2. Environmental Law

Fall 2012

This course provides an introduction to the broader categories of protecting human health and the environment to both assess the successes and failures of environmental protection in the U.S. and gain more detailed substantive knowledge of several key statutes including CWA, CAA, FIFRA, TSCA, CERCLA, NEPA, APA, etc.

Learning Objectives

Module 1: Introduction to the Goals and Challenges of Environmental Law

• Evaluate the purposes of environmental statutes.
• Evaluate the role of environmental ethics in creating environmental policy.
• List a number of important environmental concerns facing the world today.
• Evaluate the difficulties in dealing with modern environmental problems.
• Critique modern environmental law in its ability to deal with modern environmental problems.
• Describe basic conceptual approaches to regulation including procedural tools, economic incentives, command and control statutes, and substantive standards for regulation (health-based, technology-based, cost-benefit analysis).

Module 2: The Common Law & the Regulatory Process

• Illustrate how the common law provides remedies and entitlements.
• Implement the Chevron doctrine in evaluating judicial review of agency interpretation of environmental law.
• Assess how individuals and institutions can solve environmental problems outside of the legal system.

Module 3: National Environmental Policy Act

• Evaluate whether NEPA is a procedural and/or substantive statute.
• Determine when an environmental impact statement must be prepared under NEPA.
• Evaluate the adequacy of an environmental impact statement.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of NEPA and other informational approaches as a conceptual approach to regulation.

Module 4: Preventing Harm in the Face of Uncertainty

• Describe the goals of federal statutes that seek to regulate toxic substances such as FIFRA, TSCA, and SDWA.
• Evaluate the difficulties of regulating in the face of risk and uncertain, including the creation of default and de minimis rules.
• Evaluate whether cost-benefit analysis is a useful regulatory tool in preventing harm and limiting risk.

Module 5: Clean Air Act

• Describe the ambient air and health-effects used in creating air quality standards under the Clean Air Act.
• Evaluate different conceptual regulatory approaches to controlling air pollution such as technology-forcing standards, economic incentives, and emissions trading.
• Appreciate the joint state and federal role in managing air quality standards.
• Understand the relationship between the Clean Air Act and regulating climate change.

Module 6: Clean Water Act

• Analyze the basic statutory provisions that allow federal agencies to regulate pollution and discharges into waterways.
• Explain judicial review of agency interpretation of environmental law.
• Understand the ecosystem services provided by wetlands and navigable waterways.
• Understand the relationship between state and federal authority and jurisdiction in the field of water and wetlands.

Module 7: The Future of Environmental Problems

• Evaluate what regulatory tools and conceptual approaches may be best suited to deal with the emerging environmental problems.
• Identify how the role of individual behavior plays an impact in the environment.
• Address what role law plays in solving future environmental problems, as well as the role of other disciplines such science, economics, and ethics.