Science, Politics, Law and the Arc of the Clean Water Act: The Role of Assumptions in the Adoption of a Pollution Control Landmark

This article examines the assumptions upon which Congress relied in enacting the 1972 Clean Water Act and the extent to which they have been borne out or belied as the federal and state governments have implemented their statutory responsibilities in the quest to achieve acceptably clean water. It traces the development of federal water pollution control legislation before 1972, highlighting the deficiencies that contributed to the need for a new approach in 1972. It then examines the scientific and technical, political, and legal assumptions that helped shape the 1972 Clean Water Act in an effort to determine whether the failure to achieve fully the statute’s goals is inherent in the statute’s design or is more likely the result of the law’s incomplete implementation. The article concludes that a surprisingly large share of the assumptions upon which Congress built the Clean Water Act were valid and have helped to make the statute an environmental success story. The statute’s failure to perform even more admirably than it has is due largely to a lack of legislative clarity in addressing the role of wetlands in preserving the integrity of aquatic ecosystems and to Congress’ unwillingness to adopt, or force the states to adopt, measures to control nonpoint source pollution

Science, Politics, Law, and the Arc of the Clean Water Act: The Role of Assumptions in the Adoption of a Pollution Control Landmark

This Article examines the assumptions upon which Congress relied in enacting the Clean Water Act ( CWA ) and the extent to which these assumptions have been borne out or belied as the federal and state governments have implemented their CWA responsibilities in the quest to achieve acceptably clean water. Part I briefly traces the development of federal water pollution control legislation before 1972, highlighting the deficiencies that contributed to the need for a new approach in 1972. Part II examines the scientific and technical, political, and legal assumptions that helped shape the 1972 CWA in order to determine whether the failure to achieve fully the statute‘s goals is inherent in the statute‘s design or is the result of the law‘s incomplete implementation. Part III provides an assessment of how water quality conditions today compare both with those that existed in 1972 and with the goals that Congress identified in the CWA. The Article concludes by speculating about the future direction of water pollution control law. We conclude that a surprisingly large share of the assumptions upon which Congress built the CWA were valid and have helped to make the statute an environmental success story. The statute‘s failure to perform even more admirably than it has is due largely to a lack of legislative clarity in addressing the role of wetlands in preserving the integrity of aquatic ecosystems and to Congress‘s unwillingness to adopt, or force the states to adopt, measures to control nonpoint source pollution

State Liability for Environmental Violations: The U.S. Supreme Court’s \u27New\u27 Federalism

This article examines whether the Supreme Court’s decisions in Alden v. Maine, College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board, and Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank, restrict the ability of Congress to regulate state compliance with federal environmental statutes. The article discusses the various enforcement mechanisms identified in Alden v. Maine and that remain valid, notwithstanding any Eleventh Amendment or constitutional immunity the States may retain. The article concludes that the Supreme Court’s federalism decisions will likely have limited practical impact upon Congress’ authority to enact and ensure the enforcement of environmental statutes

Science, Politics, Law, and the Arc of the Clean Water Act: The Role of Assumptions in the Adoption of a Pollution Control Landmark

This Article examines the assumptions upon which Congress relied in enacting the Clean Water Act ( CWA ) and the extent to which these assumptions have been borne out or belied as the federal and state governments have implemented their CWA responsibilities in the quest to achieve acceptably clean water. Part I briefly traces the development of federal water pollution control legislation before 1972, highlighting the deficiencies that contributed to the need for a new approach in 1972. Part II examines the scientific and technical, political, and legal assumptions that helped shape the 1972 CWA in order to determine whether the failure to achieve fully the statute‘s goals is inherent in the statute‘s design or is the result of the law‘s incomplete implementation. Part III provides an assessment of how water quality conditions today compare both with those that existed in 1972 and with the goals that Congress identified in the CWA. The Article concludes by speculating about the future direction of water pollution control law. We conclude that a surprisingly large share of the assumptions upon which Congress built the CWA were valid and have helped to make the statute an environmental success story. The statute‘s failure to perform even more admirably than it has is due largely to a lack of legislative clarity in addressing the role of wetlands in preserving the integrity of aquatic ecosystems and to Congress‘s unwillingness to adopt, or force the states to adopt, measures to control nonpoint source pollution

Predicting gas-flow distribution in pilot-scale fluidized beds using cfd simulations

Bubbling fluidized beds are used extensively in energy and chemical industries because of their excellent heat and mass transfer characteristics. Recently, CFD has been identified as a useful tool for predicting reactor performance, but application to large scales continues to be challenging because of limitations on computational resources. Given that the hydrodynamics can largely be characterized by bubbles rising through the bed, a more feasible approach for investigating large-scale reactors is to quantify bubble dynamics and specifically, gas distribution in different phases- visible bubble flow, bubble-through flow and dense-phase flow. In this study, 3D CFD simulations of bubbling fluidized beds are first conducted to establish the impact of scale (bed diameter) on the hydrodynamics. Using solids circulation and bubble statistics (1), it is established that wall effects cease to be significant in beds larger than 50 cm (bed aspect ratio less than 1). At this scale, simulations are then carried out for two distinct Geldart B particles and data is subsequently analyzed for gas-flow distribution in the bed. Bubble statistics are also compared with existing correlations and their relation to solids circulation and mixing is investigated. The physical model and numerical tool were developed and validated in previous studies (1,2), while 3D Bubble statistics are computed using MS3DATA (Multiphase Statistics using 3D Detection and Tracking Algorithm) (3). Accurate description of the gas-flow is crucial for large-scale combustor design since quantifying gas distribution will indicate both fuel rich zones as well as oxidant bypass through bubbles leading to inefficient performance. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Supreme Court Brief Amicus Curiae of Administrative Law Scholars in Support of Neither Party

This brief on behalf of 29 administrative law scholars takes no position on whether Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) are employees or inferior officers. It urges the Court to issue an opinion that respects the decision that Congress made unanimously in 1946 to enact numerous statutory safeguards that assure that ALJs have decisional independence from the agencies where they work while assuring that agencies retain control over the policy content and legal basis for any decision made in an adjudication in which an ALJ presides. The brief describes the fifteen years of study and deliberation that led to the unanimous decision of Congress to enact the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in 1946. It describes the particular attention that Congress devoted to the critical task of providing ALJs with the combination of statutory safeguards that minimize the risk that they will favor the agencies for whom they adjudicate cases while assuring that the agencies retain control of the policy content of any decision made in such an adjudication. It then describes the series of opinions the Supreme Court issued during the 1950s in which the Justices unanimously praised the provisions of the APA that assure that ALJs conduct adjudicatory hearings in an unbiased manner, explained the importance of those statutory provisions in protecting the values reflected in the Due Process Clause, and urged Congress to make those safeguards applicable to all agency adjudications. It concludes by urging the Court to issue an opinion that respects the decision that Congress made in 1946 to insulate ALJs from potential sources of pro-agency bias by including in the APA a combination of provisions that confer decisional independence on ALJs

Crossover Scaling in Dendritic Evolution at Low Undercooling

We examine scaling in two-dimensional simulations of dendritic growth at low undercooling, as well as in three-dimensional pivalic acid dendrites grown on NASA's USMP-4 Isothermal Dendritic Growth Experiment. We report new results on self-similar evolution in both the experiments and simulations. We find that the time dependent scaling of our low undercooling simulations displays a cross-over scaling from a regime different than that characterizing Laplacian growth to steady-state growth

Identification of novel small molecules that elevate Klotho expression

The absence of Klotho (KL) from mice causes the development of disorders associated with human aging and decreased longevity, whereas increased expression prolongs lifespan. With age, KL protein levels decrease, and keeping levels consistent may promote healthier aging and be disease-modifying. Using the KL promoter to drive expression of luciferase, we conducted a high-throughput screen to identify compounds that activate KL transcription. Hits were identified as compounds that elevated luciferase expression at least 30%. Following validation for dose-dependent activation and lack of cytotoxicity, hit compounds were evaluated further in vitro by incubation with opossum kidney and Z310 rat choroid plexus cells, which express KL endogenously. All compounds elevated KL protein compared with control. To determine whether increased protein resulted in an in vitro functional change, we assayed FGF23 (fibroblast growth factor 23) signalling. Compounds G–I augmented ERK (extracellular-signal-regulated kinase) phosphorylation in FGFR (fibroblast growth factor receptor)-transfected cells, whereas co-transfection with KL siRNA (small interfering RNA) blocked the effect. These compounds will be useful tools to allow insight into the mechanisms of KL regulation. Further optimization will provide pharmacological tools for in vivo studies of KL

Direct calculation of the hard-sphere crystal/melt interfacial free energy

We present a direct calculation by molecular-dynamics computer simulation of the crystal/melt interfacial free energy, $\gamma$, for a system of hard spheres of diameter $\sigma$. The calculation is performed by thermodynamic integration along a reversible path defined by cleaving, using specially constructed movable hard-sphere walls, separate bulk crystal and fluid systems, which are then merged to form an interface. We find the interfacial free energy to be slightly anisotropic with $\gamma$ = 0.62$\pm 0.01$, 0.64$\pm 0.01$ and 0.58$\pm 0.01 k_BT/\sigma^2$ for the (100), (110) and (111) fcc crystal/fluid interfaces, respectively. These values are consistent with earlier density functional calculations and recent experiments measuring the crystal nucleation rates from colloidal fluids of polystyrene spheres that have been interpreted [Marr and Gast, Langmuir {\bf 10}, 1348 (1994)] to give an estimate of $\gamma$ for the hard-sphere system of $0.55 \pm 0.02 k_BT/\sigma^2$, slightly lower than the directly determined value reported here.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter

Efficient Computation of Dendritic Microstructures using Adaptive Mesh Refinement

We study dendritic microstructure evolution using an adaptive grid, finite element method applied to a phase-field model. The computational complexity of our algorithm, per unit time, scales linearly with system size, rather than the quadratic variation given by standard uniform mesh schemes. Time-dependent calculations in two dimensions are in good agreement with the predictions of solvability theory, and can be extended to three dimensions and small undercoolingsComment: typo in a parameter of Fig. 1; 4 pages, 4 postscript figures, in LateX, (revtex