The National Wildlife Refuge System and the Hallmarks of Modern Organic Legislation

This article explores the origins and precise meaning of the term organic act, which is widely used in public land law. The evolution in the meaning of the term reflects larger shifts in the role of legislation in public resource management. The article illustrates this with an analysis of the 1997 Refuge Improvement Act, a substantial revision of the charter for the Refuge System and the first major statute governing public land management enacted since the 1970s. The Refuge System\u27s dominant use regime is an important model for sustainable resource management. The article describes this regime in the context of the unique purpose, hierarchy of dominant uses, and substantive management mandates under which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service administers the national wildlife refuges. In addition, the article provides a critique of the planning, compatibility, and biological integrity, diversity and environmental health policies that the Service has promulgated to guide management of the refuges

The BFOQ Defense in ADEA Suits: The Scope of Duties of the Job

This Note examines these three possible interpretations of which job characteristics a court must examine when determining the validity of a BFOQ defense to an ADEA suit and concludes that the Eighth Circuit\u27s standard is correct. Because disputes over which interpretation is proper arise almost exclusively in cases involving public safety occupations, this Note discusses the standards for measuring that scope within the framework of the policy considerations associated with public safety. Part I of this Note discusses the three current standards used to determine the scope of the BFOQ defense. Part II illuminates the problems inherent in having three different standards and argues that a single standard most fully effectuates the goals of the ADEA. Furthermore, Part II argues that in light of the statutory language, legislative history, and policy concerns behind the ADEA, courts should follow the Eighth Circuit and define duties of the job to mean the specific duties performed by the employee

Leveraging Federal Land Plans Into Landscape Conservation

Professor Fischman’s article suggests several ways in which a mandated unit-level (e.g. an individual national forest) plan can better contribute to goals of a larger region (e.g. the Willamette River watershed) and of federal agencies (e.g. mandates to maintain ecological integrity). The scientific literature is largely in agreement that achieving ecological integrity, adaptive management, and climate change resiliency all require large-scale coordination across property boundaries and jurisdictions. The author takes these widely accepted findings as a starting point and shows how public agencies can implement effective practices. The article attempts to integrate traditional regulatory analysis with actual planning practices as revealed in empirical work

What Is Natural Resources Law?

A recent flurry of new natural resources law casebooks, coming a quarter-century since the publication of the last significant new teaching materials, is an occasion to revisit the boundaries that define the field. The similarities among the casebooks are stronger than their differences, and represent a consensus about what composes natural resources law. The published teaching materials as well as an informal poll of natural resources law professors show a substantial overlap between natural resources and environmental law course coverage. Administrative implementation of statutes dominates both subjects. Both courses typically cover environmental impact analysis and endangered species protection. The new casebooks broaden natural resources law coverage to include water rights, wetland development, and other subjects outside of public land management. Despite the common ground shared with environmental law, natural resources law retains a distinctive character. This article describes four attributes that justify separate pedagogical treatment of natural resources law as a stand-alone course in law schools. First, the in-situ character of extractive activities that dominate natural resources law raises special problems and generates place-based approaches to governance. Second, the deeper roots of natural resources law present particularly vexing interpretive issues for applying the old statutes, deeds, and doctrines to contemporary problems. Third, natural resources law has more experience with ecosystem management. Fourth, despite the now-paramount importance of administrative tools, natural resources law still displays a broader array of property interests that go beyond the variations studied in the first-year property class

From Words to Action: The Impact and Legal Status of the 2006 National Wildlife Refuge System Management Policies

On June 26, 2006, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) issued three new final policies governing the conservation of the national wildlife refuge system. These new agency manual provisions nearly complete an implementation project that began shortly after Congress enacted an organic statute in 1997 for management of the refuges. This article briefly reviews the significance of the 1997 legislation and places the new policies in the context of the statutory framework. It then discusses the most important aspects of the policies in terms of both practical refuge management and broader trends in natural resources law. The article evaluates the legal status of the policies with a special focus on whether the judiciary would bind the FWS to follow them. The article concludes with suggestions for the next round of FWS policymaking for refuge conservation

The Divides of Environmental Law and the Problem of Harm in the Endangered Species Act

Symposium: Missing Information: The Scientific Data Gap in Conservation and Chemical Regulation, held on March 24, 2006 at Indiana University School of Law- Bloomington

The Meanings of Biological Integrity, Diversity, and Environmental Health

This article extracts from the legislative mandate to ensure that the biological integrity, diversity, and environmental health of the [Refuge] System are maintained, a range of meanings that reflect scientific and legislative trends in conservation. The standard modes of statutory interpretation yield meanings that largely support the 2001 Fish and Wildlife Service policy delineating three distinct yet overlapping categories. The analysis reveals three insights applicable to other areas of environmental law. First, although diversity and health emphasize important aspects of nature protection, integrity is becoming the umbrella concept that encompasses the needs of well functioning landscapes. Second, the effectiveness of an organic mandate hinges on agency implementation, and the 2001 policy - though a laudable start - does not adequately establish benchmarks to measure compliance. Third, broad spatial and temporal scales now frame nature protection. The mandate looks beyond individual refuge boundaries to the context of a watershed, region, or the entire federal land system, in addressing the dynamic variation in ecological processes