Law Commons^™

Cost-Benefit Analysis: Not A Suitable Approach For Evaluating Climate Regulation Policies, Gregory Scott Crespi

Washington and Lee Journal of Energy, Climate, and the Environment

Cost-benefit analysis is a widely used approach for guiding public sector policy decisions. Given the impetus provided by strong evidence of global warming, numerous scholars are now considering the role that cost-benefit analysis should play, if any, in assessing climate regulation policies, and are offering recommendations as to how this methodology can be better utilized in that context. However, that scholarship invariably overlooks the fact that conventional cost-benefit analyses implicitly embrace the untenable assumption that the genetic identities of future persons are exogenous with regard to the policies being evaluated. The conclusions of such cost-benefit analyses are therefore irrelevant to …

A Cost-Benefit Interpretation Of The "Substantially Similar" Hurdle In The Congressional Review Act: Can Osha Ever Utter The E-Word (Ergonomics) Again?, Adam M. Finkel, Jason W. Sullivan

All Faculty Scholarship

The Congressional Review Act permits Congress to veto proposed regulations via a joint resolution, and prohibits an agency from reissuing a rule “in substantially the same form” as the vetoed rule. Some scholars—and officials within the agencies themselves—have understood the “substantially the same” standard to bar an agency from regulating in the same substantive area covered by a vetoed rule. Courts have not yet provided an authoritative interpretation of the standard.

This Article examines a spectrum of possible understandings of the standard, and relates them to the legislative history (of both the Congressional Review Act itself and the congressional veto …

Testimony Of Rena Steinzor…Before The U.S. House Of Representatives, Energy And Commerce Committee, Subcommittee On Environment And Economics. 112th Congress, 1st Session (2011)., Rena Steinzor

Rena I. Steinzor

Environmental regulations have saved millions of lives, preventing chronic respiratory illness and heart attacks in cities across the country. These rules protect children from irreversible neurological damage, save billions of dollars in cleanup costs, and preserve water quality in lakes, rivers, and streams. If anything, our regulatory system is dangerously weak, and Congress should focus on reviving it rather than eroding public protections….

Testimony Of Rena Steinzor…Before The U.S. House Of Representatives, Energy And Commerce Committee, Subcommittee On Environment And Economics. 112th Congress, 1st Session (2011)., Rena I. Steinzor

Congressional Testimony

Environmental regulations have saved millions of lives, preventing chronic respiratory illness and heart attacks in cities across the country. These rules protect children from irreversible neurological damage, save billions of dollars in cleanup costs, and preserve water quality in lakes, rivers, and streams. If anything, our regulatory system is dangerously weak, and Congress should focus on reviving it rather than eroding public protections….

Lessons From The North Sea: Should "Safety Cases" Come To America?, Rena I. Steinzor

Rena I. Steinzor

The catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last spring and summer has triggered an intense search for more effective regulatory methods that would prevent such disasters. The new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) is under pressure to adopt the British “safety case” system, which requires the preparation of a facility-specific plan that is typically several hundred pages long. This system is supposed to inculcate a “safety culture” within companies that operate offshore in the British portion of the North Sea because it overcomes a “box-ticking” mentality and constitutes “bottom up” implementation of safety measures. …

Lessons From The North Sea: Should "Safety Cases" Come To America?, Rena I. Steinzor

Faculty Scholarship

The catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico last spring and summer has triggered an intense search for more effective regulatory methods that would prevent such disasters. The new Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) is under pressure to adopt the British “safety case” system, which requires the preparation of a facility-specific plan that is typically several hundred pages long. This system is supposed to inculcate a “safety culture” within companies that operate offshore in the British portion of the North Sea because it overcomes a “box-ticking” mentality and constitutes “bottom up” implementation of safety measures. …