Environmental Advocacy Project
About the Conference
Recent years have been active news years for climate change and global warming. Hurricane Katrina roared through the gulf states, causing a humanitarian crisis in New Orleans. Some scientists suggest that elevated ocean temperatures resulting from global warming may have contributed to the hurricane's intensity. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data center announced that the arctic ice sheet has thinned appreciably so that within sixty years arctic summer ice will be gone. Biologists suggested that the polar bear faces extinction. Then notable news agencies reported that Greenland's ice sheet and Mount Kilimanjaro's ice cap are in retreat. Scientists postulated that a collapse of the Greenland ice sheet would increase the world's oceans by twenty-three feet, which would inundate coastal nations. Finally, the World Heritage Committee-responsible for overseeing UNESCO's World Heritage sites-received petitions from several international environmental groups positing that Glacier National Park in Montana and Waterton National Park in Alberta be declared "endangered" due to global warming. The environmental groups maintain that the international community must act now to curb greenhouse gas emissions before the parks' natural beauty is irreparably destroyed.
The Center for Law and Social Responsibility at the New England School of Law hosted a conference entitled Climate Change Challenges: Legal Responses to Environmental Disasters on April 6, 2006. Conference participants examined a variety of responses to climate change-related disasters, including international litigation brought on behalf of the Inuit people and the U.S. federal response to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Conference participants also considered mechanisms for controlling and mitigating global warming, including regional and local initiatives, as well as Clean Air Act and common law-based litigation.
The Center for Law and Social Responsibility
The conference was sponsored by the Environmental Advocacy Project, a project of the New England School of Law Center for Law and Social Responsibility. Directed by Professor Peter Manus, the Environmental Advocacy Project brings together students, faculty and other members of the environmental community to study, aid and promote environmental causes.The New England School of Law supports projects that allow faculty, students, alumni, and others to engage in legal work that focuses on abating social inequities. It currently supports the following four projects: the Criminal Justice Project, the Environmental Advocacy Project, the Sexual and Domestic Violence Project and the Public Service Project.
Schedule of Events
Panel I: Disasters and Reactions from the Arctic to the Gulf Coast
- Donald Goldberg, Senior Attorney, Center for International Environmental Law
- Michael B. Jacobs, Deputy Policy Director, American Wind Energy Association
- Michelle Lauterback, Enforcement Attorney, United States Environmental Protection Agency, New England Region
Panel II: Climate Change Policy on Regional, State and Local Levels
- Marc Breslow, Director, Massachusetts Climate Action Network
- David Cash, Ph.D., Director of Air, Energy & Waste Policy, Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs
- John Dernbach, Professor of Law, Widener University School of Law, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Panel III: Climate Change Litigation
- James R. Milkey, Assistant Attorney General, Chief, Environmental Protection Division, Massachusetts Attorney General's Office
- Benjamin Krass, Associate, Law Offices of Matthew Pawa, P.C.
Participants
Marc Breslow, Director, Massachusetts Climate Action Network
Marc Breslow serves as director of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network, an organization of local and state-wide groups joined together to combat global climate change through community involvement and advocacy before state and municipal governments. He has also served as the Research Director of the Northeast Corporate Accountability Project and co-editor of Dollars and Sense, an economics magazine based in Somerville, Massachusetts. Mr. Breslow has served as a Research Associate for the Tellus Institute for Resource and Environmental Strategies and as a Research Analyst for the Philadelphia City Council. He has written numerous articles about federal and state fiscal policies, labor markets, environmental regulation and economic development and has edited six economics readers published by Dollars and Sense, including Real World Micro and Real World Macro. Mr. Breslow has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
David Cash, Ph.D., Director of Air, Energy & Waste Policy, Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs
Mr. Cash received a Ph.D. in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science from Yale University. He conducted post-doctoral research at the Kennedy School, examining issues for the Global Environmental Assessment Project, the Sustainability Science Project and the Knowledge Systems for Sustainable Development Project.
John Dernbach, Professor of Law, Widener University School of Law, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Professor Dernbach just returned to Widener after spending two and one-half years as Director of the Policy Office at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. During Mr. Dernbach's tenure, the Pennsylvania DEP's Policy Office developed performance measures and targets for use in budgeting, planning and priority implementation; led an administration effort to ensure consistent and fair implementation of the state's municipalities planning code; initiated and helped manage an internal review of Pennsylvania DEP regulations to ensure they conform to agency priorities; hired the agency's first economist; and helped to craft a new policy that provides enhanced forums for meaningful participation by any and all of the parties involved in Pennsylvania DEP permitting decisions. He previously served as Assistant Counsel and Special Assistant to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources and Director of the Department's Advanced Science and Research Team. Professor Dernbach's primary research interests are sustainable development theory and climate change. He has published numerous articles on these topic in academic and non-academic publications. He is also the editor of Stumbling Toward Sustainability. Professor Dernbach received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He will examine energy efficiency as a mechanism for controlling greenhouse gas emissions.
Donald Goldberg, Senior Attorney, Center for International Environmental Law
One of the founders of the Center for International Environmental Law in Washington, D.C., Mr. Goldberg is the director of its Climate Change Program and an Adjunct Professor at American University Washington College of Law. Recently, Mr. Goldberg examined the impact that climate change has had on the Inuit and, based on that impact, assisted them in filing a petition against the U.S. with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Mr. Goldberg obtained his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a Bachelor of Arts from Bard College. He will speak about the impact that climate change has had on the Inuit people.
Michael B. Jacobs, Deputy Policy Director, American Wind Energy Association
As Deputy Policy Director, Mr. Jacobs provides policy and regulatory advice for the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) in Washington, DC. While the Acting Policy Director, he opened AWEA's efforts on greenhouse gas emissions regulation and allowance trading. Mr. Jacob's primary work is in transmission policy and utility integration of wind power. He works on these issues through AWEA's regional allies, and sits on the board of The Wind Coalition and also on Wind on the Wires in the Midwest. Prior to coming to AWEA, Mr. Jacobs worked in transmission for a major utility and six years in the wind power industry. He began his career on the staff of the Massachusetts public utility commission and energy facilities siting council. He has taught a course on energy options at Brown University and has been a speaker at the New England School of Law and other law schools. Mr. Jacobs graduated from Wesleyan University, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison with an M.S. in Urban Planning.
Benjamin Krass, Associate, Law Offices of Matthew Pawa, P.C.
Benjamin Krass is an associate at the Law Offices of Matthew Pawa, P.C. and represents the plaintiffs in Open Space Institute, Inc. v. American Electric Power Company, Inc. He received a Juris Doctorate from Boston College Law School in 2003 and a Bachelor of Arts from Canisius College in 1999. While attending law school, he clerked at the U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division, and served as Managing Editor of the Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review. He co-taught Environmental Law in the Boston College Political Science Department in 2003 and authored a Comment, Combating Urban Sprawl in Massachusetts: Reforming the Zoning Act through Legal Challenges, 30B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev. 605 (2003).
Michelle Lauterback, Enforcement Attorney, United States Environmental Protection Agency, New England Region
Michelle Lauterback is an Enforcement Attorney in the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Boston, Massachusetts office where she provides legal counsel for enforcement matters arising under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act. She also provides legal counsel for enforcement cases arising under the Clean Water Act. Ms. Lauterback is a member of EPA's national emergency removal workgroup and also provides legal counsel on all cases involving emergency removals of hazardous substances in the New England region. In December 2005, Ms. Lauterback worked in New Orleans as part of EPA's emergency response effort in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and has been involved in an assessment of the environmental conditions left in their wake. She also teaches environmental law at New England School of Law. Ms. Lauterback will discuss her work in New Orleans.
James R. Milkey, Assistant Attorney General, Chief, Environmental Protection Division, Massachusetts Attorney General's Office
In Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, a landmark suit brought by twelve states against the Environmental Protection Agency, Mr. Milkey recently argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that the EPA possesses both the authority and responsibility under the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions produced by motor vehicles. He will discuss the litigation.