the reference to Safeway.[4] It was the reference to Wal-Mart.[5]…

  • Environmental Law Review Syndicate - Scholarship

    ELRS Post: Week of 4/17/17

    This week’s post, Navigating with an Ocean Liner: The Clean Water Rule, Trump’s Executive Order, and the Future of “Waters of the United States,“ was written by Kacy Manahan, a clinical student at Earthrise Law Center at Lewis & Clark Law School and the 2017–2018 Symposium Editor for Environmental Law. She may be reached at kmanahan@lclark.edu. Read the post here.

  • Environmental Law Review Syndicate - Scholarship

    Navigating with an Ocean Liner: The Clean Water Rule, Trump’s Executive Order, and the Future of “Waters of the United States”

    By Kacy Manahan Kacy Manahan is a 3L at Lewis & Clark School of Law and Symposium Editor of Environmental Law. This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. I. Introduction The scope of the Clean Water Act’s jurisdiction has been controversial throughout the statute’s history. Reconciling the extent of Congress’ Commerce Clause authority with the reality of vast hydrological connections across the United States has been an unenviable task delegated to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps). This post is a comprehensive, though certainly not exhaustive, examination of…