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Attorney Sarah Jarboe gives presentation on cooperative federalism in environmental law
by Mandy Hicks
Sarah Jarboe, a partner at ELPO, gave a presentation on Friday, April 27, 2018, at the Kentucky chapter of the Air & Waste Management Association’s Environmental Practitioners’ Workshop in Bowling Green, Ky. Her presentation discussed cooperative federalism, which is the idea that state, local, and federal governments share responsibility in creating policies, implementing laws, and exercising governmental authority. Her co-presenter was Amy Spann, PE, CHMM, Associate Principal of EnSafe, an environmental consulting firm in Bowling Green.
The presentation was called “States’ Rights, Federalism, and EPA: Who’s Calling the Shots?” and an abstract is below.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has clearly conveyed that cooperative federalism will be a guiding principle of his tenure, saying that he will be “stepping up our work alongside the states in assisting stakeholders with compliance to ensure fewer violations” and committing to return more authority to the states. Cooperative federalism—the idea that state and federal governments share responsibility in implementing the law—is fundamental to how most environmental statutes work. Will the administration’s recalibration of state and federal roles provide more flexibility and respect for state decision making and lead to more effective, lower cost environmental management? Can or should the umbrella of cooperative federalism extend to local governments and what would that look like? In this presentation, we will focus on these broad questions and then discuss how cooperative federalism is at play in specific environmental programs.
Sarah Jarboe handles environmental law and civil litigation for ELPO. She served as Chair of the Environment, Energy and Resources law section of the Kentucky Bar Association in 2016-2017, sat on the American Bar Association‘s Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources (SEER) Fall 2016 and 2017 Conference Planning Committees, and participated in SEER’s 2014-2015 Leadership Development Program.
Sarah is a graduate of Vanderbilt Law School, where she received the Scholastic Excellence Award in Environmental Law in 2010 for achieving the highest grade in her class and served as Managing Editor of the Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review Journal. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Louisville. Sarah joined ELPO in 2013 after serving as a law clerk for two years for Chief Justice John D. Minton of the Kentucky Supreme Court.
