This comment synthesizes various historical aspects of motor vehicle infrastructure in the United States. The network of issues at play involves centuries of public policy decisions made at the local, state, and federal level, which twentieth century legal innovations hastened and curdled into the car culture we are all a part of today. The public authority is the paradigm of...
Energy tax credits have always been a significant driver of renewable energy development, but the recent Inflation Reduction Act in response to new national development goals represents the most significant change in several decades. The Inflation Reduction Act is certainly a step in the right direction, but there are numerous factors that limit the impact on future developments...
Ocean acidification, a lesser-known counterpart to climate change, is primarily caused by the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This absorption, in turn, reduces the ocean’s pH, and has detrimental effects on the health of the entire ecosystem. This Comment examines the applicability of the “functional equivalent test,” coined by the Supreme Court in...
In the thirty years since the Exxon Valdez incident, much has changed. This article looks back at the events of the accident and the subsequent changes to the marine pollution insurance industry, from the statutes regulating oil tankers in 1989 to the Oil Pollution Act of the 1990. The regulatory framework resulting from the Exxon Valdez is examined and compared to the litigation...
In debates surrounding coastal restoration projects, the word “community” is heard frequently. Coastal restoration projects have the potential to affect a wide range of communities, both those which are place-based as well as communities of practice that are not geographically bound. However, the lack of a single, accepted definition of community can lead to faulty assumptions...
Law professors rarely give much thought to the names of their courses. This is a big mistake, for a course’s name can greatly influence a course’s enrollment. In this brief essay, the author details how he revived his struggling Admiralty course by changing its name to “Maritime Law.”
Marine mammals have been used in the U.S. entertainment system for several decades. While they were first acquired through capture from the wild, the trade and birth of marine mammals in facilities of public display – zoos and aquariums – has boomed. Since the early 1940s, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been tasked with maintaining the record of each...
The Jones Act—the title for a series of laws—is the backbone of American cabotage laws, and yet, it is rarely talked about in mainstream American discourse. The original Jones Act was enacted in 1920, and since 1920, it has not changed to any measurable degree. The Jones Act requires that all domestic maritime shipping—movement of merchandise from one U.S. point to another U.S...
As offshore wind development activity increases along the East Coast of the United States, commercial fishing groups have raised concerns about potential impacts on their operations. This comment examines the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s legal obligation under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to consider these concerns and mitigate potential impacts during the...
This article examines the current domestic and international legal framework that provides protections against the effects of IUU fishing as well as the social, economic, and environmental effects of those activities. Domestically, this article examines the Magnuson-Stevens Act for its lack of efficacy in managing IUU fishing in US-controlled waters. Internationally, this article...
A highly contributing factor to impairment of water quality is stormwater that flows across the urban landscape, picking up pollutants along the way, which is directed by a system of stormwater infrastructure to be deposited in the nearest water body. Though state regulations to manage stormwater are in place, there is a need to strengthen and expand them to address chloride...
Disputes over maritime boundaries result in inefficient outcomes for all parties to the conflict. The investments required to exploit deep-sea resources are too costly for risk-averse states to attempt to tap into mineral and hydrocarbon deposits beneath disputed boundaries. Consequently, more risk-tolerant states may exploit deep-sea resources without other parties receiving any...
The Clean Water Act regulates the discharge of pollutants into waters of the United States. Despite nonpoint pollution accounting for most water pollution, the Clean Water Act has few mechanisms to address such pollution. For coastal communities, this is of particular concern. Indeed, this concern facilitated a regulatory regime under the Coastal Zone Management Act and...
In 2021 the United States Supreme Court decided in the case PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey that Section 717(h) of the Natural Gas Act authorized the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to delegate the government’s eminent domain power to private companies. The Court’s decision allows a private company to condemn all “necessary rights-of-way,” whether privately-owned...
With shark encounters on the rise along the New England coast, state officials have the perfect opportunity to implement the United States’ first large-scale shark management program similar to that enacted in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Management programs are comprised of control measures that prevent sharks from swimming too close to beachgoers, and thus reduce the number of...
This paper focuses on enforcement issues with regard to deep-sea mineral mining in terms of unilateral and multilateral structures. It begins by exploring early forays into mineral mining, namely in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the necessity of the extractives industries generally. Next, this comment analyzes unilateral policy regimes, specifically through the lens...
The majestic North Atlantic right whale is on the brink of extinction. With fewer than seventy breeding females left, every loss contributes to a decrease in biodiversity and brings us closer to an unrecognizable planet. Like most critically endangered species, the plummeting number of North Atlantic right whales is a direct result of human activity. Specifically, gear used by...
This paper aims to analyze the greatest problems of the compound Aegean dispute between Greece and Turkey, namely the delimitation of territorial waters, legal entitlement of some Aegean Islands, and delimitation of their respective continental shelves. This article analyzes the nature of each dispute and potential solutions in light of previous international adjudications on...
This article argues in favor of stricter regulation to the wash water resulting from the Exhaust Gas Cleaning System aboard ships. These systems are also known as scrubbers. The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has required the shipping industry to reduce the fuel oil sulfur limit to 0.5%, and in emission control areas to 0.1%. To achieve this reduction, ship owners use...
Climate change is causing Arctic ice to melt at an alarming rate. But rapid changes in the Arctic are also raising pressing challenges to the Arctic States’ collective management of the region, exercised through the Arctic Council. The first is a greater number of players entering the region, each with its own claims to a share of the Arctic’s newly accessible oil reserves or to...
Marine plastic pollution, in particular plastic waste, has received increasing attention at the international level and has been recognized as a transboundary problem requiring a global response in the form of an international plastics treaty. While the international environmental regime provides the current framework for these discussions, the role of the trade regime is often...
This Note analyzes, in the context of United States v. Prado, whether under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” implicates subject matter jurisdiction. The Second Circuit in Prado held that subject to the jurisdiction of the United State does not implicate subject matter jurisdiction. The Fifth, Eleventh and D.C...
