Author name: rvieux

By Brenden Cline, Editor-in-Chief, Harvard Environmental Law Review.

This post is part of the Environmental Law Review Syndicate. It is the original post, so please leave any comments or responses here!

[This] is a ‘rare case.’ It is and should be . . . . But every generation or so a case comes along when this Court needs to say enough is enough. — Chief Justice Roberts[1]

As my law school graduation nears, I’d like to advance a common-sense argument for the Clean Power Plan’s statutory authority that only a law student could make: the D.C. Circuit and Supreme Court should reject EPA’s and challengers’ strained readings of the duplicative amendments to Clean Air Act section 111(d) and instead follow the late Justice Scalia’s “irreconcilability canon” to give these amendments no effect. To date, just one brief filed in the torrent of Clean Power Plan litigation mentions the irreconcilability canon in passing.[2] I think this interpretive tool warrants more attention.

So quit the jiggery-pokery, put down the applesauce, and take your head out of a bag. Justice Scalia may no longer be with us, but his immortal words endure.

By Malia McPherson, J.D. Candidate, Stanford Environmental Law Journal, Expected 2016

On November 4, 2014, the voters of San Benito County passed Measure J, a voter initiative banning hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) and all other high-intensity petroleum operations within county lines. Under California law, only a subsequent voter initiative can overrule this fracking ban. While it is not the first county or city within California to take a stand against fracking, San Benito’s path to a successful ballot initiative was unique. Despite being dramatically outspent in the run-up to the election, the San Benito anti-fracking coalition San Benito Rising defeated industry interests through a simple strategy of basic grassroots organization. The movement was largely leaderless, it was community focused, and it represented both minority and majority interests. How did it succeed? Given the potential risks posed by fracking, and the legal context that left a regulatory ‘gap’ for Measure J to fill, the San Benito experience shows that it is indeed possible for community-centered lawyering and the voter initiative process to protect community environmental integrity on a precautionary basis against encroachment from outside interests.

By Eric Anthony DeBellis, Senior Executive Editor, Ecology Law Quarterly.