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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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- Environmental policy (6)
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Articles 1 - 21 of 21
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Long Environmental Justice Movement, Jedediah Purdy
The Long Environmental Justice Movement, Jedediah Purdy
Faculty Scholarship
The standpoint of environmental justice has become integral to environmental law in the last thirty years. Environmental justice criticizes mainstream environmental law and advocacy institutions on three main fronts: for paying too little attention to the distributive effects of environmental policy; for emphasizing elite and professional advocacy over participation in decision making by affected communities; and for adhering to a woods-and-waters view of which problems count as “environmental” that disregards the importance of neighborhoods, workplaces, and cities. This Article highlights the existence of a “long environmental justice movement” that, like the long movements for racial equality and labor organizing, put …
A Better Calculus For Regulators: From Cost-Benefit Analysis To The Social Welfare Function, Matthew D. Adler
A Better Calculus For Regulators: From Cost-Benefit Analysis To The Social Welfare Function, Matthew D. Adler
Faculty Scholarship
The “social welfare function” (SWF) is a powerful tool that originates in theoretical welfare economics and has wide application in economic scholarship, for example in optimal tax theory and environmental economics. This Article provides a comprehensive introduction to the SWF framework. It then shows how the SWF framework can be used as the basis for regulatory policy analysis, and why it improves upon cost-benefit analysis (CBA).
Two types of SWFs are especially plausible: the utilitarian SWF, which sums individual well-being numbers, and the prioritarian SWF, which gives extra weight to the well-being of the worse off. Either one of these …
Environmental Regulation Going Retro: Learning Foresight From Hindsight, Jonathan B. Wiener, Daniel L. Ribeiro
Environmental Regulation Going Retro: Learning Foresight From Hindsight, Jonathan B. Wiener, Daniel L. Ribeiro
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Trade In Environmental Goods: A Review Of The Wto Appellate Body’S Ruling In Us — Countervailing Measures (China), Rachel Brewster, Claire Brunel, Anna Maria Mayda
Trade In Environmental Goods: A Review Of The Wto Appellate Body’S Ruling In Us — Countervailing Measures (China), Rachel Brewster, Claire Brunel, Anna Maria Mayda
Faculty Scholarship
In this paper we claim that, in the WTO Appellate Body (AB)’s ruling in US-Countervailing Measures (China), the AB decision has essentially left unchanged the practice of imposing countervailing duties (CVDs) on environmental goods. While the US has formally “lost” the case, a change in the procedures and tests used to motivate the CVD will allow the US to continue using this policy tool. From an economic point of view, this is not welcome news since CVDs have the standard distortionary effects of tariffs and could go against environmental goals. From a political-economy point of view, the CVDs in this …
Towards A New International Law Of The Atmosphere?, Peter H. Sand, Jonathan B. Wiener
Towards A New International Law Of The Atmosphere?, Peter H. Sand, Jonathan B. Wiener
Faculty Scholarship
Inclusion of the topic ‘protection of the atmosphere’ in the current work programme of the UN International Law Commission (ILC) reflects the long overdue recognition of the fact that the scope of contemporary international law for the Earth’s atmosphere extends far beyond the traditional discipline of ‘air law’ as a synonym for airspace and air navigation law. Instead, the atmospheric commons are regulated by a ‘regime complex’ comprising a multitude of economic uses including global communications, pollutant emissions and diffusion, in different geographical sectors and vertical zones, in the face of different categories of risks, and addressed by a wide …
Priority For The Worse Off And The Social Cost Of Carbon, Matthew D. Adler, David Anthoff, Valentina Bosetti, Greg Garner, Klaus Keller, Nicolas Treich
Priority For The Worse Off And The Social Cost Of Carbon, Matthew D. Adler, David Anthoff, Valentina Bosetti, Greg Garner, Klaus Keller, Nicolas Treich
Faculty Scholarship
The social cost of carbon (SCC) is a monetary measure of the harms from carbon emission. Specifically, it is the reduction in current consumption that produces a loss in social welfare equivalent to that caused by the emission of a ton of CO2. The standard approach is to calculate the SCC using a discounted-utilitarian social welfare function (SWF)—one that simply adds up the well-being numbers (utilities) of individuals, as discounted by a weighting factor that decreases with time. The discounted-utilitarian SWF has been criticized both for ignoring the distribution of well-being, and for including an arbitrary preference for earlier generations. …
Coming Into The Anthropocene, Jedediah Purdy
Coming Into The Anthropocene, Jedediah Purdy
Faculty Scholarship
This essay reviews Professor Jonathan Cannon’s Environment in the Balance. Cannon’s book admirably analyzes the Supreme Court’s uptake of, or refusal of, the key commitments of the environmental-law revolution of the early 1970s. In some areas the Court has adapted old doctrines, such as Standing and Commerce, to accommodate ecological insights; in other areas, such as Property, it has used older doctrines to restrain the transformative effects of environmental law. After surveying Cannon’s argument, this review diagnoses the historical moment that has made the ideological division that Cannon surveys especially salient: a time of stalled legislation, political deadlock, and …
Eco-Environmental Risk Management, Jonathan B. Wiener
Eco-Environmental Risk Management, Jonathan B. Wiener
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
The Next Generation Of Trade And Environment Conflicts: The Rise Of Green Industrial Policy, Mark Wu, James Salzman
The Next Generation Of Trade And Environment Conflicts: The Rise Of Green Industrial Policy, Mark Wu, James Salzman
Faculty Scholarship
A major shift is transforming the trade and environment field, triggered by governments’ rising use of industrial policies to spark nascent renewable energy industries and to restrict exports of certain minerals in the face of political economy constraints. While economically distorting, these policies do produce significant economic and environmental benefits. At the same time, they often violate World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, leading to increasingly harsh conflicts between trading partners.
This Article presents a comprehensive analysis of these emerging conflicts, arguing that they represent a sharp break from past trade and environment disputes. It examines the causes of the shift …
Consumption, Risk And Prioritarianism, Matthew D. Adler, Nicolas Treich
Consumption, Risk And Prioritarianism, Matthew D. Adler, Nicolas Treich
Faculty Scholarship
In this paper, we study consumption decisions under risk assuming a prioritarian social welfare function, namely a concave transformation of individual utility functions. Under standard assumptions, there is always more current consumption under ex ante prioritarianism than under utilitarianism. Thus, a concern for equity (in the ex ante prioritarian sense) means less concern for the risky future. In contrast, there is usually less current consumption under ex post prioritarianism than under utilitarianism. We discuss the robustness of these results to learning, and to other forms of prioritarian social welfare functions.
Better Ways To Study Regulatory Elephants, Jonathan B. Wiener, Brendon Swedlow, James K. Hammitt, Michael D. Rogers, Peter H. Sand
Better Ways To Study Regulatory Elephants, Jonathan B. Wiener, Brendon Swedlow, James K. Hammitt, Michael D. Rogers, Peter H. Sand
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Sustainable Production Of Swine: Putting Lipstick On A Pig?, Michelle B. Nowlin
Sustainable Production Of Swine: Putting Lipstick On A Pig?, Michelle B. Nowlin
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
American Natures: The Shape Of Conflict In Environmental Law, Jedediah Purdy
American Natures: The Shape Of Conflict In Environmental Law, Jedediah 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 matters and …
What Is The Emperor Wearing? The Secret Lives Of Ecosystem Services, James Salzman
What Is The Emperor Wearing? The Secret Lives Of Ecosystem Services, James Salzman
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Public Choice And Environmental Policy: A Review Of The Literature, Christopher H. Schroeder
Public Choice And Environmental Policy: A Review Of The Literature, Christopher H. Schroeder
Faculty Scholarship
This paper is a draft of a chapter for a forthcoming book, Research Handbook in Public Law and Public Choice, edited by Daniel Farber and Anne Joseph O'Connell, to be published by Elgar. It reviews the public choice literature on environmental policy making, first generally and then with respect to four fundamental environmental policy questions: (1) whether or not government action is warranted; (2) if it is, the scope and stringency of the government action, including the manner in which a bureaucracy will implement and enforce any statutory standards; (3) the level of government that assumes responsibility; and (4) the …
Global Warming And The Problem Of Policy Innovation: Lessons From The Early Environmental Movement, Christopher H. Schroeder
Global Warming And The Problem Of Policy Innovation: Lessons From The Early Environmental Movement, Christopher H. Schroeder
Faculty Scholarship
When it comes to influencing government decisions, special interests have some built-in advantages over the general public interest. When the individual members of special interest groups have a good deal to gain or lose as a result of government action, special interests can organize more effectively, and generate benefits for elected officials, such as campaign contributions and other forms of political support. They will seek to use those advantages to influence government decisions favorable to them. The public choice theory of government decision making sometimes comes close to elevating this point into a universal law, suggesting that the general public …
Implementing The New Ecosystem Services Mandate Of The Section 404 Compensatory Mitigation Program - A Catalyst For Advancing Science And Policy, James Salzman, J.B. Ruhl, Iris Goodman
Implementing The New Ecosystem Services Mandate Of The Section 404 Compensatory Mitigation Program - A Catalyst For Advancing Science And Policy, James Salzman, J.B. Ruhl, Iris Goodman
Faculty Scholarship
On April 10, 2008, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) jointly published final regulations defining standards and procedures for authorizing compensatory mitigation of impacts to aquatic resources the Corps permits under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act (Section 404). Prior to the rule, the Section 404 compensatory mitigation program had been administered under a mish-mash of guidances, inter-agency memoranda, and other policy documents issued over the span of 17 years. A growing tide of policy and science scholarship criticized the program's administration as not accounting for the potential redistribution of ecosystem services that …
Foreword: Making Sense Of Information For Environmental Protection, James Salzman, Douglas A. Kysar
Foreword: Making Sense Of Information For Environmental Protection, James Salzman, Douglas A. Kysar
Faculty Scholarship
Despite the ubiquity of information, no one has proposed calling the present era the Knowledge Age. Knowledge depends not only on access to reliable information, but also on sound judgment regarding which information to access and how to situate that information in relation to the values and purposes that comprise the individual's or the social group's larger projects. This is certainly the case for wise and effective environmental governance. A regulator needs accurate information to understand the nature of a problem and the consequences of potential responses. Likewise, the regulated community needs information to decide how best to comply with …
Policy Analysis For Natural Hazards: Some Cautionary Lessons From Environmental Policy Analysis, Matthew D. Adler
Policy Analysis For Natural Hazards: Some Cautionary Lessons From Environmental Policy Analysis, Matthew D. Adler
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Reconstructing Climate Policy: Beyond Kyoto, Jonathan B. Wiener, Richard B. Stewart
Reconstructing Climate Policy: Beyond Kyoto, Jonathan B. Wiener, Richard B. Stewart
Faculty Scholarship
In their comprehensive analysis of the Kyoto Protocol and climate policy, Richard B. Stewart and Jonathan B. Wiener examine the current impasse in climate policy and the potential steps nations can take to reduce greenhouse gases. They summarize the current state of information regarding the extent of global warming that would be caused by increasing uncontrolled greenhouse gas emissions. They explain why participation by all major greenhouse gas-emitting countries is essential to curb future greenhouse gas emissions and also note the significant obstacles to obtaining such participation.
Stewart and Wiener argue it is in the national interest of the United …
Clear Consensus, Ambiguous Commitment, Christopher H. Schroeder
Clear Consensus, Ambiguous Commitment, Christopher H. Schroeder
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.