Legal Tools for Climate Adaptation Advocacy: Clean Water Act Permitting and Funding Programs

Climate change imperils the quality of water resources and aquatic ecosystems by introducing or exacerbating supply challenges and pollution threats. Existing legal frameworks, including permitting and grant programs, can incorporate climate change adaptation into the way we protect water. In particular, the Clean Water Act—the primary tool used nationwide to protect surface waters from pollutant discharges and fill activity—can be used to promote climate change adaptation in a number of ways. The Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972 and amended in 1977 and 1987. The statute is principally administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which issues regulations, brings enforcement actions, awards grants, and more. Clean Water Act permitting is often administered by the states, subject to EPA oversight. At the same time, states are able to enact their own water protection laws beyond the scope of federal law. In order to use the Clean Water Act to encourage adaptation to climate change, both federal and state authorities can reconsider how permits are issued and how grants are pursued and awarded. For instance, as climate change renders clean freshwater resources scarcer in many places, authorities can respond by imposing stricter pollution limits through the Clean Water Act where necessary to protect an increasingly stressed water supply, accounting for both current conditions and future trends. Furthermore, as climate change creates new or increased pollution threats for some waterways, Clean Water Act authorities can respond through permitting processes or strategic funding opportunities

HUD Doesn\u27t Need New Legislative Authority to Better Integrate Climate Change Resilience into Its Disaster Recovery Program

This article examines the interaction between the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s community development block grant disaster recovery program (CDBGDR) and the federal and state governments\u27 resilience and climate adaptation priorities. It identifies and analyzes the statutes that have guided HUD\u27s approach to date, by considering both key statutory language and legislative history. It also examines forms of soft guidance issued by HUD for use by various stakeholders, including both HUD CDBG-DR program officers and the state and local officials that interact with them. In reviewing this material, the article identifies a tension between the requirement that all projects funded by CDBG-DR tie back to the most recent disaster, and the logic of resilience, which holds that one should always build or rebuild with an eye to the next disaster. There are some signs of reconciliation: Rebuild By Design and the National Disaster Resilience Competition promote resilience to future disasters – at least in the context of recovery from Hurricane Sandy – and HUD appears to be taking action on climate change through its Climate Adaptation Plan and newly formed Climate Council. The article argues for carrying this potential reconciliation forward into future disaster recovery contexts and also into other HUD programs that relate in less obvious ways to disaster recovery and resilience to climate change, and proposes several ways the agency might do so

Palatal development of preterm and low birthweight infants compared to term infants – What do we know? Part 1: The palate of the term newborn

BACKGROUND: The evidence on prematurity as 'a priori' a risk for palatal disturbances that increase the need for orthodontic or orthognathic treatment is still weak. Further well-designed clinical studies are needed. The objective of this review is to provide a fundamental analysis of methodologies, confounding factors, and outcomes of studies on palatal development. One focus of this review is the analysis of studies on the palate of the term newborn, since knowing what is 'normal' is a precondition of being able to assess abnormalities. METHODS: A search profile based on Cochrane search strategies applied to 10 medical databases was used to identify existing studies. Articles, mainly those published before 1960, were identified from hand searches in textbooks, encyclopedias, reference lists and bibliographies. Sources in English, German, and French of more than a century were included. Data for term infants were recalculated if particular information about weight, length, or maturity was given. The extracted values, especially those from non-English paper sources, were provided unfiltered for comparison. RESULTS: The search strategy yielded 182 articles, of which 155 articles remained for final analysis. Morphology of the term newborn's palate was of great interest in the first half of the last century. Two general methodologies were used to assess palatal morphology: visual and metrical descriptions. Most of the studies on term infants suffer from lack of reliability tests. The groove system was recognized as the distinctive feature of the infant palate. The shape of the palate of the term infant may vary considerably, both visually and metrically. Gender, race, mode of delivery, and nasal deformities were identified as causes contributing to altered palatal morphology. Until today, anatomical features of the newborn's palate are subject to a non-uniform nomenclature. CONCLUSION: Today's knowledge of a newborn's 'normal' palatal morphology is based on non-standardized and limited methodologies for measuring a three-dimensional shape. This shortcoming increases bias and is the reason for contradictory research results, especially if pathologic conditions like syndromes or prematurity are involved. Adequate measurement techniques are needed and the 'normal palatal morphology' should be defined prior to new clinical studies on palatal development

Legal Tools for Climate Adaptation Advocacy: Clean Water Act Permitting and Funding Programs

Climate change imperils the quality of water resources and aquatic ecosystems by introducing or exacerbating supply challenges and pollution threats. Existing legal frameworks, including permitting and grant programs, can incorporate climate change adaptation into the way we protect water. In particular, the Clean Water Act – the primary tool used nationwide to protect surface waters from pollutant discharges and fill activity – can be used to promote climate change adaptation in a number of ways. The Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972 and amended in 1977 and 1987. The statute is principally administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which issues regulations, brings enforcement actions, awards grants, and more. Clean Water Act permitting is often administered by the states, subject to EPA oversight. At the same time, states are able to enact their own water protection laws beyond the scope of federal law. In order to use the Clean Water Act to encourage adaptation to climate change, both federal and state authorities can reconsider how permits are issued and how grants are pursued and awarded. For instance, as climate change renders clean freshwater resources scarcer in many places, authorities can respond by imposing stricter pollution limits through the Clean Water Act where necessary to protect an increasingly stressed water supply, accounting for both current conditions and future trends. Furthermore, as climate change creates new or increased pollution threats for some waterways, Clean Water Act authorities can respond through permitting processes or strategic funding opportunities

Integrating Climate Change Resilience Into HUD’s Disaster Recovery Program

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s community development block grant disaster recovery program (CDBG-DR) can better and more clearly incorporate climate resilience and adaptation priorities. This article identifies and analyzes the statutes that have guided HUD\u27s approach to disaster recovery to date, as well as forms of “soft guidance” issued by HUD for use by various stakeholders, including both HUD CDBG-DR program officers and the state and local officials that interact with them. Comparing these materials reveals a tension between the requirement that all projects funded by CDBG-DR “tie back” to the most recent disaster, and the logic of resilience, which holds that one should always build or rebuild with an eye to the next disaster. The article notes some signs that HUD is working to reconcile this tension and suggests ways for HUD to carry potential forms of reconciliation forward into future disaster recovery contexts

Integrating Climate Change Resilience Into HUD’s Disaster Recovery Program

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s community development block grant disaster recovery program (CDBG-DR) can better and more clearly incorporate climate resilience and adaptation priorities. This article identifies and analyzes the statutes that have guided HUD\u27s approach to disaster recovery to date, as well as forms of “soft guidance” issued by HUD for use by various stakeholders, including both HUD CDBG-DR program officers and the state and local officials that interact with them. Comparing these materials reveals a tension between the requirement that all projects funded by CDBG-DR “tie back” to the most recent disaster, and the logic of resilience, which holds that one should always build or rebuild with an eye to the next disaster. The article notes some signs that HUD is working to reconcile this tension and suggests ways for HUD to carry potential forms of reconciliation forward into future disaster recovery contexts

HUD Doesn\u27t Need New Legislative Authority to Better Integrate Climate Change Resilience into Its Disaster Recovery Program

This article examines the interaction between the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s community development block grant disaster recovery program (CDBGDR) and the federal and state governments\u27 resilience and climate adaptation priorities. It identifies and analyzes the statutes that have guided HUD\u27s approach to date, by considering both key statutory language and legislative history. It also examines forms of soft guidance issued by HUD for use by various stakeholders, including both HUD CDBG-DR program officers and the state and local officials that interact with them. In reviewing this material, the article identifies a tension between the requirement that all projects funded by CDBG-DR tie back to the most recent disaster, and the logic of resilience, which holds that one should always build or rebuild with an eye to the next disaster. There are some signs of reconciliation: Rebuild By Design and the National Disaster Resilience Competition promote resilience to future disasters – at least in the context of recovery from Hurricane Sandy – and HUD appears to be taking action on climate change through its Climate Adaptation Plan and newly formed Climate Council. The article argues for carrying this potential reconciliation forward into future disaster recovery contexts and also into other HUD programs that relate in less obvious ways to disaster recovery and resilience to climate change, and proposes several ways the agency might do so