Is the Tobacco Settlement Constitutional?

In August 2005, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative “think tank” and advocacy organization, filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Louisiana against the Louisiana Attorney General challenging the legality of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA). If successful, this lawsuit could lead to the unraveling of one of the most significant opportunities to improve public health in United States history.Under the MSA, forty-six states agreed to end their litigation against the four largest tobacco companies in the United States, who in turn agreed to pay the states an estimated $206 billion. The CEI alleges that the MSA is unconstitutional. Specifically, the suit alleges that the MSA established a cartel under which the states receive monetary payments and the four major tobacco companies are insulated from price competition – and that this arrangement violates the Compact Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Download Full-text

Ocean Disposal Legislation in the United States†

Water Science & Technology ◽

10.2166/wst.1982.0018 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 153-161

Author(s):

C F Guarino ◽

S Townsend

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

New York ◽

Federal District ◽

The United States ◽

District Court ◽

Federal Policies ◽

Sludge Disposal ◽

The Law ◽

The City ◽

Ocean Disposal

A review of legislation and implementing regulations pertaining to disposal of sludge at sea in the United States was performed. The experiences under the law of two major municipalities that have employed diposal at sea were studied and compared. Major changes are shown to have taken place in the Federal approach to regulating ocean disposal. Ocean dumping regulations are shown to have produced very different current situations for two major municipalities. The City of Philadelphia, operating under rigid federal policies, successfully ended ocean disposal over a year before the statutory deadline by implementing carefully managed, but costly, land-based sludge disposal alternatives. The City of New York, in contrast, still uses the ocean for sludge disposal and has recently won a ruling in Federal District Court which may allow continued ocean disposal for many years beyond the December 31, 1981 end-date proscribed by the law. †This paper should be included in Theme 1A - Legislation.

Download Full-text

Navigating in Uncertain Waters: 2006 Update on the Regulation of Ballast Water Discharge in the United States

Pittsburgh Journal of Environmental and Public Health Law ◽

10.5195/pjephl.2007.4 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

Author(s):

Julie A. Aquino

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Ballast Water ◽

Native Species ◽

Water Discharge ◽

Federal District ◽

Marine Species ◽

The United States ◽

Coast Guard ◽

District Court ◽

Statutory Authority

Every day more than 10,000 marine species are swept up in the ballast water of ships and make their way across the globe. 1 When discharged into non-native waters, these species are able to damage infrastructure, disrupt commerce, out compete native species, reduce biodiversity, and threaten human health.2 The ecological losses are difficult to quantify; however, the direct and indirect economic costs have been measured at billions of dollars per year in the United States alone.3 Recognizing the severity of the problem, Congress directed the Coast Guard in 1996 to administer a ballast water program and issue guidelines.4 According to various interest groups, the aquatic invasive species problem persists today despite Coast Guard involvement because of inherent and technological limitations surrounding ballast water management (BWM).5 However, other groups believe that the crux of the problem is that the Coast Guard has simply not acted aggressively enough to address the problem. In March 2005, an environmental advocacy group, joined by six states, convinced a federal district court for the Northern District of California that the EPA had exceeded its statutory authority by exempting the discharge of ballast water from the control of the Clean Water Act (CWA)6 in the case of Northwest Environmental Advocates v. EPA.

Download Full-text

Non-Importation, 1806–1812

The Journal of Economic History ◽

10.1017/s0022050700052979 ◽

1941 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 178-198 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Herbert Heaton

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

New York ◽

Federal District ◽

The United States ◽

District Court ◽

District Attorney ◽

Woolen Cloth ◽

Port Of New York ◽

To Come ◽

First Time

Peter A. Schenck, Surveyor of Customs and Inspector of Revenue for the Port of New York, must have felt slightly exhilarated when he left his office on the evening of December 30, 1807. He had that day wielded for the first time the two-edged sword placed in his hands by Congress for the destruction of British maritime arrogance. Nay more, he had struck at least seven times, by seizing that number of shipments of British goods which had arrived in two vessels ten days before. In a few days Nathan Sanford, the District Attorney, would file seven separate libels in the Federal District Court on behalf of the United States vs. twenty-two bales of woolen cloth, two cases of hats, eight boxes linen cloth, sixteen boxes of linens, one case of woolen hosiery, two cases of plated ware, and two boxes of woolen hosiery. The goods would doubtless be condemned, for Sanford was a clever lawyer and the district judge was not, like the fellow up in Massachusetts, unfriendly to Jeffersonian policies. Later the United States marshal, Peter Curtenius, would have them sold by auction outside the Tontine Coffee House; the court and marshal's costs—totaling about $120 in each case—would be paid, and the balance, where there was any, would be shared equally between the customs staff and the Treasury. If this process could be repeated often enough, John Bull might soon be willing to come to terms.

Download Full-text

The Supreme Court in United States History. In three volumes. 1789–1821; 1821–1855; 1856–1918. By Charles Warren, formerly Assistant Attorney General of the United States. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company. 1922. Pp. xvi, 540; x, 551; x, 532. $18.00)

The American Historical Review ◽

10.1086/ahr/28.1.134 ◽

1922 ◽

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Supreme Court ◽

Attorney General ◽

United States History ◽

The United States ◽

The Supreme Court ◽

States History

Download Full-text

Graduated Response American Style: 'Six Strikes' Measured Against Five Norms

10.31235/osf.io/9fyvp ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Annemarie Bridy

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

New York ◽

Freedom Of Expression ◽

Attorney General ◽

New York State ◽

The United States ◽

District Court ◽

Corporate Rights ◽

The Government ◽

In 2008, in recognition of the DMCA's inadequacy in the face of P2P file sharing, and with the high-profile case of Arista Records v. Lime Group pending in federal district court in New York, then New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo began pressuring broadband providers to agree voluntarily to play a greater role in fighting online infringement. Subsequently, the Obama administration, represented nationally by the Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC) and internationally by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), expressly endorsed the concept of privately negotiated anti-piracy collaborations between corporate rights owners and broadband providers.In July of 2011, broadband providers finally bowed to the mounting political pressure and to changing economic realities in the business of corporate content ownership and delivery. Five of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with trade groups representing major corporate copyright owners. The MOU creates what the parties characterize as a common framework of 'best practices' to effectively alert subscribers, protect copyrighted content and promote access to legal online content.This Article is an assessment of the MOU's Copyright Alert System (CAS) with respect to five norms that are central to consumer protection in the enterprise of online copyright enforcement: freedom of expression, privacy, fairness, proportionality, and transparency. Part I provides an introduction to graduated response, which is the genus of online copyright enforcement to which CAS belongs. Part II takes a comparative look at two pre-existing graduated response systems: the government mandated and administered program in France, Hadopi, and a privately administered program in Ireland run by the broadband provider Eircom. Part III provides a detailed overview of CAS, including the structure by which it is governed, the division of labor it prescribes between copyright owners and broadband providers, the progression of warnings and sanctions it implements, and the appeals process it makes available for affected broadband subscribers. Part IV evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of CAS with respect to each of the five norms listed above, using the systems in France and Ireland as reference points.Annemarie BridyProfessor<http://www.uidaho.edu/law/faculty/annemariebridy>|University of Idaho College of Law|PO Box 83720-0051|Boise, ID 83720|Ph. 208.364.4583Affiliate Scholar<https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/people/annemarie-bridy>|Stanford Center for Internet and SocietyAffiliate Fellow<http://isp.yale.edu/people-directory?type=19>|Yale Information Society ProjectSSRN<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=630766>|HeinOnline<http://heinonline.org/HOL/AuthorProfile?collection=journals&search_name=Bridy,%20Annemarie&base=js>|LinkedIn<https://www.linkedin.com/in/annemariebridy>|Twitter<https://twitter.com/AnnemarieBridy>

Download Full-text