Vermont Law School Releases Inaugural Top 10 Environmental Watch List, Spotlights Policy Issues of 2010

(PR Newswire) Vermont Law School (VLS) today releases its inaugural Top 10 Environmental Watch List spotlighting the nation's most critical environmental law and policy issues of 2010 and how they may play out in 2011. Below is the Top 10 list, which is produced by the nation's top-ranked environmental law school. The full report is available at http://watchlist.vermontlaw.edu/. The report evaluates 10 judicial, regulatory, legislative and other actions that significantly affect humans and the natural world.

"We can continue our short-sighted addiction to fossil fuels or we can adopt innovative, healthier, more sustainable practices," said VLS Dean Jeff Shields. "The Environmental Watch List will help improve public understanding of how to use the law to take action on the critical issues of our time."

1. Congressional failure to enact climate change legislation: Professor Gus Speth, a pioneer of the environmental movement, explores what went wrong and whether the EPA and state and local lawmakers will step forward in 2011.

2. The nation's worst oil spill: Associate Professor Betsy Baker, an expert in the law of the sea, examines the legal and policy fallout from the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

3. First U.S. greenhouse gas rules: Professor Pat Parenteau, whose expertise includes climate change, looks at whether the EPA's efforts to restrict global warming pollutants will survive judicial and political challenges.

4. Climate change in the courts: Associate Professor Martha Judy, an expert in environmental liability, delves into a Supreme Court case that would allow public nuisance lawsuits against major air polluters.

5. California's climate law dodges a bullet: Professor John Echeverria, whose expertise includes climate change, looks at what's next for the Golden State's landmark anti-global warming law that survived a challenge at the ballot box.

6. EPA clamps down on mountaintop removal coal mining: Professor Mark Latham, an expert in environmental enforcement and regulation, examines the EPA's crackdown on the coal industry's practice of tearing off mountain peaks.

7. Wind and solar projects make breakthroughs: Assistant Professor Don Kreis, an expert in energy efficiency, law and regulation, examines plans for the nation's first offshore wind projects and the largest solar energy projects on public lands.

8. Supreme Court reviews genetically modified crops: Professor Jason Czarnezki, whose expertise includes food law and agricultural policy, scrutinizes the Supreme Court's first ruling on so-called Frankenfoods.

9. EPA's water transfer exemption remains in force: Assistant Professor Laura Murphy, an expert in the Clean Water Act, explores the conflict over transferring polluted water from one water body to another.

10. U.S. military going green: Professor Stephen Dycus, an expert in national security law and environmental law, delves into the Pentagon's efforts to use more renewable energy and decrease its reliance on fossil fuels.

Bonus—The Accidental Environmentalist: Professor John Echeverria, whose expertise includes Constitutional law, reflects on the retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

BP PLC Offering Settlement Agreements to Alabama Coastal Residents for $5,000

Here we go. BP PLC is trying to play dirty. According to the Alabama Press-Register, BP was circulating settlement agreements among coastal residents of Alabama and possibly other states, requiring that "people give up the right to sue in exchange for payment of up to $5,000." Alabama's Attorney General Troy King protested and asked BP to stop distribution of the letters.

The company said it will pay for all the cleanup costs for the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that could continue spewing crude for at least another week.


The company posted a fact sheet on its Web site saying it took responsibility for the response to the Deepwater Horizon spill and would pay compensation for legitimate claims for property damage, personal injury and commercial losses.

John Cota, Helmsman of Cosco Busan Cargo Ship, Sentenced to 10 Months for Oil Spill in San Francisco Bay

John Cota, the helmsman for Cosco Busan cargo ship, was sentenced to 10 months in prison for an oil spill in the San Francisco Bay. Cota pleaded guilty in March to two misdemeanor environmental crimes of illegally discharging oil in the bay and killing thousands of birds. He apologized to the court and to the "people of the Bay Area for the damage I have caused."

The Nov. 7, 2007, oil spill poured more than 53,000 gallons of oil into the water after the 901-foot Cosco Busan struck a tower of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in heavy fog. The spill killed 2,000 birds, fouled dozens of miles of coastline and cost commercial fishermen millions of dollars in lost revenue. His attorney said that a poorly trained Chinese crew, language barriers and others factors beyond Cota's control contributed to the accident.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said Cota was hired to guide the ship out of the San Francisco Bay because of his extensive knowledge of the region and should have known where the bridge was located. The judge also agreed with prosecutors that Cota made several disastrously poor decisions while piloting the ship.

Authorities have said he shouldn't have departed in extreme fog when pilots of six other large vessels decided not to, failed to have a discussion with the ship's master to review the transit plan and failed to notify the Coast Guard that the ship's radar was unreliable.