ENVIRONMENTAL LAW, 1998
Second Problem Set/Exam
INSTRUCTIONS: The following questions are to be answered by each study group in the class. Print a copy of this Web page. Enter your study group code and each of your names in the table, below. Answer the first ten questions by highlighting with a colored, transparent marker the section of the answer table you think is correct. Answer the last question in an essay, word-processed on a separate piece of white paper in 12 point font. The essay should consist of three or four paragraphs and is not, under any circumstances, to be longer than one page, single-spaced. It should refer in the text to supporting cases but need not have footnotes. Each study group must turn in the exam and the essay, stapled together, at the beginning of the class period on Tuesday, February 17th, 1998. Correct answers to questions 1-10 are worth five points. The essay is worth 10 points.
| STUDY GROUP IDENTIFICATION CODE (e.g. HND): __ __ __ |
| Student Names (in block capitals): |
| 1. |
| 2. |
| 3. |
1. Statutory authority for the multiple use management of the BLM public lands was provided by the Multiple-Use Sustained-Yield Act of 1964, which, although it expired in 1970, set the nine multiple uses fo the public lands that are still recognized in FLPMA.
| a. Correct | b. Incorrect |
2. In Alaska where, despite the selection by the state of 104 million acres, BLM remains the major land management agency, Congress has expressly authorized public land uses above and beyond those previously sanctioned for the country as a whole in the multiple use and land management laws of the 1960s and 1970s, including subsistence hunting and fishing, uses of snowmobiles and motorboats, and access to wilderness by boat and plane. The relevant statute is:
| a. ANCSA | b. the Alaska Enabling Act | c. the Tongass Timber Reform Act | d. ANILCA |
3. Where is the basis in the Constitution for the congressional statutes, such as FLPMA and the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, that BLM now adminsiters on the public lands?
| a. Article I, sec. 8 | b. Article IV, sec. 3 | c. Article II | d. the Fifth Amendment |
4. When public lands are used under the terms of a BLM permit for grazing by a rancher, who uses his own lands for the same purpose, is the value added to the rancher's lands by his collateral use of public lands a constitutionally compensable property right?
| a. Yes | b. No |
5. After balancing the equities in American Motorcyclist Association v. Watt (1981, aff'd 1983) what relief did the court provide to plaintiffs? (In thinking about this case, which we discussed in class, you need to remember that it appears in the text more than once).
| a. preliminary injunction | b. summary judgment | c. remand | d. none |
6. Which of the statutes BLM must administer eventually proved most decisive in stopping the famous Barstow to Las Vegas off road motorcycle race through the California Desert Conservation Area?
| a. ESA | b. FLPMA | c. NEPA | d. APA |
7. Since Geer v. Connecticut (1896), which created what the text calls the fiction of state ownership of wildlife, the federal role in wildlife law and management has expanded greatly. A number of distinct but inter-related constitutional bases for this enhanced federal role can be discerned in the text, including (i) the Treaty Clause, (ii) the Commerce Clause, (iii) the Property Clause, and (iv) the Privileges and Immunities Clause. How many of these appear to be directly implicated in modern wildlife law as it is represented by the range of most recent cases in the text?
| a. only the third | b. only the first and second | c. only the second and third | d. all of them |
8. Justice Powell's dissenting opinion in TVA v. Hill (1978) argues that the Supreme Court majority's interpretation of the Endangered Species Act is foolish and will soon be reversed by Congress. Notice particularly footnote 13 to the dissent. Have subsequent amendments to the statute substantially avoided the consequences that Justice Powell anticipated?
| a. Yes | b. No |
9. The text refers to the Endangered Species Act as the "pit bull" of environmental statutes and says of one of the Act's major provisions that it could be considered "the most powerful piece of wildlife legislation in the world." Which provision of the Act is said to merit this appellation?
| a. Section 4 | b. Section 7 | c. Section 9 | d. Section 11 |
10. In December of last year (see the newspaper article distributed in class) a coalition of conservation groups sued the Interior Secretary on the grounds that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the Interior Department, is violating four federal statutes in its management of the Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges. A spokesman for the groups said that "the law requires that wildlife come first." Where in the law is the legal standard for the management of national wildlife refuges?
| a. 16 U.S.C. 703 | b. 16 U.S.C. 1801 | c. 16 U.S.C. 668dd(d) | d. 16 U.S.C. 1531(c)(1) |
ESSAY QUESTION: On a separate piece of paper prepared according to the instructions, above, and attached to your exam when you hand it in, answer question 8 on page 839 of the text, which asks that you clearly state your views (a) about the value of species to society and (b) about the role different branches of government ought to play in deciding the future of threatened and endangered species.
GW-S/February 1998.