Blog by: Caroline Butler
In this blog, 3L Staffer Caroline Butler discusses a $320 million, 2,000-acre proposal to expand Bluegrass Station to include a military airport was made public. Butler argues that this proposal and the problems surrounding it, such as eminent domain and public pushback.
Blog by: Madison Boggs
In her blog, 2L Staffer Madison Boggs discusses the passage of the Whole Milk For Healthy Kids Act in the House of Representatives. The Act seeks to amend existing federal regulations governing school lunches, allowing schools to offer a broader range of milk choices to students, including whole, reduced-fat, and fat-free varieties. Boggs emphasizes the significant contribution of discarded milk in school cafeterias to food waste and advocates for expanding beverage options, including plant-based milks, in schools to tackle this widespread issue.
Blog by: Matthew Pakkala
In this blog, 3L staffer Matthew Pakkala discusses the ongoing crisis facing the Florida manatees. He briefly introduces the main threat—algae blooms—and details the situation unfolding in the Indian River Lagoon. Pakkala advocates for the Florida manatee to be reclassified as "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
Blog By: Christian T. Deeter
In his blog, 3L Staffer Christian Deeter argues that the Fifth Circuit should hold the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) constitutional because it does not violate the non-delegation and anti-commandeering doctrines. The amended version of HISA adequately reformed the Authority, making it sufficiently subordinate to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Deeter supports his opinion with an analysis of the Fifth and Sixth Circuit’s recent rulings.
Blog By: Jose Herrera
In this blog, 3L Staffer Jose Herrera examines the extensive consequences of the booming avocado industry in Michoacán, Mexico. Herrera highlights environmental and social concerns that result from deforestation and corruption and advocates for regulatory reforms to address environmental degradation and safeguard community well-being.
Farmers have a unique way to stop climate change. Landon Woods, southern regional director for the American Conservation Coalition, discusses the idea of farmers using natural climate solutions to reverse climate change. Although there are many different strategies to solving climate change, Woods strongly argues that natural climate solutions will play a key role in reducing climate change.
In his blog post, 2L staffer Trevor Payton discusses the history of the United States’ climate change fight and analyzes three different presidential administrations’ approaches to the issue. Here, Payton highlights the benefits to Biden re-entering the U.S. into the Paris Climate Agreement by way of executive action and assesses the implications going forward.
While President Biden’s recent executive order regarding the Keystone Pipeline may seem like a major win for its opponents, the battle is far from over. In this piece, 3L staffer Taygan Mullins discusses the impact of this decision and asserts that this may only be a temporary victory for those supporting the order.
Two years ago, the deeply conservative state of Kansas repealed a law requiring twenty percent of the state’s electric power to come from renewable sources by 2020, seemingly delivering a blow to the state’s environmentalists. Kansas zipped past that twenty percent goal in 2014 and actually produced more than thirty percent of its energy from wind by 2016. This underscores the reality that some of the fastest growth in renewable energy is occurring in states led by Republican governors and legislators.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently closed the G20 summit citing the “unfortunate” position the United States was in compared to the other nineteen members of the G20 who remain committed to the Paris climate accord. The Chancellor’s statements were seemingly borne from the intention of ringing the proverbial bell, however, President Trump’s position on climate change, somewhat uncharacteristically, has stood firm since he learned “[t]he concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
