Volume
26, Issue 3
Fall 1996
DEDICATION
Andrea
Swanner Redding
Dean
James L. Huffman
IN MEMORIAM
Edmund Sixtus Muskie
Vice President Al Gore
Vice President Al Gore Celebrates the life and
accomplishments of Edmund Sixtus Muskie, father of the Clean Water Act. Vice
President Gore encourages bipartisan efforts by elected officials to continue
Ed Muskie's work.
REMARKS
On April 19, 1996, Environmental Law celebrated the year's
accomplishments at its annual banquet. The celebration featured a keynote
speaker who teaches environmental and natural resources law at the University
of Oregon.
Environmental Scholarship for a New Millenium
Mary Christina Wood
Professor Wood is an Associate Professor of Law at
the University of Oregon School of Law. Urging students and scholars of
environmental law to break the intellectual apathy in this important field,
Professor Wood suggested scholars interested in preventing ecological disaster
should take to "millennium scholarship," marked by revealing the
environmental crisis, assessing the effectiveness of our legal system, and
refocusing on the ethical question of human responsibility toward the earth.
ARTICLES
Residents at Risk: Wildlife and the Bureau of Land Management's Planning
Process
Kelly Nolen
Ms. Nolen evaluates the Bureau of Land Management's
planning process under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA).
After concluding that wildlife does not receive adequate consideration, she
offers several solutions including amending FLPMA and increasing funding for
BLM wildlife and planning programs.
Multilateral Environmental Agreements and the GATT: Conflict and
Resolution?
Chris Wold
Mr. Wold, Instructor of Law at Northwestern School
of Law of Lewis & Clark College, grapples with the underlying conflicts
between international trade rules as declared in the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the trade provisions of various multilateral
environmental agreements. Although Mr. Wold concludes that the parties of
environmental trade agreements should assert the primacy of those agreements'
trade provisions, he notes that reconciling GATT and the environmental
agreements would be a more effective means of achieving environmental goals.
NOTE
Unleashing the Rule of Lenity: Environmental Enforcers Beware!
David E. Filippi
Mr. Filippi discusses the tension between the rule
of lenity and the public welfare status of environmental laws in the Second
Circuit's decision in United States v. Plaza Health Laboratories. In
light of recent Supreme Court decisions, he argues, the interest in protecting
public health and the environment should take precedence over the rule of
lenity where a reasonable person should know that certain conduct is subject to
regulation and may threaten the community's health or safety.
1995 NINTH CIRCUIT
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
Warrantless Administrative Searches Under Environmental Laws: The Limits
to EPA Inspectors' Statutory Invitation
David A. Christensen
Mr. Christensen reviews the development of the
administrative search exception to the search warrant requirement of the Fourth
Amendment, including the Ninth Circuit's recent holding in United States v.
V-1 Oil Co. He explores whether an EPA warrantless administrative search
under selected federal environmental laws would be consitutional, and concludes
that the exception has limited application to administrative searches under
these laws as currently written.
When Plain Language May Not Be Plain: Whether CERCLA's Preclusion of
Pre-Enforcement Judicial Review Is Limited to Actions Under CERCLA
Karla A. Raettig
Ms. Raettig examines decisions applying a 1986
CERCLA amendment that precludes pre-enforcement judicial review of challenges
to response actions, finding that courts differ on the question of whether the
preclusion is limited to suits brought under CERCLA. She argues that the
amendment extends to suits brought by any plaintiff under any environmental
statute unless they fit under a statutory exception.
Bennett v. Plenert: Environmental Citizen Suits and the Zone of
Interest Test
Kathleen C. Becker
Ms. Becker analyzes the current split in the
circuits regarding the use of the zone of interest test in the environmental
citizen suit context. She concludes that the U.S. Supreme Court should overrule
Bennet v. Plenert, but should allow the use of the zone of interest test
to limit standing to parties who are regulated or benefitted by an
environmental statute.