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Deborah A. Sivas

Deborah A. Ann Sivas
Deborah A. Sivas
  • Luke W. Cole Professor of Environmental Law
  • Director, Environmental and Natural Resources Law and Policy Program
  • Director, Environmental Law Clinic
  • Senior Fellow, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
  • Affiliated Researcher, Center for Ocean Solutions
  • Faculty Advisor, Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources
  • Professor, Doerr School of Sustainability
  • Room N120, Neukom Building

Expertise

  • Air Pollution Law & Policy
  • Civil Procedure & Litigation
  • Clinical Education
  • Coastal & Oceans Law & Policy
  • Environment & the Law
  • Environmental Justice Law & Policy
  • Land Use Law & Policy
  • Natural Resources Law & Policy
  • Water Law & Policy

Policy Practicum: Developing Best Practices for Clean Water Act Enforcement

The Clean Water Act is the premier law protecting the waterways of the United States.  Yet nearly a third of facilities are in “significant non-compliance” of their Clean Water Act permits, with serious consequences for the health and well-being of millions of Americans. This policy practicum will help the Environmental Protection Agency with its goal of cutting the significant non-compliance rate in half by 2022 by researching and compiling information about the most innovative interventions that have been piloted and implemented by states, EPA regions, and federal EPA.

Read more here
Environmental Protection Agency building in Washington, D.C.
Students in Classroom

Policy Practicum: Court-Supervised Remediation of Complex Environmental Problems

The Law School’s Environmental Law Clinic is representing an environmental group in a lawsuit against the Monterey County Water Resources Agency. The suit asserts that the agency has been polluting both surface and ground waters in the Salinas River Valley and Elkhorn Slough by discharging pesticide-laden farm irrigation run-off in violation of California environmental laws. If the plaintiffs prevail, the appropriate injunctive relief is likely to be complex. Neither the precise dimensions of the problem nor those of the most effective interventions to remedy it are known.

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Environmental Law Clinic

The Environmental Law Clinic provides an opportunity each quarter for students to represent national, regional, and grassroots non-profit organizations on a variety of environmental issues. The clinic’s primary goal is to help students develop essential lawyering skills through hands-on experience in real cases. Our cases take our students before administrative agencies and to all levels of state and federal court, with frequent practice in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Environmental Law Clinic
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