January 12, 2005

Carrots and Sticks: Different Perspectives on Natural Resource Damage Enforcement

President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “the nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.” On January 12, 2005, the Environmental Law Institute and the New Jersey office of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP hosted a discussion about how to achieve this lofty goal.

Experts Linda Burlington (Senior Counselor for Damage Assessment, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), Bradley M. Campbell (Commissioner, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection), and Tim Kubiak (Assistant Supervisor for Environmental Contaminants and Private Lands, New Jersey Ecological Services Field Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) presented their views on what combination of enforcement tools and settlements can most effectively collect natural resource damages and secure restoration of damaged natural resources.