Outline of an approach to management standards

In its book SMOG: A REPORT TO THE PEOPLE (1972), the Environmental Quality Laboratory (EQL) proposed that "management standards" be used as an approach to air quality in the Los Angeles Basin. The concept of management standards is based on technical, economic, and social feasibility. It envisions a relatively long-term, relatively stringent ambient air quality goal to be achieved eventually through a specified series of time-phased steps. Each step would set a target date by which there must be achieved substantial percentage reductions in the number of days per year on which the long-term ambient air quality goal is violated, reducing this figure by the ultimate target date to no (or insignificant) days of violation annually. Management standards thus aim at long-term goals, but they insist as well upon short-term, time-phased improvements -- each of which demands all feasible control steps, and each of which enhances air quality relative to what it was before. The outline that follows represents a first attempt at thinking about application of the management standards concept on a nationwide basis. The purpose is to achieve the commendable objectives of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970 in a manner that takes into account the varying problems and conditions that exist in different air quality regions. The approach suggested in the outline would preserve the strong features of the Clean Air Amendments; it would also require by law certain planning steps to have in fact been taken under, though they were not a formal part of, the Clean Air Amendments

Risk and the Legal System

"Risk" and the "legal system" are ambiguous terms. Here they are clarified, then considered from the standpoint of the objectives, methods, and problems of legal intervention in a world of inevitable risk.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66562/2/10.1177_000271629654500119.pd

State Power Plant Siting: a Sketch of the Main Features of a Possible Approach

Work on various phases of power plant technology and siting has been underway within the Environmental Quality Laboratory (EQL) at the California Institute of Technology for some time. Of particular relevance to this memorandum, a good deal of effort has been devoted to institutional aspects of the siting process. Our purpose in what follows is to draw from our past work -- and from the discussions and work of others -- a sketch of the major outlines of one possible approach to power plant siting for the state. We hope in doing so to give our present views about the issues and how they might rationally be resolved, not so much to convince as to inform, stimulate fruitful ideas, and help provide the basis for constructive debate. We ourselves are not necessarily wedded to any of the discussion that follows; we find our own minds changing from time to time as we study the problem further or confront sound suggestions from others. Part I of this memorandum briefly outlines the major features of what we see as a fruitful approach to the siting problem. Sections A through E of Part I describe some elements of the approach; Section F sketches the actual siting decision process we suggest, and in doing so shows how the elements play into the process. Section G comments briefly on a suggested role for judicial review. In Part II we attempt to reduce our ideas to a fairly precise outline for a state siting statute, and to deal with certain matters of detail not covered in Part I. Section A of Part II introduces the statutory outline by summarizing each of its provisions; Section B sets forth the outline itself. The Appendix to this memorandum depicts our suggested approach in time-line fashion; it should be helpful in reading and understanding the proposal

Capture and Counteraction: Self- Help by Environmental Zealots (Allen Chair Symposium 1996: The Future of Environmental and Land-Use Regulation)

Self-help is a largely neglected topic in American legal studies.1 With the exception of a survey by a group of law students published a dozen years ago,2 there appears to be little, if anything, in our legal literature that confronts the subject in a systematic way.3 This is so, at least, if one defines self-help as I do. To me, the term refers to any act of bypassing the formal legal system in order to get what one wants

Internationale Handelsgessellschaft mbH V.Einfuhrund Vorratsstelle für Getreide und Futtermittel (Favorite Case Symposium)

The idea of a favorite judicial opinion had never occurred to me until the Texas Law Review planted it in my head; the Journal of the American Dental Association could as well have asked me to express some sentiments about my favorite toothache. I was at a loss to think of even a single candidate for what, until the event, I had apparently regarded as a nonexistent office. Why then did I decide to accept the Review\u27s invitation? The answer is, in a word, curiosity: Never mind that the editors of a law review in Texas wanted to know what is my favorite judicial opinion. Suddenly I wanted to know what is my favorite judicial opinion

On the Topology of Uniform Environmental Standards in a Federal System and Why it Matters (Symposium: Environmental Federalism)

Uniform standards are much favored among the makers of federal environmental policy in the United States, which is to say, among the members of Congress. By and large-judging at least from the legislation it has enacted-Congress expects the air and water eventually to meet the same minimum levels of quality in every state in the country, and expects each pollution source in any industrial category or subcategory to be controlled just as much as every other such source, notwithstanding the source\u27s location or other peculiar characteristics. There are exceptions to these generalizations, but they are exceptions and not the rule.1 Since 1970, environmental policy in the United States increasingly has been federal (meaning that standards and controls are, for the most part, imposed by the national government, although they generally are implemented at the state and local levels). And, nominally at least, the federal policy has been one of uniform standards and controls in the sense suggested above. The standards have been set in ways essentially indifferent to territorial and, to some considerable degree, source variation. In thinking about federal uniform environmental standards, I shall focus for the most part on the pollution problem, to the exclusion of other environmental problems having to do with such concerns as vanishing species, land reclamation, or the regulation of toxic waste sites. Air and water pollution controls are my general subject, and air pollution controls my chief case in point. This is partly a matter of convenience, a way to get to the bottom of some fundamental considerations that display themselves in superficially disparate ways across the vast reaches of federal environmental legislation. Mostly, though, my focus reflects the reality that federal pollution policy, and air pollution policy in particular, is especially plagued by the vices of uniformity. In any event, what I have to say about the case of pollution policy can be applied to other environmental policies to the extent (probably considerable) that the arguments in the one case fit the situations in the other cases. I narrow my focus-though again not its bearing-in another way as well. The discussion thus far has alluded to two different kinds of pollution standards: (1) ambient quality standards that limit the amount of pollution permitted in any state\u27s air or water, and (2) emission or effluent standards that in one way or another limit the amount of pollution that can come from sources in any state (cars, factories, power plants, and the like). Both types of standards are aimed at controlling pollution, but there is nevertheless a difference between them that impels me to be concerned, here, primarily with the first category, ambient quality standards. My topic is environmental policy in a federal system, and it is with its ambient controls that the federal government specifies the obligations of the various states with respect to water or air quality. Ambient standards dictate, at a minimum, how clean the environmental media (in this case water, and particularly, air) in a given area must be. Any area may choose to clean up more if it wishes.2 In short, ambient standards directly limit what the states, not pollution sources, are free to do. Hence they are the immediately interesting subject from the standpoint of federalism.

Judicial Takings: Musings on Stop the Beach

Judicial takings weren’t much talked about until a few years ago, when the Stop the Beach case made them suddenly salient. The case arose from a Florida statute, enacted in 1961, that authorizes public restoration of eroded beaches by adding sand to widen them seaward. Under the statute, the state has title to any new dry land resulting from restored beaches, meaning that waterfront owners whose land had previously extended to the mean high-tide line end up with public beaches between their land and the water. This, the owners claimed, resulted in a taking of their property, more particularly their rights under Florida common law to receive accretions to their frontage on the water, and to have their property remain in contact with the water. The state supreme court disagreed, concluding that the owners never had the rights they claimed. The owners then sought (and were granted) review by the Supreme Court, the question now being whether the state supreme court’s decision worked a judicial taking because it was contrary to Florida common law. They lost, all of the participating justices concurring in the view that the Florida court’s decision did not contravene any established property rights

This Is Gary (Ann C. Rosenfield Symposium in Tribute to Gary T. Schwartz)

The first time I met Gary, he fell asleep. This was in the spring of 1969. Gary and I were working as lawyers in Washington, D.C., and each of us had recently accepted offers to join the faculty of the UCLA School of Law. When I learned of our current shared location and future destination, I called Gary and invited him to dinner at my apartment in Georgetown. We ate and drank and talked long into the night, until Gary checked out. Later he woke up and left

The Evolution of Property Rights: A Synthetic Overview

In this paper I review, extend, and critique two contrasting approaches to the evolution of property rights. The legal literature on the subject is dominated by a conventional approach, which holds a virtual monopoly despite its many shortcomings, and the literature neglects an alternative approach, despite its many virtues (including, but not limited to, the virtue of responding to many of the conventional approach’s deficiencies). The paper provides an overview of both approaches, including a brief intellectual history of each – and should thus inform readers without specialized knowledge of the subject but nevertheless interested in it – and aims among other things to make the alternative approach salient, in particular because an integrated treatment that draws on a combination of the two approaches does more explanatory work than can either approach on its own