Vibrant Environment

In March of last year, President Trump issued fossil-fuel friendly Executive Order No. 13783, Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth. Section 5 of this Order directed agencies to discontinue use of the “social cost of carbon” (SCC), a protocol developed under the Obama Administration to monetize the impacts of climate-related disasters and disruption.

If you walk into a grocery store almost anywhere in the United States, the first thing you see when you come in is produce. The produce section is a vast treasure trove of fruits, vegetables, and fresh herbs. When shopping for these—something most of us do each week—one immediate decision is whether or not to pay a little extra for “organic” products. We have to make a similar choice in the dairy aisle. And in other areas of the store, we have to decide if it’s worth it to pay extra for “all natural,” “GMO-free,” or “ethically/sustainably produced” goods.

The Oil Pollution Act and CERCLA allow for the recovery of more than just cleanup costs following an oil spill or the release of hazardous substances. These laws also provide for the recovery of damages to restore or replace natural resources to the conditions that would have existed prior to the spill or release, as well as to compensate for interim losses of ecological services. Natural resource trustees—states and tribes acting on behalf of the public—are tasked (along with federal trustees) with planning and implementing the restoration of these lost natural resources and services.

Over the last year, the Trump Administration has launched an extensive regulatory rollback effort, which notably included Executive Order No. 13771 and its two-for-one provision. On May 16, ELI hosted a seminar, “The Burden of Unburdening: Administrative Law of Deregulation,” which examined this deregulatory shift.

“These places hold the world together,” said National Wetlands Awardee Latimore M. Smith of wetlands during his award acceptance speech. Simple words spoken to him early in his career as he explored a Louisiana bog, they continue to hold profound meaning and inspire him to this day. At the National Wetlands Awards ceremony that took place on May 9, 2018, in Washington, D.C., each of the six awardees shared stories about what inspired them in their efforts to protect and preserve wetlands.

Some of the smartest people in our law school classes became law professors. But, chances are you don’t know much, if anything, about their academic work. Busy policymakers and legal practitioners simply don’t have the time to read long, heavily footnoted law review articles. Yet, buried in those dense law review articles can be important new and creative law and policy proposals. All too often, however, academics talk about those ideas among themselves, and their proposals are not informed by policymakers, let alone adopted in the law and policy arena.

This conversation with Danny Le, BPSOS, is part of the ELI Gulf of Mexico team’s “Why I Participate in Gulf Restoration” blog series. The series aims to highlight the views of community members impacted by the BP oil spill, and provide a glimpse of some challenges and successes they face in getting involved in the restoration processes.

Recycling is perhaps the most prevalent pro-environmental activity at the household level. Household recycling efforts may be influenced by supportive nudges and, in some cases, laws that mandate recycling behavior. But unlike efforts such as decreasing household energy usage, success in recycling also hinges on governmental support: there must be some mechanism for collecting the recycled materials and converting them into useable commodities. Government entities, and in some cases private waste collection firms, provide for these recycling amenities.

On Monday, April 16, ELI, the Environmental Justice Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice (CRSJ), Georgetown University Law Center, Georgetown Environmental Law Society, and the D.C. Bar Association hosted a seminar entitled: Environmental Justice in the 21st Century Part 2: Threats and Opportunities. The event focused on changes and challenges in the environmental justice movement and featured a panel of environmental justice experts and a keynote speech from Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Cal.). Representative Ruiz, a medical doctor from Coachella Valley, California, delivered a passionate speech describing the struggles facing communities of color in his district who are often disenfranchised from the environmental decisionmaking process. His bill, the Environmental Justice Act of 2017 (H.R. 4114), the companion to Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) bill introduced in the Senate (S. 1996), aims to empower communities to have meaningful input into environmental decisions.

On April 11, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) President Fred Krupp announced the organization’s plans to create and launch a new satellite to monitor and measure global methane emissions—from space. The "groundbreaking" MethaneSAT plans were unveiled in a TED talk in Vancouver, B.C. The satellite will measure only emissions of methane, the powerful greenhouse gas responsible for roughly one quarter of the man-made global warming we currently experience.