An editorial in The World - Coos County, Oregon's local newspaper - about their upcoming Community Rights ordinance on the county's ballot on May 16, that would ban the proposed LNG pipeline and terminal. Once again we in Coos County find ourselves facing a ballot issue that is more a political statement than legislative rule, [...]
This essay by historian Ray Raphael was published in the Journal of the American Revolution on March 16, 2017. Peter Oliver, the Crown-appointed Chief Justice of provincial Massachusetts, knew how to discredit popular protest. Mindless and incapable of acting on their own, crowds that opposed British imperial policies “were like the Mobility of all Countries, [...]
A Blog Posting by Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from January 8, 2017. In stunned abhorrence of president-elect Donald Trump, many people sought some recourse to block him from becoming president. They sought some silver bullet, some mechanism in our system of governance to prevent a presidential candidate who appeared to win the [...]
A Blog Posting by Emelyn Lybarger & Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from December 11, 2016. President-elect Trump promises to appoint a hard-right conservative to the U.S. Supreme Court, dashing Progressive hopes for a liberal court in the foreseeable future. And he may well be appointing at least one other Justice. Progressives are [...]
A Blog Posting by Ben Price of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from November 19, 2016. In the still early years of the twenty-first century, two presidents have been selected – not elected – without the assenting vote of the majority. How this could happen in a so-called democracy is the question of the [...]
A Blog Posting by Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, from November 12, 2016. In the United States, we put a lot of faith in the theory of “checks and balances” of government power. The theory goes that, since power corrupts, it is best to not give absolute power to any one [...]
Thomas Linzey and Mari Margil shared the stage at the annual Bioneers Conference in California in October 2016. As species collapse around the world while governments still authorize fossil fuel extraction and other destructive, unsustainable activities, communities across the U.S. are rising in resistance to "occupy the law". They're enacting "community bills of rights" that [...]
This 51-page academic essay, written by Hope M. Babcock, was originally published in Ecology Law Quarterly in 2016. Hope M. Babcock is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center where she teaches natural resources and environmental law and also directs an environmental clinic. "Our brooks will babble in the courts, Seeking damages for torts." [...]
This Keynote Speech by Paul Cienfuegos was presented at the 6th Annual Symposium of the Arnold School of Public Health ‘Center for Research in Nutrition and Health Disparities’, and ‘The Environment and Sustainability Program’, on March 18, 2016 at the University of South Carolina. The topic of this annual symposium was “Healthy Eating in Context: Realities of the Dietary Guidelines”. “Corporations [...]
An original essay from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. Some Historial Context: “There is no unalienable right to local self-government.” That’s what Pennsylvania attorney general Thomas Corbett said to the Commonwealth Court as he tried to overturn a municipal ordinance banning the dumping of urban sewage sludge on farm land. Was he right? When [...]