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Full-Text Articles in Environmental Law

Climate Change: The Equity Problem, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Brooke A. Ackerly Dec 2018

Climate Change: The Equity Problem, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Brooke A. Ackerly

Michael Vandenbergh

A substantial proportion of the United States population is at or below the poverty level, yet many of the greenhouse gas emissions reduction measures proposed or adopted to date will increase the costs of energy, motor vehicles, and other consumer goods. This essay suggests that although scholarship and policymaking to date have focused on the disproportionate impact of these increased costs on the low-income population, the costs will have two important additional effects. First, the anticipated costs will generate political opposition from social justice groups, reducing the likelihood that aggressive measures will be adopted. Second, to the extent aggressive measures …


Can Clean Energy Policy Promote Environmental, Economic, And Social Sustainability?, Felix Mormann Oct 2018

Can Clean Energy Policy Promote Environmental, Economic, And Social Sustainability?, Felix Mormann

Felix Mormann

Two and a half decades of clean energy policymaking focused primarily on environmental and economic sustainability have yielded considerable environmental and economic benefits. Along the way, however, other policy considerations, such as the social sustainability of the transition to a cleaner, renewably fueled energy economy, have gone largely overlooked. As clean energy technologies continue to gain ever-greater traction in the United States and global energy economies, the social impacts of their enabling policies become more and more salient. Already, ratepayers, taxpayers, and other stakeholders who fear being left behind by the clean energy transition question the “fairness” of today’s renewable …


Eulogizing Renewable Energy Policy, Lincoln L. Davies Aug 2018

Eulogizing Renewable Energy Policy, Lincoln L. Davies

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Across the globe, renewable energy policy is changing. The change is coming so quickly that it appears the world is now on the cusp of a new future. The renewable energy policy of the past is on its way out; a new and different policy is taking its place. That new policy has different end goals, implementing mechanisms, and strategies than its predecessors. This is not just policy evolution but a policy revolution. The labels of the past soon no longer will apply because they are being merged and blurred — and replaced. Using the U.S. electricity sector as its …


Can Clean Energy Policy Promote Environmental, Economic, And Social Sustainability?, Felix Mormann Jul 2018

Can Clean Energy Policy Promote Environmental, Economic, And Social Sustainability?, Felix Mormann

Faculty Scholarship

Two and a half decades of clean energy policymaking focused primarily on environmental and economic sustainability have yielded considerable environmental and economic benefits. Along the way, however, other policy considerations, such as the social sustainability of the transition to a cleaner, renewably fueled energy economy, have gone largely overlooked. As clean energy technologies continue to gain ever-greater traction in the United States and global energy economies, the social impacts of their enabling policies become more and more salient. Already, ratepayers, taxpayers, and other stakeholders who fear being left behind by the clean energy transition question the “fairness” of today’s renewable …


Environmental Justice Activism Against Freeway Proposals In Contemporary America, Molly Wampler Jan 2018

Environmental Justice Activism Against Freeway Proposals In Contemporary America, Molly Wampler

Summer Research

Transportation infrastructure provides an excellent lens through which to look at environmental justice. There is legislation in place that should prevent or at least draw significant attention to environmental justice, yet new freeways are still being proposed which continue to commit the same environmental injustices as decades past. With grassroots opposition as a primary form of resistance, this paper investigates the tools available to activists, as well as the ones most effective in ensuring success of the movement. I also consider what accounts for the difference in outcomes of resistance movements, why some community movements are successful in stopping a …