Law Commons^™

Enhancing The Investor Appeal Of Renewable Energy, Felix Mormann

Faculty Scholarship

This article introduces an investor-oriented framework for the evaluation of renewable energy policy, applies these newly developed criteria to a qualitative comparison of the primary policy instruments, and offers recommendations to enhance the investor appeal of renewable energy in the United States.

The multi-trillion dollar task of scaling renewable energy technologies to mitigate climate change, ensure energy security, and create green jobs is one of the most daunting challenges of the twenty-first century. It is, in fact, too great a challenge for either the public or private sector to shoulder alone. Rather, public policy must catalyze private investment in renewable …

American Natures: The Shape Of Conflict In Environmental Law, Jedediah S. Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

There is a firestorm of political and cultural conflict around environmental issues, including, but running well beyond, climate change. Legal scholarship is in a bad position to make sense of this conflict because the field has concentrated on making sound policy recommendations to an idealized lawmaker, neglecting the deeply held and sharply clashing values that drive, or block, environmental lawmaking. This Article sets out a framework for understanding and engaging the clash of values in environmental law and, by extension, approaching the field more generally. Americans have held, and legislated based upon, four distinct ideas about why the natural world …

What Litigation Of A Climate Nuisance Suit Might Look Like, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

In American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut (AEP), the Supreme Court explicitly left ajar the door to litigation under state (as opposed to federal) common law for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Some plaintiffs' lawyers are also arguing that the decision leaves room for seeking money damages (rather than injunctive relief) even in a federal common law case.

For purposes of this Article, let's imagine a world in which the courthouse doors are swung open to common law claims for damages for GHG emissions, and the courts have rejected all defenses based on displacement, preemption, political question, and standing. In …

Science Heads List Of Candidate Debate Queries, Michael B. Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Policy on the environment, energy, and natural resources has seldom figured prominently in a presidential election, all the less so as time elapses since the first Earth Day. To judge by the more than twenty debates thus far in the current presidential campaign, it isn’t likely to be on top of the agenda this year. Although regulation itself has been featured in the campaign – recall the criticism of the new lightbulb efficiency standards and of the Solyndra bankruptcy, not to mention rejection of climate change science – broader topics in environmental policy have largely taken a back seat to …

Mexico's General Climate Change Law, Michael B. Gerrard, Anne Siders

Faculty Scholarship

Mexico’s General Climate Change Law (CCL) creates a coherent and ambitious national framework within which Mexico may fulfill its Copenhagen Pledge and establish itself as an international leader in climate change mitigation, but achieving these ends will require significant and on-going support from the Mexican government.