ELI In the News

Legal scholar Zechariah Chafee, Jr, said it best: “Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins,” he wrote in 1919, attributing the quote to an unnamed judge – and reflecting the fundamental challenge of all regulation, including the rules and laws that protect the waters of the United States. The Clean Water Act (CWA), for example, evolved over decades, as

When Chinese police found them in the trunk of a smuggler’s car, 33 of the trafficked pangolins — endangered scaly mammals from southern China — were still alive, wrapped in plastic bags soaked with their own urine.

But the fate of the creatures — whose scales are worth nearly their weight in silver on the black market — was not a happy one. Every last pangolin died in government captivity within a few months of the August 2017 seizure.

Top federal officials traveled to the Wilson County fairgrounds outside of Nashville Tuesday to promote the Trump Administration's proposal to weaken a federal clean water regulation. Andrew Wheeler, acting administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue called on Tennessee farmers to engage in the contentious debate. Trump officials want to limit which bodies of water are subject to the Clean Water Act, the 1972 landmark legislation that protects streams, rivers and other bodies of water from uncontrolled development and pollution. . .

Amnesty International released two public statements on Tuesday regarding environmental security during war and armed conflicts. One statement addressed to the Chair of the UN General Assembly First Committee called upon the Chair to address environmental impacts of particular weapons and military practices and identify measures to minimize harm. The statement notes that in addition to the cost of human life, weapons destroy water, sanitation, and energy infrastructure and creates hazardous waste that has further impacts on human health.