Making Regulatory Takings Reform Work: The Lessons of Oregon's Measure 37
Editors' Summary
How does a chief executive officer (CEO) know when he or she certifies to the accuracy and completeness of the company's annual report, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that all of the company's environmental liabilities have been identified and properly characterized and evaluated? If the answer is that he or she relied on a bunch of environmental audit reports prepared by employees or a consulting firm who said they knew the relevant laws, how does the CEO know they got it right?
I. Background and Context
Two Minnesota statutes, both adopted in the early 1970s, were intended to establish bedrock protections for Minnesota's environment. The first is the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) of 1973, considered the state's little NEPA [in reference to the National Environmental Policy Act2]. The second is the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA), which establishes a general claim for environmental degradation.
I. Introduction
This Article addresses the "accountability gap" in foreign investment projects and proposes the creation of a Foreign Investor Accountability Mechanism (the Mechanism) to ensure that multinational enterprises (MNEs) may be held accountable to the social and environmental standards to which they have agreed.
Editors' Summary
Editors' Summary
Editors' Summary
I. International Activities
During 2009, China's primary work on environmental law concerned international law on climate change before and during the United Nations (U.N.) Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen (Copenhagen Conference).
Editors' Summary
Editors' Summary:
Section 115 of the CAA, addressing international air pollution, has been widely dismissed as a viable avenue for mitigation of GHGs because of a misplaced assumption that NAAQS must be established for GHGs before §115 authority can be exercised for GHGs. This Article explores the statutory language and legislative history of §115 to refute this conventional view, and argues that §115 can play a role in facilitating the establishment of a cap-and-trade program for GHGs without the establishment of NAAQS for GHGs.