SLIDES: Environmental Justice: Comprehensive Approach

Presenter: Nicholas Targ, Holland & Knight, former Associate Director for Environmental Justice Integration, Office of Environmental Justice, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 16 slide

Attorney Client Confidentiality in the Criminal Environmental Law Context: Blowing the Whistle on the Toxic Client

Whether an attorney should blow the whistle on a client\u27s violation of environmental law is a question that is likely to confront attorneys with increasing frequency. While the regulation of pollution is not new, the criminalization of the violation is a relatively new development. Recognizing the impact of pollution on human health and the environment, Congress has passed a panoply of laws making certain unauthorized disposal and emission practices, and the failure to keep records of hazardous wastes felony offenses. This Article explores the ethics of disclosure within the context of environmental crimes by examining the following threshold questions: (1) what environmental laws are implicated by the client\u27s actions, and (2) whether those actions reach criminal proportion. The Article explores the general conditions under which an attorney may breach an ethical duty of confidentiality and the policies supporting that duty. The Article advocates an interpretation of both the Model Code of Professional Responsibility and Model Rules of Professional Conduct that would permit reporting a client who is resolute in committing, or commits, an environmental crime which might seriously harm people if timely action is not taken. The Article concludes by providing suggestions on how an attorney should analyze the issue of disclosure of a client\u27s violation and then applies this analysis to a hypothetical

The Link Between Protecting Natural Resources and the Issue of Environmental Justice

Communities frequently raise environmental justice issues when decisions are made without taking into consideration how people, including people living in low-income and minority communities, are linked to their surrounding environment. Different communities use and relate to their environment in different ways and face different levels of environmental harms and risks. Thus, to avoid disproportionate impacts, it is critical that each community’s environmental needs and vulnerabilities be understood and considered before decisions are made. Existing statutory authority provides ample opportunity for decisionmakers to involve communities in the decisionmaking process and to consider how they use and relate to their environment and the natural resources services that their environment provides. This article analyzes the integration of environmental justice concerns into the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s decisionmaking process with special attention given to permits issued under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. In addition, through case study analysis, the article examines how environmental justice issues have been addressed by: EPA in the establishment of water quality criteria under the Clean Water Act; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s and the Department of the Interior’s application of the National Environmental Policy Act; and the Army Corps of Engineers’ decisionmaking process under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act