Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Environmental law (5)
- Climate change (4)
- Renewable energy (3)
- Energy (2)
- Jurisprudence (2)
-
- Bottle deposits (1)
- Carbon footprint (1)
- Carbon offset (1)
- Carbon product labeling (1)
- Clean energy (1)
- Climatic changes (1)
- Conservation (1)
- Consumer behavior (1)
- Demand-side management (1)
- Economic policy (1)
- Efficiency (1)
- Electric power (1)
- Endangered Species Act (1)
- Endangered species (1)
- Energy conservation policies (1)
- Energy law (1)
- Energy policy (1)
- Environmental protection (1)
- Law and legislation (1)
- Litigation (1)
- Moral licensing (1)
- Panarchy theory (1)
- Plastic waste (1)
- Price ceiling preemption (1)
- Protocols (1)
Articles 1 - 12 of 12
Full-Text Articles in Law
Good For You, Bad For Us: The Financial Disincentive For Net Demand Reduction, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Jim Rossi
Good For You, Bad For Us: The Financial Disincentive For Net Demand Reduction, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Jim Rossi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article examines a principal barrier to reducing U.S. carbon emissions — electricity distributors’ financial incentives to sell more of their product — and introduces the concept of net demand reduction (“NDR”) as a primary goal for the modern energy regulatory system. Net electricity demand must decrease substantially from projected levels for the United States to achieve widely-endorsed carbon targets by 2050. Although social and behavioral research has identified cost-effective ways to reduce electricity demand, state-of-the-art programs to curtail demand have not been implemented on a widespread basis. We argue that electric distribution utilities are important gatekeepers that can determine …
The Potential Role Of Carbon Labeling In A Green Economy, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Mark A. Cohen
The Potential Role Of Carbon Labeling In A Green Economy, Michael P. Vandenbergh, Mark A. Cohen
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Over the past several years, labeling schemes that focus on a wide range of environmental and social metrics have proliferated. Although little empirical evidence has been generated yet with respect to carbon footprint labels, much can be learned from our experience with similar product labels. We first review the theory and evidence on the role of product labeling in affecting consumer and firm behavior. Next, we consider the role of governments and nongovernmental organizations, concluding that international, multistakeholder organizations have a critical part to play in setting protocols and standards. We argue that it is important to consider the entire …
Alternative Policies To Increase Recycling Of Plastic Water Bottles In The United States, W. Kip Viscusi, Joel Huber, Jason Bell
Alternative Policies To Increase Recycling Of Plastic Water Bottles In The United States, W. Kip Viscusi, Joel Huber, Jason Bell
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Using an original, nationally representative sample of plastic water bottle users, this article examines the efficacy of various policy mechanisms to increase recycling. We evaluate the impact of bottle deposits and the stringency of a state’s recycling laws on the provision of recycling opportunities and on recycling rates. Using household-level data and controlling for the type of recycling legal regime as well as the bottle deposit policies in each state, we find that mandated separation of recyclables, the availability of a recycling center in the community, and the provision of curbside pickup at houses or recycling locations at apartments increase …
The Behavioral Response To Voluntary Provision Of An Environmental Public Good, Grant D. Jacobsen, Matthew J. Kotchen, Michael P. Vandenbergh
The Behavioral Response To Voluntary Provision Of An Environmental Public Good, Grant D. Jacobsen, Matthew J. Kotchen, Michael P. Vandenbergh
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This paper develops a theory of voluntary provision of a public good in which a household’s decision to engage in a form of environmentally friendly behavior is based on the desire to offset another behavior that is environmentally harmful. The model generates predictions about (1) participation in a green-electricity program at the extensive and intensive margins, and (2) changes in electricity consumption in response to participation. We test the theory using billing data for participants and nonparticipants in a green-electricity program in Memphis, Tennessee. High-consumption households are more likely to participate, and they participate at higher levels. In terms of …
Harmonizing Commercial Wind Power And The Endangered Species Act Through Administrative Reform, J.B. Ruhl
Harmonizing Commercial Wind Power And The Endangered Species Act Through Administrative Reform, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
This Article explores the intersection of utility-scale wind power development and the Endangered Species Act, which thus far has not been as happy a union as one might expect. Part I provides background on how the ESA and wind power have met in policy, permitting, and litigation. Part II then examines whether wind power (and other renewable energy sources) can and should receive a green pass under the ESA given its unquestioned climate change mitigation benefits, concluding that doing so would face a host of legal and policy concerns. Part III then outlines a model for administrative innovation of ESA …
Panarchy And The Law, J.B. Ruhl
Panarchy And The Law, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Panarchy theory focuses on improving theories of change in natural and social systems to improve the design of policy responses. Its central thesis is that successfully working with the dynamic forces of complex adaptive natural and social systems demands an active adaptive management regime that eschews optimization approaches that seek stability. This is a new approach to resources management, and yet no new theory of how to do things in environmental and natural resources management, particularly one challenging entrenched ways of doing things and the interests aligned around them, is likely to gain traction in practice if it cannot gain …
The Political Economy Of Climate Change Winners, J.B. Ruhl
The Political Economy Of Climate Change Winners, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Many people and businesses in the United States stand to receive market and nonmarket benefits from climate change as it moves forward over the next 100 years. Speaking of climate change benefits is not for polite 'green' conversation, but ignoring them as climate policy dialogue and legal scholarship consistently have" will not make them go away. It is important to take climate change benefits into account if they lead people and businesses to believe that climate change will not be so bad for them, or even to believe it has made them into climate change winners. Thus, whereas legal scholars …
Clean Energy And The Price Preemption Ceiling, Jim Rossi
Clean Energy And The Price Preemption Ceiling, Jim Rossi
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Since the New Deal, federal preemption has precluded many state and local regulatory decisions that depart from wholesale electric prices determined under federal standards. Recent decisions treat prices that meet the federal standard as a preemption ceiling, which prohibits states from setting prices that exceed the wholesale price set in a competitive market. Both appellate courts and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - the primary federal agency responsible for the electric power sector - have recently applied a price preemption ceiling to clean energy policies. I argue in this Article that this price ceiling preemption approach hobbles the advancement of …
Supply And Demand: Barriers To A New Energy Future, Jim Rossi, Michael P. Vandenbergh, J. B. Ruhl
Supply And Demand: Barriers To A New Energy Future, Jim Rossi, Michael P. Vandenbergh, J. B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Like many fields, energy law has had its ups and downs. A period of remarkable activity in the 1970s and early 1980s focused on the efficiencies arising from deregulation of energy markets, but the field attracted much less attention during the 1990s. In the last decade, a new burst of activity has occurred, driven largely by the implications of energy production and use for climate change. In effect, this new scholarship is asking what efficiency means in a carbon-constrained world. Accounting for carbon has induced scholars to challenge the implicit assumption of the early scholarship that the price of energy …
An Empirical Assessment Of Climate Change In The Courts: A New Jurisprudence Or Business As Usual?, J.B. Ruhl, David L. Markell
An Empirical Assessment Of Climate Change In The Courts: A New Jurisprudence Or Business As Usual?, J.B. Ruhl, David L. Markell
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
While legal scholarship seeking to assess the impact of litigation on the direction of climate change policy is abundant and growing in leaps and bounds, to date it has relied on and examined only small, isolated pieces of the vast litigation landscape. Without a complete picture of what has and has not been within the sweep of climate change litigation, it is difficult to offer a robust evaluation of the past, present, and future of climate change jurisprudence. Based on a comprehensive empirical study of the status of all (201) climate change litigation matters filed through 2010, this Article is …
Global Public Goods, Governance Risk, And International Energy, Timothy Meyer
Global Public Goods, Governance Risk, And International Energy, Timothy Meyer
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Scholars and commentators have long argued that issue linkages provide a way to increase cooperation on global public goods by increasing participation in global institutions, building consensus, and deterring free-riding. In this symposium article, I argue that the emphasis on the potential of issue linkages to facilitate cooperation in these ways has caused commentators to underestimate how common features of international legal institutions designed to accomplish these aims can actually undermine those institutions’ ability to facilitate cooperation. I focus on two features of institutional design that are intended to encourage participation in public goods institutions but can create the risk …
The Endangered Species Act's Fall From Grace In The Supreme Court, J.B. Ruhl
The Endangered Species Act's Fall From Grace In The Supreme Court, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Thirty-five years ago, the Endangered Species Act ("ESA") had as auspicious a debut in the U.S. Supreme Court as any statute could hope for. In Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, a majority of the Court proclaimed that the ESA was intended "to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost" and backed up those and other bold words by preventing a nearly completed federal dam from impounding its reservoir because doing so would eliminate the only known (at the time) habitat of a small fish, the now infamous snail darter. To this day, Hill remains actively discussed …