April 2, 2018

Vermont Law School environmental faculty and editors of VLS’s Vermont Journal of Environmental Law (VJEL) have published the 2018 “Vermont Law Top 10 Environmental Watch List,” highlighting critical law and policy issues they believe will escalate in the coming year. The list, in its eighth year, features articles coauthored by VLS students and faculty on topics ranging from the Trump administration’s reduction of national monuments to the threat of nuclear war.

“A central question occupying environmental lawyers of all stripes is the degree to which the current federal administration, under the leadership of President Trump, his cabinet, and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, will disrupt federal environmental and natural resources policies constructed over the past five decades,” said Associate Dean David Mears, director of the Environmental Law Center at VLS, in his introduction to the list. “The one common thread across all of the topics covered on this Top 10 list is that lawyers and the courts will play a major role in determining the extent to which President Trump’s environmental agenda is implemented.”

The Top 10 Environmental Watch List, written with a lay audience in mind, is available online at watchlist.vermontlaw.edu.

2018 Top 10 Environmental Watch List

1 Houston, This is Harvey: Hurricanes are Hazardous
vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/houston-harvey-hurricanes-hazardous/
2 Fuel Efficiency Standards Trumped?
vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/fuel-effciency-standards-trumped/
3 States Filling the Void on Climate Change
vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/states-flling-void-climate-change/
4 Pulling the Teeth Out of the Endangered Species Act
vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/pulling-teeth-endangered-species-act/
5 Nuclear War: The War Our Planet Won’t Survive
vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/nuclear-war-war-planet-wont-survive/
6 The President’s Monumental Mistakes
vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/presidents-monumental-mistakes/
7 Trump’s Wall: Adios to Environmental Law?
vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/trumps-wall-adios-environmental-law/
8 Energy Infrastructure Siting Authority
vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/energy-infrastructure-siting-authority/
9 TSolar Trade Tariffs
vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/solar-trade-tariffs/
10 Permitting Natural Gas Pipelines: Must FERC Take Climate Change Into Account?
vjel.vermontlaw.edu/topten/permitting-natural-gas-pipelines-mustferc-take-climate-change-account/

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