Ecology Law Currents is the online-only publication of Ecology Law Quarterly, one of the nation's most respected and widely read environmental law journals. Currents features short-form commentary and analysis on timely environmental law and policy issues.
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Obsolescence, the process of becoming obsolete, is a staple
of our lives in the twenty-first century. As new and better technologies
develop at a faster and faster pace, our existing technologies—smartphones,
televisions, computers—become obsolete almost as
soon as they are released to the public. Entire technologies, like the fax
machine, emerge rapidly and then disappear just as quickly with the advent of a
faster and easier alternative. With respect to technology, we have come to
expect, even welcome, obsolescence, as it carries with it better alternatives.
The law, however, is another matter. By its very design, it
is meant to change slowly. Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo once said, “the encroachments [to the established common law] are so
gradual that their significance is at first obscured.”[1] As
a result, obsolescence is rare in the law. Once the law incorporates a
particular doctrine, it is slow to discard it. Indeed, legal treatises of tort
law published recently and those published hundreds of years ago show many similarities.
Surprisingly, one of the oldest and most utilized areas of
our legal system, environmental common law, is currently on the verge of obsolescence.
Environmental common law dates back to the seventeenth century.[2] It
survived the passage of seemingly comprehensive environmental statutes four
decades ago.[3]
Now, however, a series of court decisions from the past three years hold that
environmental common law actions, regardless of whether they are seeking
injunctive relief or monetary damages, are preempted and displaced by federal
statutes and regulations.
Sulfuric acid mist, also known as H2SO4
or SO3,[1]
is one of the least publicized air pollutants associated with emissions from
coal-fired power plants. Long overshadowed by nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide,
and carbon dioxide, sulfuric acid mist is typically not emitted in the
boundary-crossing and globe-altering quantities of the more frequently
discussed air pollutants. In the whirlwind of the United States Environmental
Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent air regulations of coal-fired power plants
including the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards for power plants (MATS), the New
Source Performance Standards and the Tailoring Rule for greenhouse gases, and
the recently vacated Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, sulfuric acid mist has
remained relatively untouched.[2]
But EPA’s regulations, which have imposed dramatic new emission limits on
sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, greenhouse gases, mercury, and hydrochloric
acid, are likely to have a significant impact on sulfuric acid mist emission
control strategies at coal-fired power plants.[3]
Sulfuric acid mist emissions from coal-fired power plants, which creates tell-tale blue plumes (not pictured here), has increasingly been under scrutiny by the EPA over the past decade. Photo credit to ribarnica.
The following articles are student responses and observations of a selected few panels at Berkeley Law’s 2010 Symposium “Empowered Partnerships: Participatory Action Research for Environmental Justice” hosted by the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice and co-sponsored by Students for Economic and Environmental Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law; the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment; Communities for a Better Environment; Asian Pacific Environmental Network; West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project; ¡PODER! - People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights; California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.; Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice; The Pacific Institute; Environmental Studies Institute at Santa Clara University; Cal Corps at UC Berkeley; La Raza Law Students Association at UC Berkeley School of Law; Berkeley La Raza Law Journal; Ecology Law Quarterly; Central Valley Air Quality Coalition; California Law Review; California Environmental Justice Alliance; and the Women of Color Collective at UC Berkeley School of Law.
The forum discussion on February 16, entitled “The Environmental Justice Movement: History & Skills Every Lawyer Should Know,” was a great kick off to the Sixth Annual Environmental Justice Symposium. For aspiring lawyers with very little experience or background in Environmental Justice (EJ) this introductory forum was the perfect place to learn more about the movement. The forum explored the EJ attorney’s role as an advocate.
California is not unique among states by virtue of having both a sizable urban fishing population and environmental pollution leading to fish contamination. Nor is it alone when it comes to having both highly diverse communities actively engaged in fishing and a political and social tradition of elitist decision making about both protecting fish populations and the people eating the fish. In many ways consumption of contaminated fish in California is an example of a confluence of contemporary social and ecological problems, for which there is no adequate statutory or regulatory framework. I describe here a case study of contaminated fish consumption that reflects many of the environmental, social, and political conditions experienced by poor and disenfranchised communities in California and the United States.
Food justice is the notion that everyone deserves healthy
food and that the benefits and risks associated with food should be shared
fairly. The concept borrows its distributional equity framework from the
environmental justice movement, its focus on access to food from the community
food security movement, and its interest in food environments from research in
the public health and food systems fields.[1]
Unfortunately, disparities in access and health mean that food justice is
currently an aspiration rather than a reality in many low-income communities.
This article examines the food retail landscape in Los
Angeles and briefly summarizes some programs that could increase food access
and quality in underserved communities. In describing these opportunities, this
article shows how L.A. residents, advocates, and policy makers have begun and
can continue to survey their food environments, attract more supermarkets and
hold food retail firms accountable; partner with corner stores to offer more
healthy choices; limit fast food restaurants and improve nutrition information
at chain restaurants; promote healthy mobile food vending; and establish
farmers’ markets and re-envision these markets as hubs for local food
distribution. Some of these efforts have been underway for years, while others
are new experiments. Together they comprise a diverse set of interconnected
measures to promote food justice by improving food retail in low-income areas.
Want of clean water, decent sanitation, and adequate food
and energy strips people of their dignity and their most basic rights.
Inequitable access to water, especially for growing crops, is a major factor in
global poverty and a death sentence for millions each year.
According to the World Bank, “[t]he ‘easy and
cheap’ options for mobilizing water resources for human needs have mostly been
exploited.”[1] If the
World Bank were right, this would be a depressing message for the 1.1 billion
people without easy access to safe water.[2] The
good news is, the Bank is wrong. Many technologically easy and relatively cheap
options for water provision exist that can help lift hundreds of millions of
people out of poverty, end widespread hunger, and reduce the daily workload of
women and children. The bad news is that the World Bank-led large-dam lobby is
aggressively supporting a resurgence in water mega-projects.[3]
