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Environmental Law\u27s Heartland and Frontiers
Get PDFThis short paper offers three propositions to help maintain the traditional core of environmental law while also expanding environmental concerns into the frontiers of the field: 1. Environmental law in the heartland and environmental law at the frontiers of the field differ in important ways. 2. The distinctive features of the heartland and frontiers provide important functional benefits for the adaptive development of environmental law in each respective area. 3. Maintaining a distinctive heartland and frontiers of environmental law creates a dialectic relationship between the two that includes tension but also, if properly managed, potential synergies.
The locus of innovation moving forward is likely to be outside of the traditional domain of environmental law--in areas that are at the frontiers of environmental law, but in the heart of related fields such as energy law, corporate social responsibility, and insurance. At the same time, environmental law\u27s heartland will continue to dominate the regulation of environmental harms for the foreseeable future. The future of environmental law therefore will be determined by a dialectic relationship between the heartland and frontiers of environmental law; each playing its own crucial role in the development of the field, in tension but also significantly dependent on the other
A Sitting Duck: Local Government Regulation of Hunting and Weapons Discharge in the State of New York
Get PDFOn March 31, 2014, the New York State Legislature significantly modified New York\u27s Environmental Conservation Law. The Environmental Conservation Law imposes limitations on the discharge of longbows. A longbow is defined by New York\u27s Department of Environmental Conservation as “a longbow, recurve bow or compound bow which is designed to be used by holding the bow at arm\u27s length, with arrow on the string, and which is drawn, pulled and released by hand or with the aid of a hand-held trigger device attached to the bowstring.”
Before the 2014 amendment, longbows could not be discharged in such a way that an arrow passes over a road or within 500 feet of a dwelling, except with the consent of the owner of such dwelling. The 2014 amendment reduced this 500-foot setback to 150 feet, making New York\u27s rule generally consistent with that of neighboring states. This is a radical difference: a circle with a 500 foot radius has an area of slightly over 18 acres while a circle with a 150 foot radius has an area of slightly over 1.6 acres
The Dimming Light of the IDEA: The Need to Reevaluate the Definition of a Free Appropriate Public Education
Get PDFThis paper has five parts. Part I examines Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), explains the definition of a free appropriate public education (“FAPE”), and explores IDEA’s protections for special-education students facing school discipline. Part II discusses the Supreme Court’s interpretation of IDEA and FAPE, as well as how lower courts have interpreted IDEA. Part III focuses on how schools implement IDEA and treat special-education students. Part IV explores the disproportionate effects of school suspension on disabled students and explains the negative impacts, such as the Pipeline. Part V argues that Congress and the Supreme Court must reevaluate what constitutes FAPE. Additional comprehensive research is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of IAES placements. The pervasive use of suspensions to deal with minor disruptions is counterproductive. A strong education is the best way for disabled students to stay out of the Pipeline. Ineffective IAES placements compromise the goal of a full, fair and appropriate public education
Exploring the relationship between psychological symptoms and ethnic connectedness among the New York Metropolitan Area Haitian community to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti
No full textThe 2010 Haitian earthquake resulted in many casualties, mass relocation, and worsened the quality of life for many Haitians already dealing with poverty. Haitians who were living abroad experienced the tragedy through the media and rallied to send aid to friends and family. The goal of this research study was to determine whether Haitian connectedness among Haitians living in the United States was associated with increased symptoms of secondary traumatic stress, anxiety, and depression as a result of the earthquake. Haitian connectedness was measured through questionnaires designed to capture aspects of transnational relationships along with levels of ethnic identity and acculturation. Participants for this study were Haitians recruited through various churches and community organizations within the New York Metropolitan Area. There were 105 participants (women = 57.1%; men= 42.9%) aged 19 to 83 in the final analytic sample. While the overall analyses mostly did not support hypotheses, the results indicated that first generation immigrants from Haiti reported more secondary traumatic stress but not more symptoms of anxiety and depression than Haitian Americans who were born in the United States It also became apparent that the participant\u27s age of immigration to the United States was positively associated with symptoms of secondary traumatic stress. An unplanned exploratory analysis indicated an indirect relationship between age of immigration to the United States and symptoms of depression and anxiety through the mechanism of secondary traumatic stress. The results demonstrate that many Haitians living in the United States continue to have important connections and familial obligations to those back in Haiti. These connections can be a source of empowerment but can also be a source of psychological stress, especially when unexpected tragedies occur. Clinical implications for these findings are discussed
Promoting Sustainable Development Through Environmental Law: Prospects for Saudi Arabia
Get PDFThe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia enjoys a rich cultural and natural heritage and has an advanced state of socio- economic development. It also suffers from a wide range of growing environmental problems such as securing its potable water supply, coping with solid and liquid waste, ensuring clean air or protecting the marine environment. It is the objective of sustainable development to ensure that further development in the Kingdom does not damage the public health of the people or the natural environment. The policies underlying sustainable development have developed internationally over the past four decades and are well explained in Agenda 21 (1992) restated in the Sustainable Development Goals (2014). One of the three pillars of sustainable development is protection of the environment. Islam provides a foundation for the Kingdom’s duty to protect the environment. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has enacted an ambitious body of environment law to support this pillar, but these laws are not yet effectively implemented. Its environment management systems are not protecting the environment, and measures are needed to strengthen environmental regulation. To do so, the Kingdom needs to provide education and training about environmental protection, to improve the administration of its environmental management, and to adopt and implement modern procedures that ensure compliance with – and enforcement – of the Kingdom’s environmental laws. Principally, the Kingdom needs to use an environmental management system (“EMS”) and to require wide use of the ISO 14000 standards and audits. And to employ the methodologies of the International Network on Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (“INECE”), it should also establish a committee on performance which would oversee compliance with and enforcement of environmental law. The Kingdom should be guided by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and above all by its religious values, to establish an effective environmental law compliance and enforcement regime
Regulating Farming: Balancing Food Safety and Environmental Protection in A Cooperative Governance Regime
Get PDFAfter providing a brief overview of regulation in each area, Part I of this Article identifies three types of discordance between produce safety and environmental protection on farms. First, because of limited resources, farmers will have to choose between implementing food safety practices and implementing environmental practices. Second, indirect trade-offs between the two regulatory goals result in damaging collateral consequences for the environment. Food safety regulation may exacerbate a range of existing environmental harms. Third, there is at least one direct clash that may make compliance with food safety law incompatible with participation in certain environmental programs. Part I also addresses the possibility that some environmental protection practices may also improve food safety.
Part II considers when and by whom these trade-offs are evaluated during the regulatory process. It argues that existing trade-off management tools fall short for agricultural regulation because they fail to take into consideration the structure of cooperative governance, which delays many of the regulatory decisions until after rulemaking is over.
Part III offers a typology of trade-off management tools. It categorizes these solutions based on when in the regulatory process each of these tools is used. Part III then proposes a solution aimed at reducing the Food Safety Act\u27s collateral environmental consequences. It calls on the FDA to require farmers to conduct written evaluations of trade-offs between food safety and environmental protection
Plain Meaning, Precedent, and Metaphysics: Interpreting the “Navigable Waters” Element of the Federal Water Pollution Offense
Get PDFThis Article, the third in a series of five, examines the meaning of “navigable waters” under the Clean Water Act. It traces the traditional judicial interpretation of navigable waters and how Congress and EPA attempted to extend its meaning, then examines how the term has been applied in the context of tributaries and wetlands, isolated waters, groundwater, and EPA’s unitary theory of navigable waters. The author then analyzes EPA and the Corps’ 2014 proposed amendments to the definition of “waters of the United States,” and concludes that those amendments may resolve much of the interpretive crisis
Maine Distributed Solar Valuation Study
Get PDFDuring its 2014 session, the Maine Legislature enacted an Act to Support Solar Energy Development in Maine. P.L Chapter 562 (April 24, 2014) (codified at 35‐A M.R.S. §§ 3471‐3473) (“Act”). Section 1 of the Act contains the Legislative finding that it is in the public interest is to develop renewable energy resources, including solar energy, in a manner that protects and improves the health and well‐being of the citizens and natural environment of the State while also providing economic benefits to communities, ratepayers and the overall economy of the State.
Section 2 of the Act requires the Public Utilities Commission (Commission) to determine the value of distributed solar energy generation in the State, evaluate implementation options, and to deliver a report to the Legislature. To support this work, the Commission engaged a project team comprising Clean Power Research (Napa, California), Sustainable Energy Advantage (Framingham, Massachusetts), Pace Energy and Climate Center at the Pace Law School (White Plains, New York), and Dr. Richard Perez (Albany, New York).
Under the project, the team developed the methodology under a Commission‐run stakeholder review process, conducted a valuation on distributed solar for three utility territories, and developed a summary of implementation options for increasing deployment of distributed solar generation in the State.
The report includes three volumes which accompany this Executive Summary: Volume I Methodology; Volume II Valuation Results; Volume III Implementation Options