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Full-Text Articles in Law
Implementing Nepa In The Age Of Climate Change, Jayni Foley Hein, Natalie Jacewicz
Implementing Nepa In The Age Of Climate Change, Jayni Foley Hein, Natalie Jacewicz
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
The national government has a crucial role to play in combating climate change, yet federal projects continue to constitute a major source of United States greenhouse gas emissions. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, agencies must consider the environmental impacts of major federal actions before they can move forward. But agencies frequently downplay or ignore the climate change impacts of their projects in NEPA analyses, citing a slew of technical difficulties and uncertainties. This Article analyzes a suite of the most common analytical failures on the part of agencies with respect to climate change: failure to account for a project’s …
Uncovering Wholesale Electricity Market Principles, Michael Panfil, Rama Zakaria
Uncovering Wholesale Electricity Market Principles, Michael Panfil, Rama Zakaria
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
This paper examines, enunciates, and makes explicit a set of market principles historically relied upon by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to regulate wholesale electricity markets as required under the Federal Power Act (FPA). These identified competitive market principles are supported by policy and legal foundations that run through a myriad of FERC orders and court decisions. This paper seeks to make that history and those implicit market principles explicit by distilling and organizing Commission Orders and court decisions. It concludes that five market principles, each with multiple subprinciples, can be identified as elemental to how FERC understands and …
Grasping For Energy Democracy, Shelley Welton
Grasping For Energy Democracy, Shelley Welton
Michigan Law Review
Until recently, energy law has attracted relatively little citizen participation. Instead, Americans have preferred to leave matters of energy governance to expert bureaucrats. But the imperative to respond to climate change presents energy regulators with difficult choices over what our future energy sources should be, and how quickly we should transition to them—choices that are outside traditional regulatory expertise. For example, there are currently robust nationwide debates over what role new nuclear power plants and hydraulically fractured natural gas should play in our energy mix, and over how to maintain affordable energy for all while rewarding those who choose to …
Medicine As A Public Calling, Nicholas Bagley
Medicine As A Public Calling, Nicholas Bagley
Michigan Law Review
The debate over how to tame private medical spending tends to pit advocates of government-provided insurance—a single-payer scheme—against those who would prefer to harness market forces to hold down costs. When it is mentioned at all, the possibility of regulating the medical industry as a public utility is brusquely dismissed as anathema to the American regulatory tradition. This dismissiveness, however, rests on a failure to appreciate just how deeply the public utility model shaped health law in the twentieth century— and how it continues to shape health law today. Closer economic regulation of the medical industry may or may not …
Regulating Electricity-Market Manipulation: A Proposal For A New Regulatory Regime To Proscribe All Forms Of Manipulation, Matthew Evans
Regulating Electricity-Market Manipulation: A Proposal For A New Regulatory Regime To Proscribe All Forms Of Manipulation, Matthew Evans
Michigan Law Review
Congress broadly authorized the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) to protect consumers of electricity from all forms of manipulation in the electricity markets, but the regulations that FERC passed are not nearly so expansive. As written, FERC’s Anti-Manipulation Rule covers only instances of manipulation involving fraud. This narrow scope is problematic, however, because electricity markets can also be manipulated by nonfraudulent activity. Thus, in order to reach all forms of manipulation, FERC is forced to interpret and apply its Anti-Manipulation Rule in ways that strain the plain language and accepted understanding of the rule and therefore constitute an improper extension …
Market Power In Power Markets: The Filed-Rate Doctrine And Competition In Electricity, Sandeep Vaheesan
Market Power In Power Markets: The Filed-Rate Doctrine And Competition In Electricity, Sandeep Vaheesan
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
State and federal initiatives have opened the American electric power industry to competition over the past four decades. Although the process has not occurred uniformly across the country, wholesale electricity markets exist everywhere today. Independent power producers can construct generation facilities and sell their output to utilities and industrial customers through bilateral contracts. In many regions, centralized power markets now facilitate the sale of billions of dollars in electricity annually through auctions. Although market forces have replaced direct price regulation in electricity, antitrust enforcement has not expanded its role commensurately. A lack of competition has been a serious problem in …
Roles For State Energy Regulators In Climate Change Mitigation , Brandon Hofmeister
Roles For State Energy Regulators In Climate Change Mitigation , Brandon Hofmeister
Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law
The construction of new power plants in the United States carries the risk of significantly contributing to global climate change. After concluding that the current federal regulatory response to climate change risks from power plants is inadequate, this Article examines three potential roles for state energy regulators to play as a bridge climate mitigation strategy until a cohesive federal policy is enacted. State energy regulators have received relatively little attention as potential climate change regulators, but they are well positioned to analyze and mitigate climate change risks from new power plants. The Article considers the advantages and drawbacks of state …
The Texas Wind Estate: Wind As A Natural Resource And A Severable Property Interest, Alan J. Alexander
The Texas Wind Estate: Wind As A Natural Resource And A Severable Property Interest, Alan J. Alexander
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In 2011, Texas is again at the forefront of an energy boom: the wind energy boom. In 2006, Texas surpassed California and became the US. state with the most installed capacity to produce wind energy, and Texas' level of installed capacity has continued to grow. But the law has not kept pace with this growth. Similar to the initial growth of the oil and gas industry in Texas, the wind energy industry was also born, and continues to grow, in the absence of clear legal and regulatory standards. Lack of regulation in the early development of the oil industry contributed …
Toward Legitimacy Through Collaborative Governance: An Analysis Of The Effect Of South Carolina's Office Of Regulatory Staff On Public Utility Regulation, William H. Ellerbe
Toward Legitimacy Through Collaborative Governance: An Analysis Of The Effect Of South Carolina's Office Of Regulatory Staff On Public Utility Regulation, William H. Ellerbe
Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review
In 2004 the South Carolina General Assembly instituted a major reform to its system of public utility regulation. Previously, the Public Service Commission, the administrative agency in charge of regulating public utilities, both adjudicated utility proceedings and, through its staff,a advocated for the public interest. A scandal concerning revelations of extensive ex parte communications between regulated utilities and members of the Public Service Commission led to the 2004 reform, which created the Office of Regulatory Staff (ORS) as a separate agency to perform the Commission's advocative functions. In my research, I use data on fuel factor proceedings before and after …
Energy Efficiency And Federalism, Ann E. Carlson
Energy Efficiency And Federalism, Ann E. Carlson
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
The U.S. system for regulating appliances—which account for a huge percentage of the nation’s carbon emissions—is a mess. Since the federal government began regulating appliance efficiency in the 1970s, the process has been characterized by frequent delays and foot-dragging, followed by lawsuits and legislative overhauls. Amidst the turmoil, a number of states have attempted to assert leadership in setting appliance standards but have often faced federal roadblocks in doing so.
Controlling The Environmental Consequences Of Power Development In The People's Republic Of China, Homer Sun
Controlling The Environmental Consequences Of Power Development In The People's Republic Of China, Homer Sun
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Note proposes a strategy to mitigate the environmental degradation resulting from China's power development. Part I introduces China's power industry - its excessive dependence on coal, its antiquated and inefficient infrastructure, its pollutive effects, and its projected expansion. Part II appraises the ways in which China's environmental laws, macroeconomic controls, and foreign investment restrictions influence the growth of power development and its corresponding effect on the environment. Part III assesses the role that governments, development banks, and international organizations can play in curbing the environmental impact of Chinese power projects. Considering the problems associated with current Chinese and international …
Cherobyl: Its Implications For International Aromic Energy Regulation, Diana K. Brown
Cherobyl: Its Implications For International Aromic Energy Regulation, Diana K. Brown
Michigan Journal of International Law
The first section of this note focuses on the IAEA's role in the existing network of international organizations designed to improve nuclear power plant safety. The second section examines the implications of the Chernobyl accident for international cooperation in the nuclear field. The final section proposes several improvements for nuclear safety management, and is subdivided accordingly. The first subsection analyzes the incident reporting systems of the IAEA and the Nuclear Energy Agency and recommends amending the IAEA Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident to ensure that all nuclear incidents, as well as accidents, are covered by its terms. …
Powerline: The First Battle Of America's Energy War, Michigan Law Review
Powerline: The First Battle Of America's Energy War, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Powerline: The First Battle of America's Energy War by Barry M. Casper and Paul David Wellstone
Jurisdiction--Atomic Energy--Federal Pre-Emption And State Regulation Of Radioactive Air Pollution: Who Is The Master Of The Atomic Genie?, Michigan Law Review
Jurisdiction--Atomic Energy--Federal Pre-Emption And State Regulation Of Radioactive Air Pollution: Who Is The Master Of The Atomic Genie?, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
Pending litigation between the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and Northern States Power Company presents a potential federal-state conflict over the right of a state to impose upon operators of nuclear power plants more exacting pollution control standards than those required by regulations of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The AEC issued Northern States Power Company a permit to construct a nuclear power generating plant in Monticello, Minnesota. The regulations under which that permit was issued place a ceiling on the amount of radioactive effluents which can be discharged into the air during the course of the plant's operations. But under …
State Control Of Radiation Hazards: An Intergovernmental Relations Problem, Samuel D. Estep, Martin Adelman
State Control Of Radiation Hazards: An Intergovernmental Relations Problem, Samuel D. Estep, Martin Adelman
Michigan Law Review
The purpose of this article is to set forth the nature of the intergovernmental problem. This involves an analysis of the extent and limitations of federal power, a determination of congressional intent on the issue of federal pre-emption, and an appraisal of the steps now being taken by the Atomic Energy Commission to turn over part of the radiation safety regulatory program to the states.
Competitive Operation Of Municipally And Privately Owned Utilities, Charles M. Kneier
Competitive Operation Of Municipally And Privately Owned Utilities, Charles M. Kneier
Michigan Law Review
Public utility services for cities are usually provided on the principle of regulated monopoly. It has been found that by the very nature of the utility business, better service can be had and at cheaper rates by the use of one supplier rather than by the use of competing plants: This one plant having a monopoly of the business may be either privately or municipally owned. If the service is furnished by a privately owned utility, regulation is usually by a state commission, but in a few states regulation is still largely by the city in which the company operates. …
Constitutional Law -Validity Of Registration Provisions Of Public Utility Holding Company Act Of 1935, Gerald L. Stoetzer
Constitutional Law -Validity Of Registration Provisions Of Public Utility Holding Company Act Of 1935, Gerald L. Stoetzer
Michigan Law Review
In recognition of the abuses that arise from the monopolistic tendencies of holding companies in the public utility field and of the inability of the respective states to exert the necessary control thereof, Congress has attempted to draw certain of the public utility holding companies within the inquisitorial and regulatory control of the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, reciting in great detail facts showing the necessity for control of holding companies having as subsidiaries electric and gas operating utilities, indicates that Congress regarded the uncontrolled utility holding company as "an agency which, …