In order to manage California wilderness areas to preserve their natural and untrammeled character, as required by the Wilderness Act, federal land management agencies should adopt interpretations of the Act that allow prescribed burning and Indigenous cultural burning in areas where it existed pre-colonialism.
Understanding the nearly impossible task of containing contaminants from Superfund sites, it is imperative to find solutions in anticipation of disasters that scientists project will only increase in magnitude and frequency. This Comment proceeds in six parts. Part I identifies the challenge of increasing natural disasters and their impact at Superfund sites, which are toxic havens. Part II identifies efforts that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other federal agencies have taken to make Superfund sites more climate-resilient.
This Comment looks at the background of national scenic trails and lawmakers’ intent for the experiences these trails should provide, analyzes the difference in meaning between the terms and concepts of “on” and “along,” and considers the width of adjacent management areas that lawmakers implied with the use of the latter term. It also examines the management implications of these interpretations, and where agencies and nonprofit trail management partners may go from here.
The relationship between the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights regime under the World Trade Organization is complex. The manner in which intellectual property rights (IPRs) pertaining to genetic resources (GRs) and associated traditional knowledge (ATK) are handled is the main source of this dissonance.
Natural resource damages (NRD) under federal law is a statutory cause of action to compensate for injury to natural resources resulting from releases of hazardous substances or oil. Designated officials are authorized under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Oil Pollution Act (OPA), among others, to act as “trustees” on behalf of the public or tribes.
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) established the “Superfund,” which allows the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean up contaminated sites. It also forces the parties responsible for contamination to either perform cleanups or reimburse the government for the EPA-led cleanup work. The Superfund program relies on several tools to protect against lasting contamination.
The United States has historically valued free access to most public lands. But federal land management agencies also rely on users’ fee dollars to support critical operations. This tension between “free access” and “user pays” has been an important feature of public land law since the late 1800s. The primary statute at issue is the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA), which authorizes fees at some sites while mandating free access at others.
In April, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposed new regulations governing land management decisions on public lands. Dubbed the “conservation rule,” this rule seeks to protect intact landscapes, restore degraded habitat, and manage for ecosystem resilience.
This abstract is adapted from Justin R. Pidot & Ezekiel A. Peterson, Conservation Rights-of-Way on Public Lands, 55 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 89 (2022), and used with permission.
The Oak Ridge Reservation is one of the largest U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facilities in the country, with areas that are highly contaminated by chemicals, metals, and radionuclides. DOE is in the middle of a multi-decade, multi-billion-dollar cleanup there, and a recent Superfund decision for one portion of the site raises a number of significant legal issues. This Article addresses some related questions: Should radionuclides get less stringent cleanup than other equally harmful pollutants like mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls?