ELI In the News
Speakers at the Environmental Law Institute’s National Wetlands Awards panel discussion May 17 know there are challenges ahead as the Trump administration launches its efforts to fix the flawed Obama-era “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) rule, including how it may affect wetlands mitigation banks.
With support from Hurricane Sandy funding, Delaware is developing outreach strategies to help concentrate efforts and funding around hot spots for marsh migration to minimize impacts on coastal communities and agricultural producers...In December 2016, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and the Mid Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean (MARCO) released a report that provides a comprehensive look at wetland prioritization activities and tools -- from vulnerability mapping to policies that support living shorelines -- in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, to give practitioners a sense of how peers in their states, and beyond, are working toward resilience.
No matter how efficient a new development may be, growth always comes at a price, with increased demand for water one of the more tangible costs. In areas already experiencing water scarcity, it’s also potentially one of the biggest challenges to long-term sustainability.That’s why the Alliance for Water Efficiency, Environmental Law Institute, and River Network recently released a tool to help communities plan for water-neutral growth.
In short, Trump’s administration can better protect against losses in court if the agencies seek to enact watered-down regulations that look like actual regulations, rather than trying to opt out of regulation altogether. During one roundtable, for instance, Scott Fulton, president of the Environmental Law Institute, said among developments to watch closely would be the Trump administration’s effectiveness and speed of response to any significant environmental crises (think BP oil spill).
Marchers carried tiny wind model turbines to the White House on Saturday, along with banners supporting solar energy, carbon taxes and pipeline resistance.
Water managers in 40 out of 50 states anticipate water shortages within the coming years, according to a 2013 Government Accountability Office survey. Communities in some water-stressed areas already face limits to their development caused by insufficient water supplies.
Robert R. Twilley, executive director of the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program and a professor in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at LSU, is being presented the 2017 National Wetland Award in the science research category from the Environmental Law Institute for helping protect wetlands.
An internationally renowned researcher, he has produced 148 highly cited peer review publications, including the first global carbon budget of mangroves and work on the blue carbon value of mangroves. He also has pioneered a variety of research partnerships, collaborations and outreach projects. In addition to his work in the Mississippi River Delta, he has researched mangroves in Florida, Colombia and Ecuador.
Long-sought Republican bills setting new limits on the science driving EPA regulations could mark the first shot in a broader campaign to rein in the agency’s authority, scientists told Bloomberg BNA... “Requiring that the underlying data be made public is not always possible,” Jay Austin, senior attorney at the Environmental Law Institute, told Bloomberg BNA.
Jeffrey Wood, the acting head of the Justice Department's environmental branch, is having to step aside from dozens of cases facing the government, both because of his past work for an Alabama law firm and Trump administration ethics restrictions, newly released documents show... While a fair number of recusals is not unusual for an ENRD chief, it can pose complications, "particularly in circumstances like this where a new administration has a different policy take on some of the matters that are captured by the recusals," said Scott Fulton, a former Justice Department and EPA attorney who is now president of the nonpartisan Environmental Law Institute.
Connecticut is ready for battle. But no guns, no grenades, no things that go boom here. Just a platoon of lawyers armed with the Clean Air and Water acts and a lot of guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court.