INTERPOL’s Pollution Crime Working Group, a global network of national experts, initiates and leads a number of projects to combat the transport, trading, and disposal of hazardous wastes or resources in contravention of national and international laws. Justin Savage, a Partner and the Global Co-Leader of the Environmental practice at Sidley Austin LLP, and Nicole Noelliste, a Managing Associate at Sidley Austin LLP, talk to two members serving on INTERPOL’s Pollution Crime Working Group: Joseph Poux and Anne Brosnan. Also available on video!
People Places Planet
Welcome to People Places Planet, ELI's leading environmental podcast. We talk to leading experts across sectors who share their solutions to the world's most pressing environmental problems. Tune in for the latest environmental law, policy, and governance developments.
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Since 1984, the faces and voices of ELI’s constituents have come together in a gathering of environmental professionals at the annual ELI Environmental Achievement Award. In this episode, ELI’s Georgia Ray sits down with the recipient of this year’s Environmental Achievement Award: Benjamin F. Wilson, an environmental lawyer and civil rights advocate who has worked tirelessly to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within the legal field.
What happens when federal regulatory changes to the CWA framework result in regulatory “gaps” for the states to resolve? Jim McElfish, a Senior Attorney and Director of ELI’s Sustainable Use of Land program, explains the challenges of water regulation when federal protections are taken away. Jim also offers his thoughts on what may happen if the U.S. Supreme Court’s impending decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency results in a rollback in what qualifies as WOTUS. Listeners hungry for more information on this important topic are encouraged to read Jim’s article from the September 2022 issue of ELR—The Environmental Law Reporter, available for free download here.
Digital technologies have steadily woven themselves into the global economy, transforming the pace at which we access and process information. “Digital sharing services” like Airbnb and Lyft often promise broad society benefits, including a reduction in energy usage, a lower environmental footprint, and more efficient use of existing products. But are these sharing innovations really changing our environmental outlook for the better? Listen to a comprehensive review of research sponsored by the Network for the Digital Economy and the Environment and hear what is known about the environment performance of digital sharing services.
Water utilities are tasked with providing clean, affordable water to their constituents, yet, a growing number of utilities are charging high prices for water and/or carrying out policies that decrease, rather than increase, water access. Participatory governance, which aims to enable those who are most closely affected by a problem to influence how policymakers solve that problem, may offer a path to a more just water policy. In “Turning Participation into Power: A Water Justice Case Study,” Prof. Jaime Lee of the University of Baltimore School of Law offers a revamped model of participatory governance she dubs the “Constituent Empowerment Model.” The model, which was recently implemented in Baltimore, Maryland, goes beyond traditional community involvement mechanisms and has the lofty goal of shifting power dynamics. In this episode, Linda Breggin, a Senior Attorney at ELI and Lecturer in Law at Vanderbilt Law School, speaks with Professor Lee to learn more.
In this episode of the People Places Planet Podcast, ELI’s six summer interns (Jesse Ferraoili, Rebecca Huang, Fatima Lawan, Priyanka Mahat, Raf Rodriguez, and Jeremy Rubin) join host Georgia Ray to reflect on their time as summer interns, talk a little more about who they are, what they are interested in, and what brought them to ELI. They discuss their independent research work, work done on broader projects at the organization, and things they have learned throughout the summer.
A Tufts rising senior will tell you about her fight for maternal health in the Black community, especially as it pertains to air quality. Another will dive into uranium contamination in America’s southwest. A third will talk about his work with prison populations and the heat related illnesses that can occur inside the system. All of them will discuss what it was like to work at ELI, how they hope to continue in the environmental space, and the lessons they have learned spending the summer in D.C.
You can find Raf and Priyanka on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafjrodriguez & https://www.linkedin.com/in/priyanka-mahat-b16642151/
If you are interested in learning more about The Center for Black Maternal Health & Reproductive Justice at Tufts (with whom Fatima worked closely on her project), you can visit their website.
In this episode of the People Places Planet Podcast, former Research Associate Shehla Chowdhury joins host Georgia Ray to reflect on her time as a research associate, which ended in June 2022. She discusses her work in the nascent field of environmental peacebuilding, while also delving into her contributions to the local government environmental assistance network, differences between domestic and international environmental work, and her takeaways from studying non-governmental organizations in the Global North and Global South.
Interest and urgency in advancing environmental justice has gained new momentum in the United States in recent years. In 2021, we spoke to New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette to learn about New Jersey’s newly enacted EJ law. In this latest episode, he joins us again to discuss proposed regulations for implementing the law. The episode is part of the Groundtruth series created in partnership with Beveridge & Diamond, one of the nation’s leading environmental law firms.
Interest and urgency in advancing environmental justice has gained new momentum in the United States in recent years. But what about the rest of the world? This episode takes a global look at EJ, including its relationship with human rights and climate justice issues, and shares what companies can do to advance EJ goals more broadly. The episode is part of the Groundtruth series created in partnership with Beveridge & Diamond, one of the nation’s leading environmental law firms.
For more than a decade, ELI and Vanderbilt University Law School have featured some of the year’s best academic thinking on legal and policy solutions to pressing environmental problems via the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR). Linda Breggin, a Senior Attorney at ELI and a Lecturer in Law at Vanderbilt University Law School who co-founded ELPAR, and Kritsen Sarna, a Vanderbilt law student who served as editor-in-chief, talk to Howard Learner, President and Executive Director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center, to find out his thoughts on environmental citizen suits, the subject of one of this year’s featured articles.