The Bush Record on the Environment: What a Difference Two Years Make

Although the Bush Administration has proposed a few environmentally positive initiatives . . . these initiatives have been far over-shadowed by the efforts to weaken or roll back environmental protections

Advancing Environmental Justice Norms

Part I of this Article provides brief background on the environmental justice movement. Part 11 generally describes some of the challenges that environmental justice principles pose for the traditional environmental decision-making paradigm. Part III presents several specific examples of how environmental justice norms can be incorporated to improve the ethical outcomes of traditional agency decision making

Enforcing the Clean Water Act in the Twenty-First Century: Harnessing the Power of the Public Spotlight

Thirty years after the passage of the Clean Water Act, how can we strengthen enforcement of the CWA, increase rates of compliance, and move closer to achieving the statute\u27s un-derlying objectives? This Article argues that legislators and policymakers looking for solutions in this resource-strapped era should harness the power of the public spotlight to enhance enforcement efforts. Part I describes the strong Congressional and public support for vigorous enforcement of the statute. Part II discusses how successfully the NPDES program currently is being implemented by the states and the EPA. The record of performance shows that there are numerous deficiencies in the permitting and enforce-ment programs of many states and that rates of noncompliance by regulated entities are disturbingly high. Part III describes the large resource gap affecting many state NPDES programs, including state enforcement and com-pliance assistance programs. Part IV discusses various spotlighting ap-proaches that can be used to improve enforcement programs. These include (1) shining an EPA spotlight on the enforcement and compliance-related records of regulated firms; (2) shining an EPA spotlight on the performance of state NPDES programs in achieving compliance among regulated firms; and (3) requiring that publicly-traded corporations disclose more enforcement and compliance-related information to investors and the public

Deterrence vs. Cooperation and the Evolving Theory of Environmental Enforcement

This Article critically examines the assumptions underlying the reform movement, and concludes that we should ease the rush to dismantle traditional, deterrence-based civil enforcement. While some of the underlying critiques of traditional enforcement have merit, they do not demonstrate that a wholesale shift to a primarily cooperative-oriented approach will improve compliance with environmental law. In fact, a deterrence based system of enforcement contains many attributes that are equally if not more essential to achieving compliance. Rather than discarding the current enforcement approach, we should move to a system of environmental enforcement that is grounded in deterrence theory but integrates the most constructive features of a cooperative model. Part II of this Article describes the theoretical basis for the traditional approach to enforcing environmental law, and how this approach has evolved in practice. Part Ill assesses the major theoretical critiques of deterrence- based enforcement that underlie the current push for reform. Part IV discusses the positive elements of deterrence-based enforcement and why they should not be abandoned. Part V analyzes the wisdom of the most significant proposed reforms currently being considered or implemented, and suggests a better approach for improving enforcement of our nation\u27s environmental laws