Great Lakes Law

“Clean coal, leprechauns, and unicorns” – guest post by Chuck Warpehoski of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice

The following guest post is by Chuck Warpehoski, Director of the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice. (For a good look at Chuck, check out his photo and info as one of the Social Citizens Makeover winners.) Among its many goals and important projects, the Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice is committed to environmental protection and stewardship, focusing on climate change. When I asked Chuck to explain why a religious faith-based organization is putting... Read more →

Environmental law and policy highlights of Obama’s first 100 days

George W. Bush spent 8 years in the White House undermining environmental protection, eventually leaving office with the worst environmental record of any modern president. His regulatory rollbacks and refusal to enforce environmental laws were most immediately apparent, but history will judge him even more harshly for his total lack of leadership in meeting the national and global clean energy / climate change challenge. President Obama could have come into office and done nothing more... Read more →

A short introduction to Canada-United States transboundary environmental protection

The Windsor Review of Legal and Social Issues is publishing a special volume on Canadian and international environmental law, and to bring an American perspective, I was asked to write a short introductory article. Titled "Canada-United States Transboundary Environmental Protection" the brief article surveys the major environmental treaties, agreements, and legal decisions that have shaped one of the best international environmental relationships in the world. Yet the real value of the countries’ historical and recent... Read more →

Car free in the Motor City - riding the rails from Ann Arbor to Detroit

Today is the last day of our semester at Wayne Law, so it’s now official – I commuted to Detroit from Ann Arbor for the entire semester without driving a car. No small feat, as we haven’t had a reliable transit system connecting Ann Arbor to Detroit since 1983. That was part of my motivation – I wanted see first-hand what the obstacles are to putting in place a modern, efficient, reliable regional transit system... Read more →

EPA takes major steps towards regulating greenhouse gas pollution

The Obama EPA is moving forward with several major steps towards regulating the greenhouse gas pollution that causes climate change. Most significantly, the EPA just announced a proposed endangerment finding for greenhouse gas pollution. The endangerment finding would trigger a new regulatory process for carbon dioxide emissions and other climate change pollutants. (For an overview of the EPA’s endangerment finding, see this internal EPA presentation detailing the process and analysis, and see the EPA's webpage... Read more →

Framing Water Policy in a Carbon Affected and Carbon Constrained Environment

Robert Abrams (one the leading water law experts in the country) and I have just finished an extensive and detailed (even by law journal standards) new article “Framing Water Policy in a Carbon Affected and Carbon Constrained Environment,” to be published later this year in the Natural Resources Journal. A prepublication draft is now available, and here is the abstract: Immense stresses are being thrust upon the nation’s water resources by massive changes affecting water... Read more →

US Supreme Court allows EPA to consider costs and benefits for power plant water intake regulations

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld EPA regulations for power plant water intakes under the Clean Water Act in Entergy v. Riverkeeper. The legal issue in the case was whether the EPA has the administrative discretion to consider the relative costs and benefits of different control technologies under section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act. I know this sounds terribly boring, but it’s a hugely important issue for both aquatic ecology and regulatory policy.... Read more →

Bottled water fights move west

Bottled water fights have played a major role in water policy debates in Midwestern and Eastern states for almost a decade now, and the trend is moving west. As featured in this story from the Los Angeles Times, Out West, A New Kind of Water War, Nestle seems to have a brewing battle over its plan to pump water from the Arkansas River watershed near Salida, Colorado. While there are significant differences in eastern and... Read more →

Pollution of drinking water is America’s top environmental concern

According to a recent Gallup poll, pollution of drinking water is America’s #1 environmental concern. The rest of the top four environmental concerns also relate to water protection - pollution of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs (#2), water and soil contamination from toxic waste (#3), and maintenance of the nation’s supply of fresh water for household needs (#4). All of these water concerns polled much higher than the other issues of air pollution, loss of tropical... Read more →