This Comment examines the potential impact of the demise of Chevron deference on the environment and the health of residents of communities disproportionately affected by “cumulative impacts.” It reviews the Chevron deference doctrine and the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of that well-established legal precedent, discusses the goal of environmental justice for all communities and how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has sought to secure that goal in accordance with the environmental laws administered by EPA, and offers some conclusions.

On June 13, 2024, the Environmental Law Institute and its Pro Bono Clearinghouse hosted the tenth installment of the continuing legal education series Community Lawyering for Environmental Justice, focusing on the environmental justice implications of “forever chemicals,” including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). A panel of experts highlighted developments, challenges, and opportunities in this burgeoning area, and discussed research on the disproportionate exposure experienced by communities of color; the U.S.

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.

Plastic pollution is emerging as a defining crisis of our time. The United States has set a national goal to eliminate plastic release into the environment by 2040 and is engaging in negotiations on a global plastics treaty while simultaneously developing a national strategy. A recent report published by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI) and the Monterey Bay Aquarium provides a comprehensive overview of existing legal authorities the federal government can leverage to achieve this national goal while safeguarding human health and the environment.

On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, concluding that courts have a constitutional and statutory obligation to exercise their “independent judgment” when deciding whether a federal administrative agency has acted within its statutory authority. As Justice Neil Gorsuch noted in concurrence, the Court’s decision “places a tombstone on Chevron no one can miss.” This Comment discusses the Court’s decision and its implications for legal challenges to federal agency actions. 

The Joseph Biden Administration has signaled an interest in ensuring that regulations appropriately benefit vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. Prior presidential administrations have focused on ensuring that regulations are efficient, maximizing the net benefits to society, without considering who benefits or who loses from these policies. Supporters of the current process are concerned that pursuing equity will come at significant cost to efficiency and ultimately leave everyone worse off. This framework—efficiency versus equity—is misguided and counterproductive in many cases.

This Comment touches on some of the key concerns that Dave Owen's The Negotiable Implementation of Environmental Law raised about equity and transparency in environmental law, and shares a couple of examples that have emerged in the last few months that people are inventing to try to address this.

Black letter law is implemented in countless shades of gray, with interpretation and negotiation at virtually every step of the way. Prof. Dave Owen’s The Negotiable Implementation of Environmental Law digs deep, beyond the obvious, to underscore that negotiation is not a dark art but a necessary skill that deserves more attention and training.

Dave Owen's The Negotiable Implementation of Environmental Law did a nice job of highlighting some of the major statutes that are the backbone of our practice and the launching point for effective negotiation. One of the implications of the article that highlights the axiom “wake up . . . people are negotiating” is to understand that promulgation of the law by regulations is not the end point.

In theoretical accounts of environmental law, traditional environmental-law education, and much of the discourse of environmental-law implementation, negotiation is absent, except in a few celebrated and seemingly exceptional settings. When scholars and policy advocates do address the roles of negotiation, they tend to default to two competing conceptions. In one—the “command-and-control” view—environmental law is problematically centralized and rigid, and negotiation exists only in exceptional circumstances.