About

Jonathan Z. Cannon is the Blaine T. Phillips Distinguished Professor of Environmental Law Emeritus at the University of Virginia School of Law. He joined the faculty in 1998 after serving at the Environmental Protection Agency, where he held positions as general counsel from 1995 to 1998 and assistant administrator for administration and resources management from 1992 to 1995. Cannon has a background in environmental law, having worked in private practice and served as an adjunct professor at Washington and Lee Law School, teaching environmental law. He is the author of the book 'Environment in the Balance: The Green Movement and the Supreme Court' and has contributed extensively to the field through publications, book chapters, and articles on environmental regulation, Supreme Court environmental decisions, and regional and national environmental programs. Cannon retired from UVA in May 2021.

Research topics

• Business
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Chemistry
• Law and economics
• Law
• Environmental science

Selected publications

• Beat-Drop Alignment Test

  PsycTESTS Dataset · 2022-01-01

  dataset
  PublisherDOI

• EPA and the Clean Water Act

  2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Environmental science
  • Business
  • Chemistry
  Publisher

• Judicial review in the new age of deference

  Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Political Science
  • Law

  This chapter assesses the risks that a rule adopted under Section 115 to address climate change would face in judicial review. It focuses on the degree of judicial deference that would likely be given to EPA’s legal interpretations embedded in the rule. Under Chevron, reviewing courts will grant deference to an agency’s interpretation where Congress did not address the issue or where Congress’s intent is unclear. In recent years, however, the Supreme Court has recognized an exception to Chevron deference for issues with “deep ‘economic and policy significance.’” There are important unanswered questions about the applicability and operation of this exception. For example, the Court has not announced criteria for determining the political and economic significance of a rule or the level of significance necessary to trigger the exception. These unknowns make the applicability and effect of the major question exception in judicial review of a section 115 rule uncertain. Section 115 provides an appropriate and workable vehicle for reducing greenhouse gases. In anticipation of searching but fair judicial review of a Section 115 climate change rule, the best strategy for EPA would be to develop a balanced well-supported set of legal interpretations tied closely to the structure and purposes of section 115 and the CAA.

  PublisherDOI

• Reading between the crimes: Online media’s representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s interaction with the criminal justice system in post-apology Australia

  Australasian Journal of Paramedicine · 2018-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Australian research confirms that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience high levels of social inequality, racism and injustice. Evidence of discrimination and inequality is most obvious within the criminal justice system where they are seriously over-represented. The Australian news media plays a large part in reinforcing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inequality, stereotypes and racist ideology within specific situations such as the Northern Territory Emergency Response and the Redfern riots. This study widens the scope from how the media reports a single criminal justice event to how the media reports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s interaction with the criminal justice system. The study relies on Norman Fairclough’s (2003) theory of critical discourse analysis to analyse critically 25 Australian online news media articles featuring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Specifically, the study applies Fairclough’s (2003) three assumptive categories (existential, propositional and value). It identifies discourse reinforcing dominance and inequality within those media articles and reveals two major findings. The first significant finding is the unwillingness of any article to challenge or question the power structures that reinforce or lead to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inequality. The second major finding involves three ideologies within the text communicating racism and inequality: neo-colonial, neo-liberal assimilation and paternalistic ideologies. The concern is that although the twenty-five news media articles appear neutral, the critical analysis reveals racist ideologies being communicated and an unwillingness to challenge the power structures that create these. This position suggests that racism is not just a problem of a bygone era—it is a contemporary issue continuing at a deeper level nestled in the underlying assumptions and ideologies found within news media discourse. These findings would bring awareness to the media’s discursive practices and generate further discussion and research to address the discursive structures responsible for perpetuating the systemic harm to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

  Publisher

• Pope Francis, Laudato Si', and U.S. Environmentalism

  2017-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Frontmatter

  Harvard University Press eBooks · 2015-04-10

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Environment in the Balance

  Harvard University Press eBooks · 2015-04-10 · 4 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Does the green movement remain a transformative force in American life? In Environment in the Balance Jonathan Cannon interprets a wide range of U.S. Supreme Court decisions over four decades and explores the current ferment among activists, to gauge the practical and cultural impact of environmentalism and its future prospects.

  PublisherDOI

• Environment in the Balance

  Harvard University Press eBooks · 2015-04-22

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Taking enforcement on its own terms: EPA's heavy‐duty diesel engine litigation

  Regulation & Governance · 2011-03-24 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The authors of Regulation by Litigation characterize the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s enforcement action against diesel engine manufacturers as an effort to achieve by litigation what the Agency was unable to achieve by regulation: immediate reductions in emissions of nitrogen oxides. By substituting litigation for rulemaking, the authors of the book argue, the Agency avoided political and judicial accountability and put itself on a suboptimal policy track. This comment argues that the diesel engine litigation may be better understood as what it purported to be, an enforcement action, not rulemaking in disguise. The authors' characterization of the litigation is questionable on at least two grounds. First, it fails to fully appreciate the distinct functions of enforcement and policymaking in a regulatory setting. The goal of enforcement is not primarily to make policy, but to enforce it – to punish violators, deter future violations, and mitigate harms caused by violations. That goal supplies the proper measure of the litigation's success. Second, in applying public choice analysis to create a story of agency circumvention of appropriate rulemaking procedures, the authors' account misses key features of how agency enforcement decisions are made – and were made in this litigation. This latter shortcoming raises broader questions about the difficulties of applying public choice analysis in complex institutional settings.

  PublisherDOI

• Clarinet Ensemble Recital

  Digital Scholarship - UNLV (University of Nevada Reno) · 2011-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Program listing performers and works performed

  PublisherOA PDF

Frequent coauthors

• Gregg P. Macey

  3 shared

• S. N. J. Martel

  Migration Institute of Finland

  2 shared

• J. J. Cura

  2 shared

• D. O. TeBeest

  2 shared

• K. N. Laney

  2 shared

• Richard L. Poirot

  New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

  2 shared

• Alex Lewis

  Forest Research

  2 shared

• J. S. Tsuji

  2 shared