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Articles 1 - 12 of 12
Full-Text Articles in Law
Entrenching Environmentalism, Christopher Serkin
Entrenching Environmentalism, Christopher Serkin
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This piece for the University of Chicago Law Review Symposium: Reassessing the State and Local Government Toolkit, examines how local governments can use private law mechanisms to entrench policy in ways that circumvent typical legal limitations. The piece examines in detail a specific example of a town donating conservation easements over property it owns to a third-party not-for-profit conservation organization in order ensure that the property would not be developed in the future. This is nearly the functional equivalent of passing an unrepealable zoning ordinance restricting development, something existing anti-entrenchment rules would never permit. The piece examines the costs and …
Climate Change Adaptation And The Structural Transformation Of Environmental Law, J.B. Ruhl
Climate Change Adaptation And The Structural Transformation Of Environmental Law, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The path of environmental law has come to a cliff called climate change, and there is no turning around. As climate change policy dialogue emerged in the 1990s, however, the perceived urgency of attention to mitigation strategies designed to regulate sources of greenhouse gas emissions quickly snuffed out meaningful progress on the formulation of adaptation strategies designed to respond to the effects of climate change on humans and the environment. Only recently has this adaptation deficit become a concern now actively included in climate change policy debate. Previously treating talk of adaptation as taboo, the climate change policy world has …
Climate Change, Dead Zones, And Massive Problems In The Administrative State: A Guide For Whittling Away, J.B. Ruhl, James Salzman
Climate Change, Dead Zones, And Massive Problems In The Administrative State: A Guide For Whittling Away, J.B. Ruhl, James Salzman
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Mandates that agencies solve massive problems such as sprawl and climate change roll easily out of the halls of legislatures, but as a practical matter what can any one agency do about them? Serious policy challenges such as these have dimensions far beyond the capacity of any single agency to manage effectively. Rather, as the Supreme Court recently observed in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, agencies, like legislatures, do not generally resolve massive problems in one fell swoop, but instead whittle away over time, refining their approach as circumstances change and they develop a more nuanced understanding of how best …
Climbing Mount Mitigation: A Proposal For Legislative Suspension Of Climate Change "Mitigation Litigation", J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Ecosystem Services And Federal Public Lands: Start-Up Policy Questions And Research Needs, J.B. Ruhl
Ecosystem Services And Federal Public Lands: Start-Up Policy Questions And Research Needs, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Ecosystem Services And The Clean Water Act: Strategies For Fitting New Science Into Old Law, J.B. Ruhl
Ecosystem Services And The Clean Water Act: Strategies For Fitting New Science Into Old Law, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article explores the administrative reform potential that exists for integrating new knowledge about ecosystem services into Clean Water Act (CWA) regulatory programs as an example for all environmental laws. Part II of the Article reviews the relevant general rules of federal administrative law governing agency interpretation of the policy space available under statutory authority for integrating new science into decision making. Part III then explores the strategies an agency such as EPA can use under those rules to integrate the concept of ecosystem services into regulatory programs by searching for statutory provisions to support what I call "direct protection" …
Governing For Sustainable Coasts: Complexity, Climate Change, And Coastal Ecosystem Protection, J.B. Ruhl, Robin K. Craig
Governing For Sustainable Coasts: Complexity, Climate Change, And Coastal Ecosystem Protection, J.B. Ruhl, Robin K. Craig
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The world’s coastal ecosystems are among the most complex on Earth, and they are currently being governed unsustainably, by any definition. Climate change will only add to this complexity, underscoring the necessity of finding new ways to govern for these ecosystems’ sustainable use. After reviewing the problems facing coastal ecosystems and innovations in their governance, this article argues that governance of coastal ecosystems must move to place-based adaptive management regimes that incorporate innovative and flexible regulatory mechanisms, such as market-based incentives.
Energy And Climate Change: Key Lessons For Implementing The Behavioral Wedge, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Paul C. Stern, Gerald T. Gardner, Thomas Dietz, Jonathan M. Gilligan
Energy And Climate Change: Key Lessons For Implementing The Behavioral Wedge, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Paul C. Stern, Gerald T. Gardner, Thomas Dietz, Jonathan M. Gilligan
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The individual and household sector accounts for roughly 40 percent of United States energy use and carbon dioxide emissions, yet the laws and policies directed at reductions from this sector often reflect a remarkably simplistic model of behavior. This Essay addresses one of the obstacles to achieving a “behavioral wedge” of individual and household emissions reductions: the lack of an accessible, brief summary for policymakers of the key findings of behavioral and social science studies on household energy behavior. The Essay does not provide a comprehensive overview of the field, but it discusses many of the leading studies that demonstrate …
Siting Transmission Lines In A Changed Milieu: Evolving Notions Of The "Public Interest" In Balancing State And Regional Considerations, Jim Rossi, Ashley C. Brown
Siting Transmission Lines In A Changed Milieu: Evolving Notions Of The "Public Interest" In Balancing State And Regional Considerations, Jim Rossi, Ashley C. Brown
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article discusses how state public utility law presents a barrier to the siting of new high voltage transmission lines to serve renewable resources, and how states could approach its evolution in order to preserve a role for state regulators in a new energy economy in which renewable energy will play a significant role. The traditional approach to determining the "public interest" in siting transmission lines is well on its way to obsolescence. Two developments over the past fifteen years have begun to challenge this paradigm. First, policies at the federal level and in many states have encouraged increased competition …
Power, Exit Costs, And Renegotiation In International Law, Timothy Meyer
Power, Exit Costs, And Renegotiation In International Law, Timothy Meyer
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Scholars have long understood that the instability of power has ramifications for compliance with international law. Scholars have not, however, focused on how states’ expectations about shifting power affect the initial design of international agreements. In this paper, I integrate shifting power into an analysis of the initial design of both the formal and substantive aspects of agreements. I argue that a state expecting to become more powerful over time incurs an opportunity cost by agreeing to formal provisions that raise the cost of exiting an agreement. Exit costs - which promote the stability of legal rules - have distributional …
Climate Change Governance: Boundaries And Leakage, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Mark A. Cohen
Climate Change Governance: Boundaries And Leakage, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Mark A. Cohen
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This article provides a critical missing piece to the global climate change governance puzzle: how to create incentives for the major developing countries to reduce carbon emissions. The major developing countries are projected to account for 80% of the global emissions growth over the next several decades, and substantial reductions in the risk of catastrophic climate change will not be possible without a change in this emissions path. Yet the global climate governance measures proposed to date have not succeeded and may be locking in disincentives as carbon-intensive production shifts from developed to developing countries. A multi-pronged governance approach will …
Policy Challenges Of The Heterogeneity Of The Value Of Statistical Life, W. Kip Viscusi
Policy Challenges Of The Heterogeneity Of The Value Of Statistical Life, W. Kip Viscusi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Economic research has developed estimates of the heterogeneity of the value of statistical life (VSL) on dimensions such as individual age, income, immigrant status, and the nature of the risk exposure. This paper examines the empirical evidence on the heterogeneity of VSL and explores the potential implications for the valuation of regulatory policies. Previously, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unsuccessfully sought to adopt a simple age discount percentage for VSL based on survey evidence. However, labor market estimates of VSL indicate a pattern that tracks lifetime consumption trajectories, as the VSL rises with age and eventually tapers off but …