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The Perfect Spill: Solutions for Averting the Next Deepwater Horizon By Robert Costanza, David Batker, John Day, Rusty Feagin, M. Luisa Martinez, Joe Roman National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) f we refuse to take into account the full cost of our fossil fuel addiction-if we don't factor in the environmental costs and national security costs and true economic costs-we will have missed our best chance to seize a clean energy future." -President Barack Obama, Carnegie Mellon University, June 2, 2010 he continuing oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon is causing enormous economic and ecological damage. Estimates of the size and duration continue to escalate, but it is now the largest in U.S. history and clearly among the largest oil spills on record.1 s efforts to plug the leak and clean up the damages continue, it is not too soon to begin to draw lessons from this disaster. We need to learn from this experience so we can prevent future oil spills, reevaluate society's current trajectory, and set a better course. ne major lesson is that our natural capital assets and other public goods are far too valuable to continue to put them at such high risk from private interests. We need better (not necessarily more) regulation and strong incentives to protect these assets against actions that put them at risk. While the Obama administration's demand for a trust fund to compensate injured parties is appropriate, it arrived only after the fact. Common asset trusts and new financial instruments like assurance bonds would be better able to shift risk incentives and prevent disasters like the Deepwater Horizon. The Costs: Damages to Natural Capital Assets he spill has directly and indirectly affected at least 20 categories of valuable ecosystem services in and around the Gulf of Mexico. The $2.5 billion per year Louisiana commercial fishery has been almost completely shut down. As the oil extends to popular Gulf Coast beaches, the loss of tourism

RETROACTIVE LIABILITY UNDER THE SUPERFUND: TIME TO SETTLE THE ISSUE NANCY K. KUBASEK,[*] CARRIE WILLIAMSON,[**] AND RACHAEL VIGIL[***] Copyright © 1997 Florida State University Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law I. INTRODUCTION Over the past two years, reauthorization of Superfund legislation has been a hotly debated topic.[1] A primary issue in these debates has been to what extent should retroactive liability be limited under the law.[2] Before Congress acted on any proposal to limit retroactive liability, a federal district court judge issued a controversial ruling holding that the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)[3] did not apply retroactively to impose liability for waste disposed prior to the law's enactment in 1980. The controversial case was United States v. Olin,[4] decided by Senior District Court Judge Hand in May 1996. Even though this decision was later reversed on appeal, this case briefly gave hope to those who did not favor retroactive liability.[5]

672. Steven Shavell, The Corrective Tax versus Liability As Solutions to the Problem of Harmful Externalities, 7/10. Abstract: Although the corrective tax has long been viewed by economists as a theoretically desirable remedy for the problem of harmful externalities, its actual use has been limited, mainly to the domain of pollution. Liability, in contrast, has great importance in controlling harmful externalities. I compare the tax and liability here in theory and suggest that the conclusions help to explain the observed predominance of liability over taxation, except in the area of pollution. The following factors are emphasized in the analysis: inefficiency of incentives under taxes when, as would be typical, it would be impractical for the state to incorporate into taxes all of the variables that significantly affect expected harm; efficiency of incentives under strict liability, which requires only that actual harms be measured; efficiency of incentives to exercise precautions under the negligence rule; administrative cost advantages of liability deriving from its being applied only when harm occurs; and dilution of incentives under liability when suit would be unlikely or injurers would not be able to pay fully for harms caused.

India is the first country to introduce environmental legislation in the constitution but because of lengthy legal procedures, it is very difficult to control environmental deterioration. There are many factors responsible for this deterioration. Coal mining is one such activity where deterioration is very severe and the present communication aims this aspect. Coal is the one of the most essential mineral having large reserves in India. It's mining and beneficiation produce a variety of pollutants. The main pollutants emitted during the processing of coal are green house gases, coal dust and acid mine drainage. Many reports on different aspects of coal mining are available including reports on emission of different pollutants but the present work is probably only of it's kind in which the authors have tried to determine environment liability directly in terms of economy. It was found that greenhouse liabilities, coal dust liability and sulphur liability are accounted for 12.07, 5.0 and 101.97 US$, making an overall 2.4% of the total economic gains due to coal mining. During the calculations approximate number of total workers and other parameters have been taken into consideration. Who pays for this irreversible damage is a question

Environmental liability for contaminated land - towards a European consensus Margaret Hollins and Susan Percy School of Urban Development and Policy, South Bank University, Wandsworth Road, London SW8 2JZ, U.K. Available online 23 June 1998. Abstract Land contamination1 has often been accepted as an inevitable consequence of industrialisation (Williams, R., 1995, Paper presented to the 9th AESOP Congress), however, when land is contaminated this affects the market value of the site and presents problems in terms of the extent of civil liability for environmental damage and clean up. Different countries have different approaches to dealing with contaminated land, with no consensus approach across Europe. There is now increasing pressure being brought to bear on European member states to treat contamination with some degree of uniformity. This paper explores a number of differences in contaminated land policy together with the legal and policy developments at national and European levels and concludes that a European consensus on land contamination is very problematic but nevertheless important for long term land development across Europe. Author Keywords: contaminated land; liability; environment; Europe

Socializing Risk: The New Energy Economics May 27, 2010frankackermanLeave a commentGo to comments from Frank Ackerman Despite talk of a moratorium, the Interior Department's Minerals and Management Service is still granting waivers from environmental review for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, including wells in very deep water. Until last month, most of us never thought about the risk that one of those huge offshore rigs would explode in flames and then sink, causing oil to gush out uncontrollably and befoul the oceans. The odds seemed low, and still do: Aren't there lots of drilling rigs in use, year after year? Twenty years ago, your elected representatives thought that you'd be happy to have them adopt a very low cap on industry's liability for oil spill damages.  Nuclear power was never quite free of fears; it was too clearly a spin-off of nuclear weapons to ignore the risk of a very big bang. Yet as its advocates point out, we have had hundreds of reactor-years of experience, with only a few accidents. (And someday when Nevada's politicians aren't looking, maybe we can slip all of our nuclear waste into a cave in the desert.) Again, the risks are so low that you'd be happy to learn about a law limiting industry's liability for accidents, wouldn't you?  Environmentalists have long warned that the world could run out of energy and resources, from the "limits to growth" theories of the 1970s to the more recently popular notion of "peak oil." The response from economists has been that prices for energy and raw materials are still moderate, and declined over the course of the 20th century; if we are running out of something, why doesn't its price skyrocket? The problem is that what we're running out of is low-risk conventional energy supplies. Because our economy conceals and socializes energy risks, prices remain deceptively low for an increasingly risky energy supply. The market wasn't supposed to work this way. In the

Superfund and Retroactive Liability: Is It Really Fair? by Adam J. Smargon Part I -- Introduction The United States produces close to 300 million tons of hazardous waste every year. Nineteen years ago, Congress wanted to improve the management and disposal of hazardous waste, and it therefore enacted the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). But that act failed in the area of previously existing hazardous waste sites which threatened nearby residents by leaking into the water supply. In 1976, the nation awoke to find that Love Canal families had to move due to the neighborhood being built over an abandoned hazardous waste site. The end result in the wake of this public outcry was the passing of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), more commonly known as Superfund. It gave more authority to the federal government to react to threatened or actual releases of hazardous materials, and "it allows the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to compel parties to clean up their properties, or alternatively, to reimburse [the] EPA for the government's cost of doing the cleanup."[1] CERCLA was amended and reauthorized six years later, as the obviously-named Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA).

Frontiers in the economics of environmental regulation and liability Por Marcel Boyer,Yolande Hiriart,David Martimort é um livro que dar bem a conta do recado, a despeito da sua forte ênfase na modelagem matemática e seu tratamento fraco dos aspectos legais .

When All Else Fails: Government as the Ultimate Risk Manager David A. Moss 5 Resenhas Harvard University Press, 2004 - 456 páginas One of the most important functions of government--risk management--is one of the least well understood. Moving beyond the most familiar public functions--spending, taxation, and regulation--When All Else Fails spotlights the government's pivotal role as a risk manager. It reveals, as never before, the nature and extent of this governmental function, which touches almost every aspect of economic life. In policies as diverse as limited liability, deposit insurance, Social Security, and federal disaster relief, American lawmakers have managed a wide array of private-sector risks, transforming both the government and countless private actors into insurers of last resort. Drawing on history and economic theory, David Moss investigates these risk-management policies, focusing in particular on the original logic of their enactment. The nation's lawmakers, he finds, have long believed that pervasive imperfections in private markets for risk necessitate a substantial government role. It remains puzzling, though, why such a large number of the resulting policies have proven so popular in a country famous for its anti-statism. Moss suggests that the answer may lie in the nature of the policies themselves, since publicly mandated risk shifting often requires little in the way of invasive bureaucracy. Well suited to a society suspicious of government activism, public risk management has emerged as a critical form of government intervention in the United States.

In this paper we analyze the factors that should be considered when allocating a given policy function at a particular level of government and how these factors affect the growth and evolution of multi-level governments. After discussing the interplay of economies of scale, economies of scope, and heterogeneity of preferences in determining the optimal level of legal intervention, we show that the subsidiarity principle can have mixed effects as a firewall against progressive centralization. Our economic model of subsidiarity reveals that once some functions become centralized, further centralization becomes easier and often unavoidable. Contrary to its intended function, a piecemeal application of the subsidiarity principle can trigger a path-dependent avalanche of centralization, turning subsidiarity into a self-defeating statement of principle.

Symposium examines legal issues from BP oil spill Filed under Announcements, InsideUF (Campus), Top Stories on Thursday, September 9, 2010. GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Legal responses to the disaster caused by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill this summer are wide-ranging and varied, according to law professors from the University of Florida Levin College of Law who have been studying laws and policies that can determine liability for such environmental disasters. A symposium outlining the legal basis for responding to the oil spill will be held at 4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 16, in the Martin H. Levin Legal Advocacy Center at UF's Levin College of Law. The public is invited. Symposium participants include six UF law faculty members, one UF sociology faculty member and six UF law students who have studied the legal structures governing follow-up decisions in the aftermath of the spill along the Gulf Coast. The symposium will examine: 1. Florida laws governing oil spills, including a comparison of laws in other states affected by the spill, which are Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas; 2. Federal and admiralty laws relating to oil spills and recovery, including the Oil Pollution Act, which is the central authority on oil spills at the federal level; 3. Types of recovery that can include natural resource restoration, economic compensation for individuals, communities, and businesses, and punitive damages or fines; 4. The claims process established initially by BP and now administered by Kenneth Feinberg through the Gulf Coast Claims Facility; 5. Responses from commissions established by the State of Florida and by President Obama; and 6. Legislative actions that could assist oil spill victims. "We are in the initial stages of developing a legal framework for examining the law and policy issues that will be discussed throughout the region in the coming months and even years," said Jon Mills, who chairs UF law's Oil Spill Working Group and also serves on the univer

Environmental Liability and Redevelopment of Old Industrial Land Hilary Sigman Journal of Law and Economics Vol. 53, No. 2 (May 2010), pp. 289-306 (article consists of 18 pages) Published by: The University

Crime de Poluição - Uma Resposta do Direito Penal aos Novos Riscos - Biblioteca de Estudos Avançados em Direito Penal e Processual Penal - Coords.: Luiz Regis Prado e Adel El TasseAlessandra Rapassi Mascarenhas Prado, 348 pgs. Publicado em: 1/4/2010 Editora: Juruá EditoraISBN: 978853622923-2Preço: R$ 79,90 * Desconto não cumulativo com outras promoções e P.A.P.               ÁREA(S) Direito PenalClique aqui e veja os últimos lançamentos da mesma área. SINOPSE"... A autora, embora entenda a necessidade de legitimação do Direito Penal para que possa enfrentar os problemas recentes, busca ao longo de seu trabalho, conciliar o direito liberal e garantista, com os ajustes necessários para atender às novas demandas. Por isto mesmo, afirma que há um 'grande desafio do Direito Penal Contemporâneo, que não pode deixar de assegurar as garantias e liberdades e individuais, mas, de outro lado, deve estender-se, quando necessário, para impedir lesões que podem assumir proporções catastróficas'... ... A autora põe o foco de seus estudos sobre o crime de poluição (um dos maiores impactos negativos sobre o meio ambiente, como se refere), analisando, com rara dedicação, a multiplicidade de aspectos existentes ao redor do tema, motivo pelo qual apresenta um trabalho único no Brasil... ... A poluição é apresentada ao leitor como fenômeno que assume características específicas em cada país e é altamente dependente de sua situação econômica. Lembra, por exemplo, que o processo de industrialização no Brasil apenas ganhou expressão na década de cinquenta, recorrendo-se a máquinas e equipamentos sucatados e tecnologia ultrapassada dos países industrializados. Este fato, no entanto constitui apenas uma faceta dos fatores econômicos que contribuíram para atividades poluidoras, como destaca, já que postos em conflito desenvolvimento econômico e preservação ambiental, o país durante muitos anos, optou pela primeira vertente

The monitoring and surveillance of genetically modified higher plants (GMHP) is an area that is still lacking an established international monitoring program. This volume presents ideas and suggestions by focusing on procedures in composing such a program and methods for detection of transgene dispersal and of environmental effects when GM plants are cultivated. Objectives and procedures for monitoring and surveying present and new types of GM plants are described, including herbicide tolerance, insect resistance and changed agronomic performance. Other issues covered in this book include: detection of GM plant dispersal and hybridisation; agricultural use and large scale effects; habitat selection and community invasibility; baseline definition and the time perspective; effects on ecosystems, vegetation and organism groups; sampling designs; data analysis and relevant statistical methods. In a final chapter, conclusions and recommendations are presented..

Offshore Oil and Gas Development in Northwest Russia: Consequences and Implications Original title: Offshore Oil and Gas Development in Northwest Russia: Consequences and Implications Report number: 2007 Authors: Nina Lesikhina, Irina Rudaya, Anna Kireeva, Olga Krivonos, Elena Kobets Publisher: Bellona Format: ISBN: ISSN: Price: 0 Download the report: Conclusion for Oil and Gas Report (0.05MB) Chapter 5. Environmental impact of oil and gas activity in the Arctic (1.23MB) Chapter 4. Oil and gas accidents prevention and liquidation (0.34MB) Chapter 3. Environmental risks when extracting and exporting oil and gas (0.79MB) Chapter 2. Transporting oil and gas in Northwest Russia (0.49MB) Chapter 1. Oil and gas resources on the Arctic Continental shelf in Russia (1.06MB) Introduction for Oil and Gas Report (0.03MB)

The technological advances of contemporary society have outpaced our moral understanding of the problems that they create. How will we deal with profound ecological changes, human cloning, hybrid people, and eroding cyberprivacy, just to name a few issues? In this book, Lorenzo Magnani argues that existing moral constructs often can not be applied to new technology. He proposes an entirely new ethical approach, one that blends epistemology with cognitive science.

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