Is There a Possible Role for Regulatory Enforcement in the Effort to Value, Protect, and Restore Ecosystem Services?
Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law, Vol. 21, 2007
50 Pages Posted: 7 Sep 2007 Last revised: 21 Oct 2007
Abstract
This Article explores the potential value of environmental enforcement for protecting ecosystems and the services they provide. The Article focuses primarily on the remedial (rather than the liability) side of enforcement, in particular on three specific types of relief available through the enforcement process: penalties, injunctive relief, and Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs). I suggest that, theoretically, there are at least five ways in which enforcement has the potential to protect ecosystems and their services. First, enforcement has the potential to prevent harm to ecosystems by 'deterring' violations that would cause such harm. Second, enforcement has the capacity to require violators to 'cease' violations that are causing or threatening harm. Third, in some cases enforcement includes authority to require violators to 'fix' ecosystems they have harmed (to 'restore' or 'remediate' harmed ecosystems). Fourth, EPA can use enforcement to negotiate settlements that commit violators to take action to benefit ecosystems in circumstances in which EPA otherwise lacks the legal authority to compel performance of such projects or to undertake them itself (to achieve ecosystem protection 'beyond compliance'). Finally, through each of these four strategies enforcement has the capacity to protect ecosystems and their services by 'advancing learning' about such ecosystems and their services - by advancing knowledge, for example, about the state of ecosystems, threats to them, and how best to protect them from such threats and to restore them if they have been degraded. The Article explores the promise of each of the three above-referenced enforcement tools for protecting ecosystems and their services in one or more of these five ways.
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