Journalism 784: Environment of the West
Summer 2006 (3 credits)
On-campus:
Room 216, RSJ
Prof.
Edward Lenert, lead instructor for week of July 31 – August 6, 2006.
Email: Lenert@gmail.com
Mobile:
(646) 256-6200
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SYLLABUS
FOR WEEK ONE
WEEK
OF JULY 31 – Why isn't Lake Tahoe a national park? How did we get to
where we are today?
An overview of the legal and
regulatory apparatus that is used to determine most environmental policy issues
today, beginning with NEPA and working through to the TRPA, as well as a
discussion of the values that lead to such decisions. Students will begin
identifying major players and agencies operating at Lake Tahoe and analyze the
discourse and operating culture of lawyers and regulators.
(Note: The date listed is when
the readings are due. You should complete these readings prior to each class.
All of the links below are required readings.)
Introduction to the class.
Reading 1: Justice Douglas, dissenting in Sierra Club v. Morton, Secretary of the Interior, Supreme Court of the United States, 405 U.S. 727 (1972).
Theme: Who speaks for 'the environment?'(Should Trees Have Standing?) How are rights and responsibilities allocated in the US system of environmental law? What are the roles of federal, state, local and private authority?
Reading 2. Thomas Mullikin, Nancy Smith, Michael Champion, 'Inextricably Intertwined: Environmental Management and the Public' (2005). Georgetown International Environmental Law Review, Spring, 2005 (17 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 393)
Theme: U.S. environmental regulatory law envisions citizen involvement and public participation is a cornerstone concept found throughout U.S. environmental law and includes a range of modes from reactive citizen-suit provisions to the more proactive participatory mechanisms aimed at public involvement in the policy formation stage.
Activities (in class): We will review the basic structure of the US legal system in relation to environmental law from a historical perspective and show how environmental concern arose in the context of a progressive political culture, and later, amid a large-scale administrative state. In other words, when it comes to the environment, how do we as a nation gather our facts and then act within a system of law?
Theme: 'Environmental Citizenship'
Reading 1: Kirk Johnson (2005). Drier, Tainted Nevada May Be Legacy of Gold Rush. The New York Times. December 30, 2005.
Theme: In terms of protecting the environment, 'who watches the watchdogs?' When called upon to act, can ordinary citizens accomplish what the government failed to achieve?
Reading 2. Mary Mongan (2006). Preventing a Public Health
Crisis in the Pacific Northwest: Using
Citizen Suits to Clean-up Hanford. Vermont Journal of
Environmental Law, May 10, 2006.
Activities: For the in class
activities below, each student will be assigned to a group and will make a
presentation to the class. For further guidance on these activities, please see
the attached Assignment
Sheet).
Group A: Citizen's Right to Know and the free
flow of
Information.
Question: How do communities come to know about toxic pollution released from factories and other sources of pollution? Evaluate the flow of information among industry, citizens and regulators.
Group B: Enforcement of
environmental laws by government and citizen action
Question: In comparison to litigation initiated by the US government, what is the role of citizen-initiated litigation in preserving the environment? Consider this mechanism of citizen lawsuits. Is a fair balance being struck among the competing interests of industry, recreation, and preservation?
Reading 1: Jillian K. Mooney (2006). Confrontation on Sandy Neck: Public Road Access Rights, Endangered Species Protections, And Municipal Liability. Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, 33 B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 149.
Theme: Land-use regulations impact property values. Under what circumstances can we some make landowners (but not others) bare the cost of protecting the environment?
Reading 2. Greg Stohr (2006). U.S. Supreme Court to Consider Requiring Greenhouse Gas Rules. Bloomberg News. See also, Massachusetts v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 05-1120 (2006).
Theme: Can the administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency to refuse to regulate tailpipe emissions required by the Clean Air Act on the grounds that more scientific and technical studies are needed? More generally, when faced a law passed by Congress, exactly how much discretion does an agency official have to make regulations (or not)?
Activities:
Group C: Questions of
power—constitutional and statutory.
Question: In Tahoe Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (2002) did the Supreme Court reach the correct balance between environmental regulation and the rights of owners of private property?
Group D: A balance of power?
Question: In relation to the environment, what is balance of power among executive, legislative and judicial branches of government?
Reading 1: U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Burger, writing for the Court in TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978).
Theme: The Endangered Species Act of 1973 requires a federal court, for the purpose of protecting an endangered species or its habitat, to enjoin permanently the operation of any federal project. In TVA v. Hill, the Supreme Court held that Congress intended to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction - whatever the cost. Exactly what expenditures are we as a society prepared to make to protect species from extinction?
Reading 2: Sharon Beder (2001). Trading the Earth:
The politics behind tradable pollution rights, Environmental
Liability (9) 2, 2001, pp. 152-160.
Activities:
Group E: Preserving Bio
Diversity
Question: Evaluate the progress in preserving bio diversity since TVA v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153 (1978). Bring the situation up to date with a discussion of the implications of more recent decision such as Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe v. Department of the Navy, 898 F.2d 1410 (9thCir. 1990).
Group F: Using market mechanism to solve environmental
problems.
Theme: For most of our history the federal government and
state governments have addressed environmental problems primarily through
"command and control" regulation. Changing circumstances have
highlighted the inability of Congress and state legislatures to act stewards
from the environment, should we turn our attention to 'market based' solutions
for reducing pollution? To what extent is it a policy problem that pollution
rights or emissions trading are aimed at minimizing costs to firms rather than
maximizing environmental gains?
Question: Evaluate the use of market mechanisms such as 'tradable pollution rights' to address problems of air and water pollution in the United States.
Transition to Week 2:
What are the fundamental
elements of the Tahoe Basin's environmental values? What is TRPA and how does
TRPA strike a balance among competing economic and environmental values? More importantly, by what means are
such values recognized, argued for and decided upon, and what is journalism's
role?
Week 1 writing assignment. Please
refer to the assignment from Journalism, Democracy, and the Environment syllabus.
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