Managing Future Liability At Petroleum Impacted Sites Through Proactive Strategic Environmental Baselining

An important consideration of any commercial and industrial property acquisition or divestiture—whether it is a single gasoline station or a suite of oil refineries—is the extant environmental conditions of the property(s) at the time of the transaction. Property sellers and prospective buyers each consider and negotiate how any existing or future liability associated with extant environmental conditions will be handled. In spite of this forethought and the agreed contract terms, future litigation over unanticipated environmental contamination remains a real possibility. Often precipitating future litigation are disagreements surrounding whether “newly realized” contamination is old (pre-sale) or new (post-sale). As a result, environmental forensic investigations are often faced with the issue of “age-dating” this newly discovered contamination in order to determine whether it was released pre- or post-sale. Age-dating contamination can be an inherently difficult task to perform and technically defend. Technical arguments between experts can be short-circuited if there was an irrefutable understanding of the nature of extant contamination that had existed at the time of the sale. Conventional environmental due diligence investigations (Phase I and II site assessments) fall short of providing this understanding. In this paper, we discuss Strategic environmental baselining (SEB), a cost-effective and pro-active form of environmental due diligence that incorporates a key component of environmental forensics, that is, advanced chemical fingerprinting using modified EPA Methods that are tailored for hydrocarbon fingerprinting. Sufficient sampling and advanced chemical fingerprinting performed at the time of a transaction (or, at least, properly archived samples analyzed in the future as needed) provides the evidence that eliminates the need to “age-date” contamination at some future date. Advanced chemical fingerprinting data also provides detailed characteristics of the extant contamination and thereby, helps distinguish “old” from “new” contamination, regardless of alteration of the chemicals of concern by weathering. Armed with this information both buyers and/or sellers can protect themselves in the event of any future claim(s).     

Identifying Manufactured Gas Plant Tar in the Environment Using Chemical Fingerprinting

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that 3,000 to 5,000 manufactured gas plants (MGPs) were constructed in the United States (EPA, 2000). Companies located their MGPs near urban waterways due to the close proximity to cheap condensing liquid (water), improved site drainage, and easy access to delivery channels. However, these site selection criteria were shared by other industries, many of which generated PAHs or handled tar. Contemporary environmental forensic investigations must draw upon a detailed understanding of the relationship between MGP history and tar chemistry in order to differentiate between different types of MGP-derived tars and non-MGP impacts. This article describes the history of MGP operations in the U. S. and how chemical fingerprinting can aid in unraveling liability associated with MGP legacy sites.     

Unsecured lending and the indigenous economy in Australia and South Africa

Consumer credit is closely regulated in both Australia and South Africa. Nevertheless, unsecured lending often results in financial hardship in low‐income communities. One aspect of this picture is the impact of the consumer debt burden on the Indigenous economy, which is disproportionately affected by poverty in both countries. Here we juxtapose the comparative regulatory regimes and then contextualize the law using an inter‐disciplinary account of each Indigenous economy. We find through this law‐in‐context comparison that neither Australia nor South Africa has fully resolved the problem of Indigenous financial hardship. This mutual failure is confirmed by the recent Kobelt decision of the High Court of Australia and the drastic measures enacted in the South African National Credit Amendment Act 2019. One positive lesson that South Africa provides is that accommodating the Indigenous economy in financial regulation can promote and empower that sector.     

Bureaucratic Professionalization and the Limits of the Political Control Thesis: The Case of the Federal Trade Commission

This article explores the political control thesis in light of the literature on bureaucratic politics and agency professionalization. It argues that existing studies of political control have been limited by a failure to analyze the impact of organizational factors on policy change. The article tests political-control and bureaucratic hypotheses through an analysis of changing enforcement priorities at the Federal Trade Commission, The results suggest that the growing role of economists in the agency, rather than congressional oversight or presidential appointments, is critical in explaining the changing antitrust priorities of the Federal Trade Commission.     

Reforming Criminals in China: Implications for Corrections in the West

Visits to three prisons in China revealed that the Chinese penal system, although conceived within a Marxist context, is humanistic, naturalistic, and practical in emphasis. Considering the cultural differences between Orient and Occident, specifically the Chinese respect for power and authority and their belief that the State and its officials serve as guardians of socialist ideology, the author discusses some implications for the West. It concludes that we may have to perceive rehabilitation in more realistic terms. Instead of abandoning rehabilitation, we can learn from the Chinese and translate the concept into providing assistance to offenders that is compatible with the external environment.