State of Oregon Law Library Legal Research Blog

Image: Mt. Hood from Lost Lake. 1900. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mitchell and Nancy Steir. 

April 22, 2021, is the 51st anniversary of Earth Day. Earth Day is a chance for us to learn more about our environment and the threats facing it. To mark the day, we have complied a selection of environmental law resources and a brief history of environmental policy in Oregon.  

Environmental Policy in Oregon

Oregon enacted its first pollution laws in 1889. The laws established drainage rules and animal carcass disposal rules. For the next forty years, Oregon passed a variety of piecemeal laws to prevent water pollution. They were ineffective. According to the Department of Environmental Quality's (DEQ) history, the 180 mile "Willamette River had become so polluted that during low stream flows, it resembled an open sewer.” 

Image: Willamette River, Portland, Oregon. 1901 Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mitchell and Nancy Steir. 

Frustrated with the state of the Willamette River, Oregonians voted for the "Water Purification and Prevention of Pollution Bill" in 1938. The law also created the State Sanitary Authority. In 1951, Oregon passed an air pollution control law and created the Air Pollution Authority. These laws made Oregon an environmental leader. According to the DEQ's history, the water control bill was "one of the first state comprehensive water pollution control laws in the nation."  Similarly, Dr. Arthur C. Stern -- writing for the Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association -- noted that the air pollution control law was the first in the country to control air pollution at the state level. Other states only allowed control at the county level or created city-focused regulations. 

Environmental awareness swept the country in the 1960s. The book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson highlighted the dangers of pesticides. In 1969, 2 environmental disasters – the Cuyahoga River Fire in Ohio and the Santa Barbara Oil Spill in California– drove Congress to establish the Environmental Protection Agency and pass Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.  

In Oregon, the legislative assembly created the DEQ in 1969. It replaced the State Sanitary Authority (and the Air Pollution Authority which the State Sanitary Authority absorbed in 1959).  During this time, Oregon passed the 1967 Beach Bill – Governor Thomas McCall’s successful effort to make all Oregon beaches public – and the Bottle Bill (1972) – the first law in the country establishing deposits for bottles. In 1973, the Land Conservation and Development Commission was created to regulate land use. 

More recent environmental legislation in Oregon includes an environmental justice law that took effect in 2008. According to the EPA, minorities and low-income communities “are more likely to be impacted by environmental hazards and more likely to live near contaminated lands.” Oregon’s law established an environmental justice task force, as well as requirements to increase engagement and communication between natural resource agencies and communities impacted by their policies.

In the last few years, Oregon enacted the Single Use Bag-Ban and Oregon Environmental Protection Act in 2019. The Oregon legislature passed the Environmental Protection Act, because of increasingly lax federal environmental protections. The act made earlier and stricter federal environmental protections Oregon law.

Image Credit: Rooster Rock, Columbia River, Oregon. 1900. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mitchell and Nancy Steir. 

Today, Oregon is the 6th greenest state in the country according to a 2021 WalletHub report. The report ranked Oregon so highly, because of the state's environmental quality and eco-friendly behaviors. 

To learn more about environmental law and policy, dig into the library's resources listed below. To find bills before the current legislature search this database by subject or keyword. 

Resources

Databases (Limited to State Employees):

Lexis Advance -- Environmental Law

WestLaw -- Energy and Environment

HeinOnline -- Environmental Law and Conservation Journals (including Lewis & Clark and University of Oregon). Browse subjects to find them. 

Oregon Resources: 

Environmental Law Volume 1: Regulation and Permitting edited by Ms. Laura Maffei et. al. (2013).

Environmental and Natural Resources Law edited by Mr. Jas Jeffrey Adams et. al. (2002 edition with 2006 supplement).      

Water rights in Oregon: an introduction to Oregon's water laws (2018).

General Resources: 

Climate change and indigenous peoples: a synthesis of current impacts and experiences by Kathryn Norton-Smith et. al. (2016).

Endangered and other protected species by Richard Littell (1992) 

Environmental law in a nutshell by Daniel A. Farber (2014) 

Treatise on environmental law by Frank P. Grad (1973). 

Water law in a nutshell by David H. Getches (2009). 

Waters and water rights edited by Robert E. Beck and Amy K. Kelley (2009) 

Wildlife law, regulation, and falconry: an analysis of legal principles by William J. Murrin & Harold M. Webster, Jr., J.D (2013) 

Need more specific materials? Browse the catalog! 

If you are looking for a more specific topic, try browsing the catalog. Browsing the catalog is like browsing the bookshelves. The browse portion of the catalog is organized by subject – search for the subject you’re interested in, say environmental law, and click on it to see a list of relevant resources. 

Bibliography

Boissoneault, Lorraine. “The Cuyahoga River Caught Fire at Least a Dozen Times, but No One Cared Until 1969.” Smithsonian Magazine, June 19, 2019. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/. 

Department of Environmental Quality. “Oregon’s 2008 environmental justice law.” Department of Environmental Quality, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.oregon.gov/deq/Pages/index.aspx. 

Department of Environmental Quality. “Oregon's Evolving Bottle Bill.” Department of Environmental Quality, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.oregon.gov/deq/Pages/index.aspx. 

Department of Environmental Quality. “Single-Use Bag Ban.” Department of Environmental Quality, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.oregon.gov/deq/Pages/index.aspx. 

Department of Land Conservation and Development, Oregon Coastal Management Program. “Public Access to the Coast.” Oregon Coastal Management Program, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.oregon.gov/lcd/OCMP/Pages/index.aspx. 

Governor Kate Brown. “Oregon Environmental Protection Act - HB 2250 Bill Signing,” last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.oregon.gov/gov/Pages/index.aspx. 

Hamilton, Jon. “How California's Worst Oil Spill Turned Beaches Black And The Nation Green.” NPR, January 28, 2019. https://www.npr.org/. 

Hillegas-Elting, James V. “Department of Environmental Quality.” Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society, last modified May 28, 2019. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/. 

Howe, Deborah. “Land Conservation and Development Commission (LCDC).” Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society, last modified March 17, 2018. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/. 

Kiernan, John S, editor. "2021’s Greenest States." WalletHub, Evolution Finance, last modified April 14, 2021. https://wallethub.com. 

Office of the Secretary of State. Archives Division. Department of Environmental Quality Administrative Overview. Oregon Secretary of State, last modified November 2009. http://records.sos.state.or.us/ORSOSWebDrawer/Search. 

Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Laws 2007, Chapter 909. Oregon State Legislature. Last accessed April 19, 2020. https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/. 

Oregon State Legislature. Oregon Laws 2019, Chapter 138. Oregon State Legislature. Last accessed April 19, 2020. https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/. 

Robbins, William G. “Willamette River.” Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society, last modified January 20, 2021. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/.  

Stern, Arthur C. “History of Air Pollution Legislation in the United States.” Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association 32, no. 1 (1982): 44-61. Taylor and Francis. doi: 10.1080/00022470.1982.10465369.  

“The Story of Silent Spring.” NRDC, last modified August 13, 2015. https://www.nrdc.org. 

United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Earth Day.” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/. 

United States Environmental Protection Agency. EPA Annual Environmental Justice Progress Report FY 2020. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/. 

United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Evolution of the Clean Air Act.” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/. 

United States Environmental Protection Agency. “History of the Clean Water Act.” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/. 

United States Environmental Protection Agency. “Origins of the EPA.” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last accessed April 19, 2021. https://www.epa.gov/.  

Walth, Brent. “Thomas William Lawson McCall (1913-1983).” Oregon Encyclopedia, Oregon Historical Society, last modified January 22, 2021. https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/. 

The State of Oregon Law Library (SOLL) launched a searchable database of Oregon Chief Justice Orders, joint Chief Justice/Chief Judge Orders, and non-case related Supreme Court Orders on January 4, 2021. Orders are from 2019 and 2020 and will include new orders going forward. As resources become available, we will add the older orders— the database will eventually date back to 1985. Searches can consist of text, order number, subject, and description. The orders are posted as PDFs.

A link to the database has also been posted to the Oregon Appellate Court web page.

Link in the left menu

Additional digital collections available from the State of Oregon Law Library include Oregon appellate court opinions, Oregon Attorney General public records, and Oregon Governor Executive orders. 

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and an unprecedented wildfire season, a large number of Executive Orders have been issued this year. 

The Executive Orders are listed on the governor's website in PDF format.  The individual PDFs are not searchable which can make tracking the changes difficult. With so many people trying to understand the impact of these orders, we created a new digital collection that is both searchable and indexed by subject. 

Additional digital collections available from the State of Oregon Law Library include Oregon appellate court opinions and Oregon Attorney General public records orders.

Have you ever run a search, again and again, to see if the case law or statutory text you are relying on has changed? Westlaw has a feature that can help.

Westlaw’s Notifications can alert you when new case opinions are released, a statute changes, and more. If you can search for it in Westlaw you can set up a notification for it.

The first thing to do is to click the notifications button in Westlaw. It’ll be empty for now since you haven’t set up any notifications. To get started setting up a notification click “View All”

In the main notifications screen, you can select “Create an Alert." You can start an alert based on a key number, a cited law or case, an open docket, or a West published book.

Once you’ve started an alert Westlaw will guide you through the process of setting up your alert. You’ll be able to set the content you want to be monitored and how you should be alerted to changes.

You can also quickly create an alert from any Westlaw search. Just look for the bell icon in a search result screen. You’ll be sent to the above WestClip Alert screen with the options already set up according to your search. You can modify it or set it up as is.

With Westlaw’s help you’ll never be surprised by a new precedent or statuary change again!

A lot of legal research takes place online through online legal databases like Westlaw or records repositories like PACER. A good legal researcher knows that the privacy of their legal research is important. There are many incentives for unscrupulous  actors to spy on your computer use, especially when conducting legal research.

Computer security is therefore a VITAL part of good legal research practices. Luckily for us security amateurs there are some good resources out there that can get us oriented to good computer security. Below are two up to date, reliable and free online books for learning about computer security from physical access to network attacks.

• Digital Security and Privacy for Human Rights Defenders
• The Motherboard Guide to Not Getting Hacked

The Practicing Law Institute is a non-profit organization that produces legal reference publications and continuing legal education programs. This librarian has found their programs to be generally very well put together and informative.

As a non-profit they are committed to providing many CLEs that target the needs of attorneys providing pro-bono services. Many of these CLEs are available on their website free of charge. While the CLEs are mostly conducted in New York and California many are registered for credit in Oregon. 

Check out the list of Pro Bono CLEs here. 

What is LexisAdvance's new graphical search?

The graphical search is a new way Lexis displays certain search results. A bar with colored stripes displays the position of the different search terms entered by the user. You can click on the bar to quickly go to the section of the document. Once there each search term is hi-lighted with it's own color.

How can I use the graphical search?

If you want to search using the new graphical interface you are in luck! The new search mode is turned on by default. You can click on the title of this section to learn more about to use the new interface. 

How can I turn of graphical search as the default display?

The new search interface may not be for you. In this case you may want to turn it off and return to the old way of displaying documents. It is a easy process.

• Click on the More tab at the top of the page. Then click on the Settings link in the menu.

• In the settings menu un-select the radial box next to the graphical view icon.