ACOEL members contribute regularly to the ACOEL Blog, writing on topics of current interest in their respective fields. Recently-published blogs are featured below, or you can search the ACOEL blog archive using the search feature.
Current Blogs
When Regulatory Oversight Becomes Inverse Condemnation
September 21, 2023Posted on September 21, 2023 by Jeffrey Haynes The Michigan Court of Appeals issued a decision that may upend our usual notion that environmental regulation does not ordinarily give rise to an inverse condemnation claim. In Krieger v. Dep’t of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, the court denied the...
EPA Proposes the Use of AI to Identify Enforcement Targets
September 20, 2023Posted on September 20, 2023 by Stephen Gidiere As far as I know, this headline is false. But is it so hard to imagine? EPA actually maintains an “artificial intelligence inventory” that claims EPA has developed “a proof-of-concept to improve enforcement of environmental regulations through facility inspections by the...
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Sorcery, Magic, and a Bit Of Alchemy? Creating Water
March 9, 2023Posted on March 9, 2023 by Kevin R. Murray The medieval forerunner of chemistry is said to have been alchemy and was primarily focused on transforming base metals and...

The U.S. Government Gets Serious on Climate Change
March 8, 2023Posted on March 8, 2023 by Leslie Carothers During a pandemic paper purge, I found a corporate newsletter showing me and my boss, George David, then CEO of United...

Letters of Belpher to Kasgar:* On the Methods of Denying Climate Change
March 7, 2023Posted on March 7, 2023 by Chuck Becker** December 25, 2022 Dearest Kasgar, To date, your queries to me have focused on the propriety of your endeavor. This is...

Permitting Reform Redux
February 27, 2023Posted on February 27, 2023 by Bill Brownell In an earlier blog, I commented on this Administration’s “Action Plan” to accelerate infrastructure development following enactment of the Inflation Reduction...

Surprise! A 9th Circuit Clean Water Act opinion that a member of the Supreme Court majority could have written!
February 23, 2023Posted on February 23, 2023 by Jeffrey R. Porter This week three Judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that a District Court Judge exceeded his authority...

May A Court Take Judicial Notice of Gravity?
February 22, 2023Posted on February 22, 2023 by Seth Jaffe Earlier this month, United States District Court Judge Stephen Wilson held that NL Industries was not liable under CERCLA for air...

RIGHT IN MY BACK YARD… a view from a RIMBY’s window
February 16, 2023Posted on February 16, 2023 by LeAnne Burnett I became an inadvertent environmental lawyer in 1988 when my supervising attorney plunked a foot-high stack of paper on my desk...

Does Environmental Review of Projects Needed for a Net-Zero Economy Lead to a Death By a Thousand Cuts?
February 10, 2023Posted on February 10, 2023 by Seth Jaffe Earlier this week, the decision in Bartell Ranch v. McCullough generally supported the Bureau of Land Management’s review under NEPA and...

An Unexpected Journey: Can Tree Sitting Drive Policy?
February 9, 2023Posted on February 9, 2023 by Karl S. Coplan A year ago I retired from the active practice and teaching of environmental law to pursue a lifelong dream of...