Jaclyn Lopez
Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment
B.A., University of South Florida
M.S., University of Arizona
JD, University of Denver, Sturm College of Law School
LLM, University of Florida
Phone: 727-562-7809
Email: [email protected]
Office: Charles A. Dana Buidling, AD 115
Biography
Professor Jaclyn Lopez established and directs the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment at Stetson’s College of Law. She also teaches courses like professional responsibility, advanced legal research and writing, environmental practice, and topics in biodiversity. She comes to Stetson Law from the Center for Biological Diversity, where she served as the environmental nonprofit’s Florida Director and senior attorney for over a decade. She holds a master of laws in environmental and land-use law from the University of Florida, a JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, and a master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Arizona. She writes and lectures on access to courts and decision makers, corporate interference in democracy, climate change, water and air quality, environmental injustice, and the extinction crisis.
Forthcoming Publications
West Virginia v. EPA: the Administrative State’s Door is Still Ajar, Leaving the Doors for Standing and Mootness Swinging Wildly, St. John’s Law Review, Vol. 97.4 (publication forthcoming).
Featured Publications
Between a Rock and a Hardened Place: Prioritizing Climate Resiliency for Vulnerable Biodiversity (April 2024).
Looking at Florida's biodiversity, this essay supports a presentation made at the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum Symposium, 50 Years of the Endangered Species Act. The essay examines how climate change threatens vulnerable biodiversity and how laws and policies regarding climate change mitigation, adaptation, and resiliency may impact different species. On this 5 0 th anniversary of the ESA, this essay explores how the Act functions to protect endangered species in Florida and probes whether these measures adequately prioritize the protection of biodiversity in light of climate change.
The (In)direct Effects of 20 Years of Public Citizen (April 2024).
The federal circuits have diverging trends in their treatment of Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen, the 2004 landmark Supreme Court decision that held that federal agencies do not always need to analyze and disclose the indirect effects of their actions. Explanations for this phenomenon include that courts may be following more universal conservative and progressive trends in their circuits, or perhaps that distinctions turn on the statutes at play, or that particular courts may be more inclined to defer to an agency's interpretation of its regulations rather than Congress' intent in passing a particular law. This Article provides a critical review of the last 20 years of case law and regulatory changes regarding the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA") and what types of environmental effects federal agencies must disclose and analyze in funding or authorizing major federal actions following Public Citizen.
The Climate is Changing and So Must We: The Need to Prioritize At-Risk Communities and Ecosystems (January 2024)
The climate is changing, and our laws and policies threaten to leave behind vulnerable communities and ecosystems. About half of the people and imperiled plants and animals in the United States are in coastal counties. Coastal communities' ability to cope with the impacts of climate change will depend on how well local adaptation and resiliency laws and policies work to protect them from rising seas, flooding, saltwater intrusion, intensifying storm activity, and increased heat indices. At the same time, these very same adaptation laws and policies may inadvertently harm vulnerable communities and biodiversity. By 2040 - when today's kindergartners graduate college - Florida's population will increase by 20% and sea levels will rise an additional foot. With its low elevation and location at the end of Hurricane Alley, Florida is "ground zero" for climate change impacts in the United States. The region's struggles with industrial pollution create additional risk factors. Marginalized communities and imperiled biodiversity are caught amid climate impacts and existing, dangerous infrastructure. Florida is an apt case study for exploring concepts such as managed retreat, social vulnerability, species extinctions, assisted migration, and adaptive management. This Article concludes by making general recommendations for local governments looking to proactively center their resiliency and adaptation efforts on the survival of vulnerable communities and imperiled plants and animals.
Dimished Access to Judicial Review is an Unaceptable Consequence of EPA's Delegation of Its Responsibilities to States (September 2023).
The delegation of federal authority over national resources can, in theory, present conservation opportunities, but in fact has entrenched grave pitfalls. This Article explores a significant consequence of federal delegation that has received little serious consideration by courts, agencies, and scholarship: how the Environmental Protection Agency's delegation of federal bedrock environmental laws subverts Congress's intent to empower citizens to enforce these statutes when agencies will not. There are substantial differences between federal and state judicial review, specifically with respect to standing and fee shifting, which effectively limit which kinds of plaintiffs can challenge decisions that impact natural resources. This Article explores the regulatory framework of delegation, and by focusing on the Environmental Protection Agency's recent delegation of 404 permitting to the state of Florida, provides a case study for how delegation can undermine Congress's intent to provide citizens access to judicial review. The analysis presented here, and the recommended remedies, may aid in identifying and addressing similar injustices in other state regulatory frameworks.
Holding States Accountable for Harmful Algal Blooms: Florida’s Water Crisis in Focus, University of Florida, Journal of Law and Public Policy (April 2023).
Scientists generally agree that agricultural runoff is a principal source of nutrient pollution in the United States. Intensive agricultural practices have resulted in decades of phosphorus and nitrogen accumulating in the natural system which continue to contribute substantially to nutrients entering watersheds. Coupled with failed water quality control measures, this water pollution has led to some of the worst harmful algal blooms (HABs) in recorded history. These nonpoint sources need to be addressed to restore and protect water quality.
EPA's Opportunity to Reverse the Fertilizer Industry's Environmental Injustices, Environmental Law Reporter, 52 ELR 10125 (February 2022).
Seventy phosphogypsum stacks are scattered throughout the United States, concentrated in low-wealth and Black, indigenous, and people of color communities. These radioactive waste heaps have a long history of failures, and present a substantial hazard and unreasonable risk of harm. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should swiftly move to regulate these environmental and public health hazards.
From Bail Out to Righting the Course: The Commonsense Action, the United States Must Take to Address Its Flood Crisis, Tulane Environmental Law Journal, Vol. 33 (Summer 2020).
The threats of the climate change crisis and sea level rise to U.S. infrastructure, military readiness, food security, and the economy are most evident in America’s floodplains, where the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has worsened flooding and floodplain development by providing insurance policies that obscure risk and provide discounted coverage. Meanwhile, the United States contributes significantly to global greenhouse gas emissions, which fuels the climate change crisis and worsens flooding. The disconnect between subsidizing development in floodplains and the fact that the United States has made those floodplains even more vulnerable to flooding by leasing federal fossil fuels that contribute to the climate change crisis and sea level rise has cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars and put millions of people and our nation’s most imperiled species at increased risk.