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Full-Text Articles in Law
Agency Statutory Abnegation In The Deregulatory Playbook, William W. Buzbee
Agency Statutory Abnegation In The Deregulatory Playbook, William W. Buzbee
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
If an agency newly declares that it lacks statutory power previously claimed, how should such a move—what this article calls agency statutory abnegation—be reviewed? Given the array of strategies an agency might use to make a policy change or move the law in a deregulatory direction, why might statutory abnegation be chosen? After all, it is always a perilous and likely doctrinally disadvantageous strategy for agencies. Nonetheless, agencies from time to time have utilized statutory abnegation claims as part of their justification for deregulatory shifts. Actions by agencies during 2017 and 2018, under the administration of President Donald J. Trump, …
Making Self-Regulation More Than Merely Symbolic: The Critical Role Of The Legal Environment, Jodi Short, Michael W. Toffel
Making Self-Regulation More Than Merely Symbolic: The Critical Role Of The Legal Environment, Jodi Short, Michael W. Toffel
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Using data from a sample of U.S. industrial facilities subject to the federal Clean Air Act from 1993 to 2003, this article theorizes and tests the conditions under which organizations’ symbolic commitments to self-regulate are particularly likely to result in improved compliance practices and outcomes. We argue that the legal environment, particularly as it is constructed by the enforcement activities of regulators, significantly influences the likelihood that organizations will effectively implement the self-regulatory commitments they symbolically adopt. We investigate how different enforcement tools can foster or undermine organizations’ normative motivations to self-regulate. We find that organizations are more likely to …
The Humbugs Of The Anti-Regulatory Movement, Lisa Heinzerling, Frank Ackerman
The Humbugs Of The Anti-Regulatory Movement, Lisa Heinzerling, Frank Ackerman
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
It is so hard to get beyond cynicism these days. Even a symposium devoted to this goal has, as reflected in the articles by Professors Cynthia Farina, Jeffrey Rachlinski, and Mark Seidenfeld, succeeded primarily in suggesting that regulators are not so much selfish as they are obtuse, stubborn, and sometimes downright dumb. Undoubtedly this is true some of the time. But Farina, Rachlinski, and Seidenfeld want to convince us that it is true enough of the time to warrant quite large-scale solutions. In this Comment, we take issue with this pessimistic assessment of regulatory behavior by discrediting the most prominent …
The Greening Of America And The Graying Of United States Environmental Law: Reflections On Environmental Law’S First Three Decades In The United States, Richard J. Lazarus
The Greening Of America And The Graying Of United States Environmental Law: Reflections On Environmental Law’S First Three Decades In The United States, Richard J. Lazarus
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The purpose of this article is to begin to place the developments of the past few decades in historical perspective. To that end, the article is divided into three parts, roughly corresponding to the final three decades of the past century. The first part of the article describes the origins of U.S. environmental law, focusing primarily on its first decade from 1970 through 1980. The second part examines how U.S. environmental laws have since evolved, focusing primarily on their second decade (the 1980s), which was a period of tremendous expansion for environmental law. Finally, the third part considers future trends …
The Tragedy Of Distrust In The Implementation Of Federal Environmental Law, Richard J. Lazarus
The Tragedy Of Distrust In The Implementation Of Federal Environmental Law, Richard J. Lazarus
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The need to reduce dramatically the strain we place on the natural environment is simultaneously immediate and long-term. Our domestic laws reflect that understanding and express a symbolic commitment to that goal. Those laws have achieved, moreover, significant improvement in discrete areas and, in some others, have managed to resist further environmental degradation in the face of a growing economy. For that reason, they warrant great praise. The past twenty years nevertheless reveal that those same laws decline to undertake the concomitant modification of our governmental institutions, and the way we think about them, which is necessary for a fuller …