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Articles 1 - 30 of 140
Full-Text Articles in Law
Legal Issues In Oceanic Transport Of Carbon Dioxide For Sequestration, Carolina Arlota, Michael B. Gerrard, Pria Deanna Mahadevan
Legal Issues In Oceanic Transport Of Carbon Dioxide For Sequestration, Carolina Arlota, Michael B. Gerrard, Pria Deanna Mahadevan
Faculty Scholarship
A number of large facilities intended for the permanent sequestration of carbon dioxide are being developed in the United States. Several of them will be located in Texas and Louisiana on or near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, making them easily accessible to ships. At the same time, there is substantial interest in Europe in installing equipment to capture carbon dioxide from certain industrial operations before it is emitted into the atmosphere, but currently there are inadequate facilities existing in Europe to sequester much of this carbon dioxide. Therefore, there is interest in the possibility of using ships …
Virtual Energy, Joel B. Eisen, Felix Mormann, Heather E. Payne
Virtual Energy, Joel B. Eisen, Felix Mormann, Heather E. Payne
Faculty Scholarship
From employment to education, many areas of our daily lives have gone virtual, including the virtual workplace and virtual classes. By comparison, the way we generate, deliver, and consume electricity is an anachronism. And the electric industry’s outdated business model and regulatory framework are failing. For the last century-and-a-half, we have relied on ever larger power plants to generate the electricity we consume, often hundreds of miles away from the point of production. But the outsized carbon footprint of these power plants and the need to transmit their output over long distances threaten the electric grid’s reliability, affordability, and long-term …
The Chicago School’S Coasean Incoherence, Madison Condon
The Chicago School’S Coasean Incoherence, Madison Condon
Faculty Scholarship
This comment traces the divergent legal academic interpretations of the Chicago School's Ronald Coase and where their influence lands--revealing the law’s inconsistent conception of just what a corporation is or should be. By following Alyssa Battistoni's investigation of the origin of the "externality," we can see the late 60s and early 1970s as a pivotal era. People were waking up to the collective costs of industrialization and pushing back against corporate power. Against this democratic wave, the writings of the Chicago School worked to separate one human person into her different roles in the economy—consumer, worker, shareholder. They used the …
Grid Governance In The Energy-Trilemma Era: Remedying The Democracy Deficit, Daniel E. Walters, Andrew N. Kleit
Grid Governance In The Energy-Trilemma Era: Remedying The Democracy Deficit, Daniel E. Walters, Andrew N. Kleit
Faculty Scholarship
Transforming the electric power grid is central to any viable scenario for addressing global climate change, but the process and politics of this transformation are complex. The desire to transform the grid creates an “energy trilemma” involving often conflicting desires for reliability, cost, and decarbonization; and, at least in the short run, it is difficult to avoid making tradeoffs between these different goals. It is somewhat shocking, then, that many crucial decisions about electric power service in the United States are made not by consumers or their utilities, nor by state public utilities commissions or federal regulators. Instead, for much …
The Public Stakes Of Consumer Law: The Environment, The Economy, Health, Disinformation, And Beyond, Rory Van Loo
The Public Stakes Of Consumer Law: The Environment, The Economy, Health, Disinformation, And Beyond, Rory Van Loo
Faculty Scholarship
This Article shows how consumer law, a field “derided as the law of small problems,”4 is more accurately viewed as important for addressing large-scale societal threats. It also offers a more integrated conceptual and institutional approach to consumer law so that the field can have a better chance of fulfilling its societal potential.
Part I of this Article outlines the importance of consumer law. It maps consumer law’s connections to some of the most pressing societal threats: climate change, public health, inequality, and disinformation. Part II focuses on consumer law’s place in the legal academy and government. Currently, important …
Climate Services: The Business Of Physical Risk, Madison Condon
Climate Services: The Business Of Physical Risk, Madison Condon
Faculty Scholarship
A growing number of investors, insurers, financial services providers, and nonprofits rely on information about localized physical climate risks, like floods, hurricanes, and wildfires. The outcomes of these risk projections have significant consequences in the economy, including allocating investment capital, impacting housing prices and demographic shifts, and prioritizing adaptation infrastructure projects. The climate risk information available to individual citizens and municipalities, however, is limited and expensive to access. Further, many providers of climate services use black box models that make overseeing the scientific rigor of their methodologies impossible— a concern given scientific critiques that many may be obfuscating the uncertainty …
Achieving Climate Justice Through Land Back: An Overview Of Tribal Dispossession, Land Return Efforts, And Practical Mechanisms For #Landback, Vanessa Racehorse
Achieving Climate Justice Through Land Back: An Overview Of Tribal Dispossession, Land Return Efforts, And Practical Mechanisms For #Landback, Vanessa Racehorse
Faculty Scholarship
Due to the increasing pressures of the climate change crisis, federal and state governments are beginning to acknowledge that Indigenous-led stewardship and control over Tribal aboriginal homelands is a crucial component of addressing climate change. In the United States, Tribal nations have a long history of responsible land stewardship, with environmental conservation and respect for the world's biodiversity being an inextricable piece of Tribal customs, traditions, and knowledge. This Article strives to pay due respect to traditional land stewardship and its important role in the past, present, and future.
Part I of this Article starts with an overview of the …
The Case Against Regional Transmission Monopolies, Kristen Van De Biezendos
The Case Against Regional Transmission Monopolies, Kristen Van De Biezendos
Faculty Scholarship
Over the next decade, the United States will need to build significant regional transmission infrastructure to achieve the country’s goal of net-zero power by 2035. However, there is a significant barrier: the transmission system is almost entirely owned by private monopolies. As a result, the grid has grown not to serve the public interest but in accordance with the economic priorities of these monopolies, which are not incentivized to innovate, find efficiencies, or lower costs. Past attempts to encourage competitive bidding for regional transmission projects have been stymied by laws intended to protect the monopolies, including the right of first …
Climate Choice Architecture, Felix Mormann
Climate Choice Architecture, Felix Mormann
Faculty Scholarship
Personal choices drive global warming nearly as much as institutional decisions. Yet, policymakers overwhelmingly target large-scale industrial facilities for reductions in carbon emissions, with individual and household emissions a mere afterthought. Recent advances in behavioral economics, cognitive psychology, and related fields have produced a veritable behavior change revolution. Subtle changes to the choice environment, or nudges, have improved stake-holder decision-making in a wide range of contexts, from healthier food choices to better retirement planning. But the vast potential of choice architecture remains largely untapped for purposes of climate policy and action. This Article explores that untapped potential and makes the …
Fixing The Climate: Charles Sabel In Conversation With Filippo Barbera, Filippo Barbera, Charles F. Sabel
Fixing The Climate: Charles Sabel In Conversation With Filippo Barbera, Filippo Barbera, Charles F. Sabel
Faculty Scholarship
In this interview with Filippo Barbera, Charles F. Sabel discusses his latest book, Fixing the Climate (Princeton University Press, 2022, with D.G. Victor), that dramatically reorients our thinking about the climate crisis. It provides a road map to institutional design oriented around concrete problem-solving that can finally lead to self-sustaining reductions in emissions that years of global diplomacy have failed to deliver. The discussion touches upon a number of key issues of general interest for social scientists: global governance; decisions under uncertainty and risk; pragmatic solutions to wicked problems; technological solutions and innovation.
In California And Europe, A New Dawn For Corporate Climate Disclosure, Magali Delmas, Michael B. Gerrard, Eric Orts
In California And Europe, A New Dawn For Corporate Climate Disclosure, Magali Delmas, Michael B. Gerrard, Eric Orts
Faculty Scholarship
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to finalize a new rule this month to cover required corporate climate disclosures by public-reporting companies. But the bigger news is that California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has announced that he will soon sign into law two climate change disclosure bills passed by the state Legislature.
Statehood And Sea-Level Rise: Scenarios And Options, Michael B. Gerrard
Statehood And Sea-Level Rise: Scenarios And Options, Michael B. Gerrard
Faculty Scholarship
Sea-level rise may make some low-lying nations uninhabitable by the end of this century, if not before. If a country is under water, is it still a state? Does it still have a seat in the United Nations? What is the citizenship, if any, of its displaced people?
These questions take on increasing urgency as the world continues doing too little to avert catastrophic climate change. Many climate policy analyses agree the goal should be to keep global average temperatures within 1.5°C (2.7°F) above pre-industrial temperatures. That is the level that the small island states have demanded, as a matter …
Systematic Stewardship: It's Up To The Shareholders – A Response To Profs. Kahan And Rock, Jeffrey N. Gordon
Systematic Stewardship: It's Up To The Shareholders – A Response To Profs. Kahan And Rock, Jeffrey N. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
As the author of an article entitled “Systematic Stewardship,” I read Professors Kahan and Rock’s article “Systematic Stewardship with Tradeoffs” (K&R) with considerable interest. I acknowledge the limits on deep asset manager engagement with sources of systematic risk in light of present institutional arrangements and the politics of the moment. Yet I think the most important move in the K&R analysis — the privileging of a “single firm focus” in corporate law instead of a “portfolio firm focus” — simply doesn’t account for the evolution that has already occurred in law and practice.
Long before the development of index funds, …
Ny, New Jersey Adopt Laws Requiring Flood Risk Disclosure For Homebuyers, Tenants, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan
Ny, New Jersey Adopt Laws Requiring Flood Risk Disclosure For Homebuyers, Tenants, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan
Faculty Scholarship
In the wake of several incidents of unprecedented rainfall and disastrous flooding, both New York and New Jersey have adopted laws requiring the sellers of residential properties to tell buyers, and landlords to tell tenants, about known flood risks. The New Jersey law also requires disclosures in commercial transactions. A New York enactment also eliminates the commonlyused ability of sellers to avoid making property disclosures (not only about flood risk) by taking $500 off the purchase price.
New York Environmental Legislation In 2022, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan
New York Environmental Legislation In 2022, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan
Faculty Scholarship
Several significant environmental bills were enacted by the New York legislature and signed by Gov.Kathy Hochul in 2022, and several others were vetoed. As a result of measures enacted last year, New York will see $4.2 billion invested in environmental protection, restoration, climate resiliency and clean energy projects; potential disproportionate and inequitable impacts on disadvantaged communities will become a key factor in determining whether environmental permits are issued; and apparel containing intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) will no longer be sold in the state. In addition, important changes were made to New York’s brownfield and wetlands laws. These …
Status Report On Principles Of International And Human Rights Law Relevant To Climate Change, Katelyn Horne, Maria Antonia Tigre, Michael B. Gerrard
Status Report On Principles Of International And Human Rights Law Relevant To Climate Change, Katelyn Horne, Maria Antonia Tigre, Michael B. Gerrard
Faculty Scholarship
The report aims to provide high-level guidance on the legal issues to be analyzed by the ICJ on the advisory opinion request on climate change. The status report addresses (i) advisory proceedings before the ICJ, including the Court’s jurisdiction and procedure (Section II), and (ii) key legal principles relevant to the request for an advisory opinion, including principles of international environmental law and international human rights law (Section III). The report identified, in a non-exhaustive manner, key relevant principles of international environmental law, key relevant principles of international human rights law, and issues of intergenerational equities that apply to the …
The Unnatural Disaster Of Insurance, Underinsurance, And Natural Disasters, Kenneth S. Klein
The Unnatural Disaster Of Insurance, Underinsurance, And Natural Disasters, Kenneth S. Klein
Faculty Scholarship
This article presents a novel data set describing the frequency of materially inadequate homeowner insurance in the event of a total loss. For decades, after a natural disaster, large percentages of homeowners who have lost their homes report suffering a second devastating loss — that, entirely to their surprise, they are vastly underinsured. These reports provocatively suggest that a large majority of all insured homes in the United States — not just homes destroyed by a natural disaster—might be profoundly, unknowingly, and unintentionally underinsured. Insurance companies reject this possibility. Insurers posit that underinsurance is rare, that other than after natural …
"Green" Corporate Governance, Madison Condon
"Green" Corporate Governance, Madison Condon
Faculty Scholarship
This chapter explores the rise and future of “green” corporate governance, including how concerns about the changing climate are shaping long-extant debates in corporate law.2 This area is difficult to survey in one short chapter, both because it has exploded in importance, and because it intersects in its own way with many of the topics discussed in the above chapters. Compliance, directors’ duties, corporate purpose, corporate groups, and investor stewardship, are just a few of the issues bound up in the rapid and recent shift toward thinking about climate change and its intersection with corporate governance.3
The rise …
Saving Climate Disclosure, Scott Hirst
Saving Climate Disclosure, Scott Hirst
Faculty Scholarship
Designing a regulatory response to climate change is one of the defining challenges of our era. In an attempt to address it, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has recently proposed a historic rule requiring climate-related disclosure by companies, resting squarely on the rationale of "investor demand." The proposed climate disclosure rule has met with an unprecedented response, some of it reflective of investor demand, but also including a broad array of opponents critical of the rule, who cast doubt on the rule's validity. A judicial challenge is all but inevitable.
This Article explains that the best way for the …
The Environmental, Social, Governance (Esg) Debate Emerges From The Soil Of Climate Denial, Lawrence J. Trautman, Neal Newman
The Environmental, Social, Governance (Esg) Debate Emerges From The Soil Of Climate Denial, Lawrence J. Trautman, Neal Newman
Faculty Scholarship
It has been almost six decades since Rachel Carson’s ominous warning of pending environmental disaster. During 2019 the United Nations requested urgent action from world leaders, given that “just over a decade is all that remains to stop irreversible damage from climate change.” With every passing year, damage resulting from destructive climate change causes increased pain, suffering, death and massive property loss. During 2020 and 2021 alone, severe weather events have included: destructive fires in California; record breaking freeze, power outage, and threat to the electrical grid in Texas; continuation of disruptive drought in U.S. Western states; and record-breaking high …
Adapting To A 4°C World, Clifford Villa
Adapting To A 4°C World, Clifford Villa
Faculty Scholarship
The Paris Agreement’s goal to hold warming to 1.5°-2°C above pre-industrial levels now appears unrealistic. Profs. Robin Kundis Craig and J.B. Ruhl have recently argued that because a 4°C world may be likely, we must recognize the disruptive consequences of such a world and respond by reimagining governance structures to meet the challenges of adapting to it. In this latest in a biannual series of essays, they and other members of the Environmental Law Collaborative explore what 4°C might mean for a variety of current legal doctrines, planning policies, governance structures, and institutions.
Genetically Engineered Food, Food Security, And Climate Change, Joanna K. Sax
Genetically Engineered Food, Food Security, And Climate Change, Joanna K. Sax
Faculty Scholarship
Malnutrition is the leading cause of death and disease worldwide. Climate change is an existential crisis. We need to feed people and address the role of agriculture in climate change – at the same time. This is problematic, as agriculture inherently creates issues that contributes to climate change. Utilizing science, through genetically engineered crops, is one way to close the harm gap between food security and climate change. This essay addresses the controversial issue of genetically engineered crops with the complicated issues of food security and climate change by analyzing three main issues: (1) how the science of genetically engineered …
Who Decides Where The Renewables Should Go?: A Response To Danielle Stokes’ Renewable Energy Federalism, Michael B. Gerrard
Who Decides Where The Renewables Should Go?: A Response To Danielle Stokes’ Renewable Energy Federalism, Michael B. Gerrard
Faculty Scholarship
One of the central tasks in addressing the climate crisis is transitioning from an energy system based on fossil fuels to one that mainly uses renewable energy. In her article “Renewable Energy Federalism,” Professor Danielle Stokes has highlighted one of the key impediments to this transition — delays in state and local permitting of renewable energy facilities. She has proposed a new approach that would give more authority to the federal government. Stokes’ approach has much to commend it. However, I differ on some aspects.
I will begin by describing the magnitude of the problem — the amount …
Systemic Stewardship, Jeffrey N. Gordon
Systemic Stewardship, Jeffrey N. Gordon
Faculty Scholarship
This Article frames a normative theory of stewardship engagement by large institutional investors and asset managers that is congruent with their theory of investment management — “Modern Portfolio Theory” — which describes investors as attentive to both systematic risk as well as expected returns. Because investors want to maximize risk-adjusted returns, it will serve their interests for asset managers to support and sometimes advance shareholder initiatives that will reduce systematic risk. “Systematic stewardship” provides an approach to “ESG” matters that serves both investor welfare and social welfare and fits the business model of large, diversified funds, especially index funds. The …
Panel: Climate Change And Climate Justice, Alice Kaswan, Michael B. Gerrard, Monica Esparza, J.B. Ruhl
Panel: Climate Change And Climate Justice, Alice Kaswan, Michael B. Gerrard, Monica Esparza, J.B. Ruhl
Faculty Scholarship
This article is a transcript of a panel discussion from the 2022 Richmond Public Interest Law Review's Symposium on Environmental Justice.
Removing Carbon Dioxide Through Artificial Upwelling And Downwelling: Legal Challenges And Opportunities, Romany M. Webb, Korey Silverman-Roati, Michael B. Gerrard
Removing Carbon Dioxide Through Artificial Upwelling And Downwelling: Legal Challenges And Opportunities, Romany M. Webb, Korey Silverman-Roati, Michael B. Gerrard
Faculty Scholarship
A 2022 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that, to keep global average temperatures within 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels, emissions must reach net-zero by mid-century. The report concluded that achieving net-zero emissions will require the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere “to counterbalance hard-to-abate emissions” from sectors like agriculture, aviation, and shipping. The report further noted that, if deployed at large scales, carbon dioxide removal (“CDR”) could also be used to achieve net negative emissions and thus effectively reduce the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.
A variety of CDR techniques, both terrestrial and ocean-based, have been …
Asset Managers As Regulators, Dorothy S. Lund
Asset Managers As Regulators, Dorothy S. Lund
Faculty Scholarship
The conventional view of regulation is that it exists to constrain corporate activity that harms the public. But amid perceptions of government failure, many now call on corporations to tackle social problems themselves. And in this moment of dissatisfaction with government, powerful asset managers have stepped in to serve as regulators of last resort, adopting rules that bind corporate America on issues of great social importance, including climate change and workplace diversity. This Article describes this dynamic — where shareholders have become regulators — which has been made possible by the rise of institutional shareholding (and index investing in particular) …
Three New Federal Laws Aid New York’S Compliance With Climate Goals, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan
Three New Federal Laws Aid New York’S Compliance With Climate Goals, Michael B. Gerrard, Edward Mctiernan
Faculty Scholarship
The New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 (CLCPA) requires total statewide greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced 40% from 1990 levels in 2030 and 85% in 2050, with a goal (aided by offsets) of 100% by 2050. It also requires 70% of electricity demand in 2030 to be met by renewables, and 100% from “zero emissions” sources (meaning renewables plus nuclear) in 2040.
Is Fire Insurable?, Kenneth S. Klein
Is Fire Insurable?, Kenneth S. Klein
Faculty Scholarship
The focus of this chapter is on the extant data on the prevalence, causes, and depth of inadequate, unavailable, and/or unaffordable dwelling insurance for fire, and what might be done about it. Whether it is ‘bushfire’ in Australia or ‘wildfire’ in the United States, the frequency, intensity, and cost of fire is increasing, with no reason to expect the upward trend to dissipate any time soon. Most homeowners want to insure their homes for fire and think they both have done so and done so adequately. More often than not, they are wrong. And many are finding that insurance now …
The Legal Role In Building Sustainable Public Health (Symposium Transcript), Joanna K. Sax
The Legal Role In Building Sustainable Public Health (Symposium Transcript), Joanna K. Sax
Faculty Scholarship
The article presents a discussion of food as a public health issue, beginning with why science matters and utilizing science to solve food as a public health issue, especially as it relates to sustainability and climate change. Consumer misperceptions of the risk created by new scientific technologies (e.g., GMOs), or even older scientific technologies, may thwart use of such technologies to solve sustainability problems. The talk addresses why consumers might inappropriately assign risk to certain scientific applications and ways that we might want to think about resolving that issue or closing the divide between consumer misperception of risk and evidence-based …