During the 2014 Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) meeting, Beijing’s notorious pollution had settled and the city was gifted with uncharacteristically clear, blue skies. So blue were the skies that the people of Beijing now use the term “APEC blue” to describe any abnormally pristine day. However, these clear skies were not the result of mere chance, but were instead obtained through the careful planning of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In order to reduce the pollution during the event, the CCP established a six-day holiday for all governmental and quasi-governmental offices and implemented an even-odd license plate system designed to cut traffic congestion by 35%. Nonetheless, these measures could not last forever, and by the end of the conference, the city’s infamous smog began to return. As the sky became hazier, Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama met in the Great Hall of the People to announce that the two had concluded an agreement on the need to combat the effects of climate change. Here, President Xi announced for the first time that China will stop emissions growth by 2030, signaling to the world that China was serious about improving its environment. Chinese policies under President Xi further show that his declaration that day was not an accident or mere empty words. For example, in 2013 China implemented a carbon tax, and in 2014, revised its Environmental Protection Law. This revision increased fines for polluters, gave regulators more enforcement powers, and increased transparency. China also released the “Integrated Reform Plan for Promoting *597 Ecological Progress” in 2015. This plan formally expresses China’s intention to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels, protect natural resources, and establish a nationwide carbon trading system. However, no matter how serious the Chinese government is about improving its environment and how well intentioned its policies are, real barriers stand in the way of the implementation of meaningful reform. This paper attempts to show that regardless of Beijing’s goals, China will need major legal and economic reforms if any effective environmental policies are to be put into place. Section one will explore the history of environmental regulation in modern China and will detail recent legislative efforts. Section two will examine the difficulties of implementation, including problems with China’s institutional capacity, the reliability of data, and the inadequacies of the Chinese regulatory structure in general. Section three will discuss the government’s encouragement of public involvement in environmental enforcement and section four will describe the economic difficulties of widespread reform. China’s political and regulatory system is unique and complicated. This paper is but a mere snapshot of the institutional and legal difficulties any effective environmental reform effort will face. A truly complete accounting of China’s serious economic, political and legal challenges can only be done in book form and not in this short journal piece. It should also be noted that this paper is not meant to be a critique of China’s current government, nor is it meant to imply that its leaders are disingenuous. Instead, this paper is meant to highlight the complexity of the Chinese system and will hopefully serve as a guide to those wishing to do business in China or conduct further research on its institutions and regulatory systems.

In Southern Arizona, national security and environmental conservation are inextricably intertwined. The Arizona borderlands are home to thousands of acres of federally protected lands and fragile ecosystems. There are also more flora and fauna listed under the Endangered Species Act within these lands than any other region of the continental United States. Aside from the ecological significance of the southwest borderlands, Southern Arizona is also a major drug trafficking and illegal immigration corridor from Mexico. These illegal crossers leave behind thousands of pounds of trash, trample vegetation and occasionally start accidental wildfires. The Border Patrol combats this illegal activity by erecting walls and camera towers, cutting new access roads, burying detection equipment beneath the ground, and driving vehicles off-road. The unintended consequences of border security operations upon the environment are of no small significance either. Border fencing severs wildlife migration patterns, new patrol roads disrupt desert hydrology, and off-road driving creates dustbowl conditions. In March 2015, Senator John McCain introduced the Arizona Borderlands Protection and Preservation Act. McCain argues that Border Patrol agents must get permission to enter some federal lands, which hampers border security. McCain’s bill would grant Border Patrol agents unfettered access to most federal lands in Southwestern Arizona along the international border, including National Parks and wildlife refuges. Even without McCain’s proposed legislation, the Secretary of the *621 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has already waived thirty-seven environmental protection laws--ranging from the Endangered Species Act to the Wilderness Act--to strengthen security along the border. Meanwhile, environmentalists contend that this security-driven waiver authority undermines more than forty years of work to build important conservation laws and leaves citizens with no effective means to protest. Herein lies the dilemma: How can policy makers balance the preservation of our nation’s natural treasures with the need to secure our southern border? Even though security and conservation are not mutually exclusive, politicians often frame border security in all-or nothing terms, demanding nothing less than a completely sealed border. But framing the issue in this manner is unhelpful because border security will always be imperfect. As a former Border Patrol agent and park ranger, the author argues there is no such thing as a completely secure border--only a well-managed one. Destroying fragile federal lands in the name of sealing the border is self-defeating. Likewise, demands for an end to all environmental damage along a chaotic border are unrealistic. What we can aim for is a relatively stable and low-risk border while mitigating harm done to the environment. Even though border security and land-management agencies appear to generally agree with this philosophy, many of the nation’s decision-makers with the power to transform the border do not frame the issue with the nuance it deserves.

Public trust and wildlife trust doctrines have historically been viewed as two separate property doctrines. The synthesis of the two would have serious repercussions for private property owners and endangered wildlife species. A misguided reading of the recent Horne decision from the United States Supreme Court threatens to do just that. The public trust doctrine is recognized as protecting resources that belong to no individual; more specifically the public trust doctrine has historically been applied to navigable waters and submerged lands. The wildlife trust, while similar, has always been separate and is more narrowly used to convey that wildlife is held in trust by the sovereign state for the people. In the June 2015 Supreme Court case Horne v. Department of Agriculture, the majority was forced to reconcile their opinion with a 1929 Supreme Court case about government takings of oysters. Justice Roberts did so by stating “raisins are not oysters” which in the eyes of some renewed and expanded the public trust protection to wildlife. This article examines the public trust and wildlife trust doctrines separately - their development, their histories, relevant caselaw, how they are codified in statutes and acts, and the legacy of the synthesis of the two trusts from Horne in relation to them. This is the first article to analyze how Horne affects the distinction between the wildlife trust from the public trust. Then the article analyzes the negative consequences of synthesizing the public and wildlife trusts, how the wildlife trust protection of species is in conflict with the property rights of land owners, and alternative methods that could be used to protect both property rights and threatened species.