An article co-written by Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar David Adelman and Attorney Advisor at the U.S. Environmental Protection (EPA) Jori Reilly-Diakun was selected for inclusion in this year’s Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR). ELPAR is a student-edited volume published annually in the August issue of the Environmental Law Reporter. It features abridged versions of selected articles with commentary from environmental experts.
Adelman, a law professor at the University of Texas, holds a Ph.D. in chemical physics and a law degree from Stanford University. Previously, he worked on environmental cases as a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, promoting environmentally conscious practices. He was appointed to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Environmental Management Advisory Board and has served on multiple committees as a science expert.
His and Reilly-Diakun’s article, “Environmental Citizen Suits and the Inequities of Races to the Top,” was selected from a pool of hundreds of law journal articles focusing on environmental topics. Originally published in the University of Colorado Law Review, the article will be featured as a condensed version for ELPAR’s 15th edition, which will be published in August 2022.
Their article notes that some federal environmental laws make it relatively easy for individuals and organizations to file citizen suits against environmental agencies, but other laws present significant barriers to such cases.
Citizen suit provisions are supposed to be designed to provide a backstop to lax federal or state enforcement, but Adelman and Reilly-Diakun found that such cases are most commonly filed in states with a strong record of environmental protection and enforcement — not in states with lax environmental policies. They propose recommendations to address limited resources in filing a citizen suit and the inequitable geographic distribution of such lawsuits.
ELPAR features condensed versions of the year’s best environmental law and policy ideas to reach a wider audience of policymakers. Articles are selected through a review process led by students of Vanderbilt University Law School, senior staff at the Environmental Law Institute, and an advisory committee of environmental experts. Member Scholar Victor Flatt also received an honorable mention in this year’s edition for his article, “Holding Polluters Accountable in Times of Climate and COVID Risk: The Problems with ‘Emergency’ Enforcement Waivers,” which was originally published in the San Diego Journal of Climate and Energy Law.
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Alexandra Rogan | July 7, 2022
An article co-written by Center for Progressive Reform Member Scholar David Adelman and Attorney Advisor at the U.S. Environmental Protection (EPA) Jori Reilly-Diakun was selected for inclusion in this year’s Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR). ELPAR is a student-edited volume published annually in the August issue of the Environmental Law Reporter. It features abridged versions of selected articles with commentary from environmental experts.
Grace DuBois | July 5, 2022
Throughout the first half of 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced several actions in pursuit of the goals it laid out in its PFAS Strategic Roadmap -- the blueprint it released last October outlining plans for addressing widespread PFAS contamination in the United States. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are a group of more than 9,000 synthetic chemicals that pose serious risks to human health, including increased blood pressure and cholesterol levels, abnormal liver function, decreased birth weights, and certain cancers. Exposure to even extremely low levels of certain PFAS are unsafe for humans.
Robert Fischman | June 30, 2022
In West Virginia v. EPA, the U.S. Supreme Court slayed a phantom, a regulation that does not exist. Why? The justices in the majority could not contain their zeal to hollow out the EPA’s ability to lessen suffering from climate change in ways that impinge the profits of entrenched fossil fuel interests.
James Goodwin, Shelley Welton | June 29, 2022
These days, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can no longer be described as a technocratic, under-the-radar agency that sets policies on energy infrastructure and market rules, rates, and standards. As energy policy has become front-page news, FERC has begun updating its regulations to meet new exigencies. The agency has taken big steps to support affordability and a transition to cleaner energy, including proposing updates to the way it permits natural gas pipelines and beginning to overhaul how regions plan and pay for the expansion of electricity transmission infrastructure. These moves have provoked controversy because their stakes are high: Billions of dollars of infrastructure expenditures are on the table. What gets built, who pays, who hosts this infrastructure, and who makes those decisions also have major implications for equity and racial justice.
Katrina Fischer Kuh, Rebecca Bratspies | June 28, 2022
In November 2021, over 70% of New Yorkers voted to amend the state's constitution to explicitly protect New Yorkers' fundamental right to clean air, clean water, and a healthful environment. New York thus joins Montana and Pennsylvania in enshrining robust constitutional environmental rights in the state constitution. Unsurprisingly, corporate defendants argue that the new right doesn't change anything.
Daniel Farber | June 27, 2022
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has been called the most important environmental agency that no one has heard of. Recently, the D.C. Circuit decided two undramatic FERC cases that illustrate the agency's environmental significance. One involved a bailout to coal and nuclear plants, the other involved water quality.
James Goodwin | June 23, 2022
Any high school student can tell you that water follows the path of least resistance. A similar rule might be said to apply to corporate polluters and small government ideologues who now see the federal judiciary -- especially a U.S. Supreme Court stocked with Trump-era judicial activists -- as the path of least resistance in pursuing their agenda of the "deconstruction of the administrative state." The first case they have teed up for the October session of oral arguments is Sackett v. EPA, which the Court could use to gut the Clean Water Act.
Michael C. Duff | June 23, 2022
The Supreme Court on Tuesday unanimously struck down a Washington state law that was aimed at helping federal contract employees get workers' compensation for diseases arising from cleaning up nuclear waste. The case, United States v. Washington, concerned the federally controlled Hanford nuclear reservation, a decommissioned facility that spans 586 square miles near the Columbia River. The reservation, formerly used by the federal government in the production of nuclear weapons, presents unique hazards to cleanup workers.
Alice Kaswan | June 22, 2022
On June 23, California's Air Resources Board (CARB) -- the state's air pollution control agency -- is holding a public hearing on its comprehensive roadmap for achieving the state's daunting climate goal: carbon neutrality by 2045 at the latest, a goal established by Gov. Gavin Newsom in a 2018 executive order. Although states are increasingly adopting 100 percent clean electricity targets, California's goal goes considerably farther, covering emissions from the entire economy, including transportation, industry, buildings, waste disposal, and agriculture.