Using Data to Boost Household Recycling
glass bottles and jars
ELR Staff
Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Household recycling can reduce demand for virgin materials, limit waste sent to landfills, and lessen the cost of producing metal-, glass-, and paper-containing products. Understanding the policies most conducive to promoting recycling is key to success. The November 2023 issue of ELR—The Environmental Law Reporter looks at the efficacy of state and local recycling policies and identifies contexts where the greatest improvements are possible. Using the most comprehensive data set on U.S. household recycling behavior, authors Joel Huber, W.

Does "Sackett v. EPA" Signal the Unraveling of Federal Environmental Law?
rope
ELR Staff
Wednesday, November 1, 2023

On May 25, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated a major swath of CWA protections when it issued its decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency. In the Court’s view, the CWA extends to only those "wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are 'waters of the United States' in their own right," such that they are indistinguishable from those waters.

Highlighting Innovative Legal Scholarship Proposals: Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review 2023
The 2022-2023 ELPAR Vanderbilt University Law Students with ELI Senior Attorney Linda Breggin (first row, third from right) and Professor Michael Vandenbergh (first row, far left).
Tori Rickman
Tuesday, August 1, 2023

Each year, the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR)—a collaboration between Vanderbilt University Law School (VULS) and ELI— identifies some of the year’s best academic articles that present legal and policy solutions to pressing environmental problems.

Global Coalition Awarded the 2023 UN Humans Rights Prize
Planet Earth held by two hands in a green tint
Kristine Perry
Thursday, July 20, 2023

By formally recognizing the Right to a Clean, Healthy, and Sustainable Environment through two separate resolutions in 2022, the United Nations has set the stage for a more just and inclusive world. Big headlines like this often overlook all the background work necessary to make it happen. That’s what makes the 2023 UN Human Rights Prize incredibly exciting.

Elevating Women’s Leadership for Effective Transboundary Water Cooperation
Elevating Women's Leadership for Effective Transboundary Water Conference
Ashley Dawn Anderson
Tuesday, July 11, 2023

Water is life. All living things depend on water; human society depends on water. We need water for drinking, sanitation, food security, biodiversity, sustainable development—truly everything. Even though water is necessary for life, so many of us lack access to water. Water scarcity and water pollution are worsening, all while water demand is increasing.

ELI Has Always Been a Thought Leader
ELI logo
John Pendergrass
Thursday, July 6, 2023

The conference at Airlie House in September 1969 produced the Environmental Law Institute and Law and the Environment, a book of the papers presented at the meeting. Though published by one of ELI’s fiscal sponsors, it demonstrates that from its very beginning, ELI was at the forefront of environmental law. ELI and the American Law Institute began their collaboration educating attorneys about environmental law in 1970.

What Comes Next for Clean Water? Six Consequences of Sackett v. EPA
A map of the United States depicting which states are reliant on WOTUS, and which are not.
James M. McElfish, Jr.
Friday, May 26, 2023

On May 25 the Supreme Court, ruling in Sackett v. EPA, sharply limited the scope of the federal Clean Water Act’s protection for the nation’s waters. The Court redefined the Act’s coverage of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS), which has been hotly contested since the Court’s previous 2006 decision in Rapanos v. United States.

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