Law Commons^™

Permit Proposals: Summary Of Recommendations, Luis Pablo Alvarez

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

All scenarios for meeting greenhouse gas reduction targets require faster deployment of renewable energy projects. However, the current permitting processes, while designed to ensure environmental and public safety as well as public participation, often delay progress. The challenge is to speed up renewable energy development without compromising environmental and community protections. This white paper by the Sabin Center reviews 15 reports from reputable institutions that identify steps to streamline the permitting process. These recommendations offer strategies to reduce time and costs in advancing renewable energy projects.

This report will be updated from time to time. Readers who identify errors in …

Performance Track’S Postmortem: Lessons From The Rise And Fall Of Epa’S “Flagship” Voluntary Program, Cary Coglianese, Jennifer Nash

All Faculty Scholarship

For nearly a decade, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) considered its National Environmental Performance Track to be its “flagship” voluntary program — even a model for transforming the conventional system of environmental regulation. Since Performance Track’s founding during the Clinton Administration, EPA officials repeatedly claimed that the program’s rewards attracted hundreds of the nation’s “top” environmental performers and induced these businesses to make significant environmental gains beyond legal requirements. Although EPA eventually disbanded Performance Track early in the Obama Administration, the program has been subsequently emulated by a variety of state and federal regulatory authorities. To discern lessons …

Survey Mode Effects On Valuation Of Environmental Goods, W. Kip Viscusi, Jason Bell, Joel Huber

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article evaluates the effect of the choice of survey recruitment mode on the value of water quality in lakes, rivers, and streams. Four different modes are compared: bringing respondents to one central location after phone recruitment, mall intercepts in two states, national phone-mail survey, and an Internet survey with a national, probability-based sample. The modes differ in terms of the representativeness of the samples, non-response rates, sample selection effects, and consistency of responses. The article also shows that the estimated benefit value can differ substantially depending on the survey mode. The national Internet panel has the most desirable properties …

Monetizing The Benefits Of Risk And Environmental Regulation, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Should the benefits of risk and environmental regulations be monetized? For economists, this question is not controversial. Benefits of government policies have a value given by society's willingness to pay for these benefits, which by its very nature poses the valuation issue in monetary terms. Government agencies have likewise not shied away from monetizing these benefits. A contrary school of thought, however, has recently emerged, as reflected in the book by Frank Ackerman and Lisa Heinzerling, Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing. As the title of the book suggests, the authors oppose economists' attempts …

Liability Rules For Surface Water Drainage: A Simple Economic Analysis, Daniel H. Cole

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.