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Vibrant Environment
Biodiversity | Climate Change and Sustainability | Environmental Justice | Governance and Rule of Law | Land Use and Natural Resources | Oceans and Coasts | Pollution Control
And You Can't Get Out of the Game
By Stephen R. Dujack, Editor, The Environmental Forum®
Wednesday, July 15, 2020
When I was a philosophy student at Princeton in the 1970s, our department was rated number one nationally because of its stars in analytic theory. But the hottest department was Harvard’s, where two professors who were office neighbors held opposing viewpoints on social philosophy and wrote bestsellers — an anomaly for such scholarly works.
Public Participation at a Distance: Engaging in Gulf Restoration Processes During the Pandemic
By Stephanie Oehler, Public Interest Law Fellow
Tuesday, July 14, 2020
Public meetings are a fundamental component of many policymaking and planning processes, including the natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) process that aims to restore the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem and the permitting and environmental review procedures for individual projects.
Not Business as Usual: Private Climate Action
By ELR Staff
Wednesday, July 8, 2020
Over the past several years, quiet initiatives by private actors to cut carbon emissions, adopt climate-smart agriculture practices, and increase renewable energy have grown in scope and ambition. These private efforts are not mandated by public law, yet collectively they take on the attributes and functions of a governance system that could be vital to societal decarbonization. But according to ELI Visiting Scholar Lou Leonard, this system “is at a delicate moment, perhaps having flown too far, too fast.
Remote Depositions—An Expert’s Perspective
By A.J. Gravel , Senior Managing Director of Environmental Solutions, FTI Consulting
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
I have been deposed dozens of times over the course of my career as an expert in forensic history and environmental cost analysis. Due to COVID-19, however, I recently sat for my first remote deposition wherein all parties (myself, defending attorney, deposing attorney, court reporter, and observers) were in different locations across the country and were connected to the deposition using a digital platform.
An Ongoing Battle: Fighting the Impacts of Uranium Mining in Southwestern Indigenous Communities
By Siena Fouse, Intern, Research and Publications
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Indigenous communities in the Southwestern United States have been battling the impacts of uranium mining since the early 1940s. The geology of the Colorado Plateau was found to be rich in the radioactive mineral and drew mining to the area. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sought uranium to develop nuclear weapons during the Cold War, which fueled the interest of mining companies that opened uranium mines and mills on and around indigenous land.
Complex Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Climate Mitigation
By Alan B. Horowitz, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Director, Climate Change Research Network, Co-director, Energy, Environment, and Land Use Program, Vanderbilt University, and Margaret Badding , Research and Publications Intern, ELI
Monday, June 22, 2020
With the sweeping and difficult changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, including social distancing and an economic downturn with record-high unemployment, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have plummeted globally. Reductions in emissions for the year are projected to be between 4% and 7% globally and between 6.7% and 11% in the United States.
Getting to the Meat of the Matter
By ELR Staff
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic is affecting a variety of industries, from travel to retail to restaurants. But perhaps the hardest-hit are meat and poultry processing plants, which have been experiencing outbreaks throughout the United States. In April, President Trump issued an Executive Order declaring these plants “critical infrastructure” to make sure they stay open, and the number of cases in these plants continued to rise in the days and weeks that followed. According to the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, as of June 15 there have been over 25,000 reported positive cases tied to meatpacking facilities in at least 235 plants in 33 states, and at least 90 reported worker deaths at 39 plants in 24 states.
Mapping Inequity
By Siena Fouse, Intern, Research and Publications, and Lovinia Reynolds , Policy Analyst and Environmental Justice Coordinator
Wednesday, June 10, 2020
To address environmental inequity, we first need to understand where inequity exists geographically. Maps help model our reality and are a useful tool for locating and addressing environmental inequity. The power of maps in environmental justice was first revealed in 1987 in Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States, published by the Commission on Racial Justice.
New Executive Environmental Waiver—What Does It Do?
By James M. McElfish, Jr., Senior Attorney; Director, Sustainable Use of Land Program, and Jay Austin, Senior Attorney; Editor-in-Chief, Environmental Law Reporter®
Monday, June 8, 2020
On June 4, President Trump signed an Executive Order entitled “Accelerating the Nation’s Economic Recovery from the COVID-19 Emergency by Expediting Infrastructure Investments and Other Activities.” The Order notes that in his March 13 declaration of a national emergency related to the pandemic, the President had invoked “national security” under the National Emergencies Act, 50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq., and “an emergency of nationwide scope” under the Stafford Act, 42 U.S.C. 5191(b).
Disparity, Disease, and Drinking Water: COVID-19 and Safe Drinking Water Access in Indian Country
By Cynthia R. Harris, Staff Attorney; Director of Tribal Programs; Deputy Director of the Center for State, Tribal, and Local Environmental Programs
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Pandemics are global in nature, but their impacts are anything but uniform. COVID-19 is exposing substantial inequities, including disproportionate health and economic consequences for minorities. From medical care to broadband, different demographics have vastly different access to critical resources in a widespread crisis. Indian country is especially hard hit by coronavirus. It is the locus where matters of public health, Indigenous sovereignty, and environmental justice collide. Access to clean, safe, and affordable water offers a particularly stark example. Without water, even following the common sense admonition to frequently wash one’s hands becomes an insurmountable challenge.
