This week’s post, Reinstating CERCLA as the “Polluter Pays” Statute With the Circuit Court’s Mutually Exclusive Approach, was written by Brianna E. Tibett, a third-year student at Vermont Law School and the Administrative Editor of the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law. Read the post here.

Brianna E. Tibett, Vermont Law School. This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate.   INTRODUCTION The purpose of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) is to facilitate the “timely cleanup of hazardous waste sites and to ensure that the [cleanup costs are] borne by those responsible for the contamination.”[2] The proper application of CERCLA’s two private causes of action is necessary to achieve these goals. When applied properly they encourage private parties to voluntarily cleanup hazardous waste sites, effectively spread the cost of cleanup to the responsible parties, and encourage settlement. For example, when a private…

This week’s post, FERC Relicensing and its Continued Role in Improving Fish Passage at Pacific Northwest Dams, was written by Skylar Sumner, a third-year student at Lewis & Clark Law School pursuing a J.D. and a certificate in Environmental & Natural Resource Law. Read the post here.

Skylar Sumner, Lewis & Clark Law School. This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate.  I. Introduction The history of the American west is inextricably intertwined with damming rivers.[1] Whether for navigation, irrigation, or hydroelectric power, nearly every American river has been dammed.[2] In fact, stretching back to the day the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, determined Americans have finished an average of one large-scale dam every day.[3] Currently, there are at least 76,000 dams in this country.[4] While these dams have vastly contributed to America’s efforts to settle the west, they have come with significant costs.…

This week’s post, MS4 Regulation and Water Quality Standards, critiques the lax treatment of municipal storm water regulation under the Clean Water Act. It was written by Matt Carlisle, a managing editor of the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law. Read the post here.

Matt Carlisle, Vermont Law School, JD Candidate 2017 This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. Read the original here and leave a comment. 1. Introduction Storm water is a major polluter. As one judge put it, “Storm water runoff is one of the most significant sources of water pollution in the nation, at times ‘comparable to, if not greater than, contamination from industrial and sewage sources.’”[1] Storm water “runoff may contain or mobilize high levels of contaminants, such as sediment, suspended solids, nutrients (phosphorous and nitrogen), heavy metals and other toxic pollutants, pathogens, toxins, oxygen-demanding substances (organic…

Garrett Lenahan, UCLA School of Law, JD Candidate 2017 This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. Read the original here and leave a comment. I. Scoping Plan Background  Two prominent pieces of Californian legislation that seek to address climate change are Assembly Bill 32 (“AB 32”) and Senate Bill 32 (“SB 32”). AB 32 required California to reduce its greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions to the 1990 level by 2020. It tasked the Air Resources Board with creating a Scoping Plan for reaching those levels. The original scoping plan contained a range of programs that would reduce GHG emissions…

This week’s post, The SB 32 Scoping Plan Update, Waivers, and ZEVs, discusses California’s proposed plan for climate change and was written by Garrett Lenahan, JD Candidate at UCLA School of Law. Read the post here.

This week’s post, Repurposing Ecolabels: Consumer Pressure as a Tool to Abate Human Rights Violations in International Fisheries, was written by Andrew Miller, the Senior Articles Editor for Ecology Law Quarterly. Read the post here.

By Andrew Miller Andrew Miller is a law student at Berkeley and Articles Editor at Ecology Law Quarterly. This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. Introduction In March of 2015, the Associated Press (AP) published AP Investigation: Slaves May Have Caught the Fish You Bought.[1] It was the first in a series of articles the AP would publish over the next eighteen months detailing the squalor and oppression faced daily by thousands of Southeast Asian fishermen.[2] What caught readers’ attention, however, was not merely the unmasking of abuse.[3] It was the reference to Safeway.[4] It was the reference to Wal-Mart.[5]…