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Articles 1 - 30 of 77
Full-Text Articles in Law
Affordable Renewables - Unjust And Unreasonable?, Grace Brosofsky
Affordable Renewables - Unjust And Unreasonable?, Grace Brosofsky
Cornell Law Review
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)-an independent agency tasked with ensuring 'just and reasonable" energy rates-has begun to use energy market payment systems to prop up fossil fuels. FERC has issued orders that prevent renewables from competing with fossil fuels by forcing renewables to bid into energy markets at artificially high rates. FERC has argued that state clean energy subsidies distort energy markets by "suppressing prices" and pushing "needed" fossil fuel generators out of the market. According to FERC, a federal intervention is necessary to protect "market integrity" and ensure that consumers can access reliable electricity.
This Note argues that …
Remote Control: Treaty Requirements For Regulatory Procedures, Paul Mertenskotter, Richard B. Stewart
Remote Control: Treaty Requirements For Regulatory Procedures, Paul Mertenskotter, Richard B. Stewart
Cornell Law Review
Modern trade agreements have come to include many and varied obligations for domestic regulation and administration. These treaty-based commitments aim primarily to improve the freedom of firms to operate in the global economy by aligning the ways in which governments regulate markets and private actors engage governments through administrative law. They therefore strike at the core of how economies are ordered and entail important distributional questions. An increasingly prevalent and diverse—but hitherto largely neglected—type of treaty obligation prescribes specific procedures for domestic administrative decision-making. This Article frames such requirements as tools of powerful states to control regulatory decision-making by government …
Why And How Independent Agencies Should Conduct Regulatory Impact Analysis, Jerry Ellig
Why And How Independent Agencies Should Conduct Regulatory Impact Analysis, Jerry Ellig
Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy
Independent regulatory agencies face increasing pressure to conduct high-quality economic analysis of regulations, similar to the regulatory impact analysis conducted by executive branch agencies. Such analysis could be required by evolving judicial doctrines, regulatory reform statutes, or executive order. This article explains how regulatory impact analysis can contribute to smarter regulation, documents the current low quality of such analysis at many independent regulatory agencies, and offers a blueprint that independent agencies can use to build their capacity to conduct objective, high-quality analysis.
Private Wealth And Public Goods: A Case For A National Investment Authority, Robert C. Hockett, Saule T. Omarova
Private Wealth And Public Goods: A Case For A National Investment Authority, Robert C. Hockett, Saule T. Omarova
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Much American electoral and policy debate now centers on how best to reignite the nation’s economic dynamism and rebuild its competitive strength. Any such undertaking presents an extraordinary challenge, demanding a correspondingly extraordinary institutional response. This Article proposes precisely such a response. It designs and advocates a new public instrumentality--a National Investment Authority (“NIA”)--charged with the critical task of devising and implementing a comprehensive long-term development strategy for the United States.
Patterned in part after the New Deal-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation, in part after modern sovereign wealth funds, and in part after private equity and venture capital firms, the NIA …
Delegating For Trust, Edward H. Stiglitz
Delegating For Trust, Edward H. Stiglitz
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Courts and legal observers have long been concerned by the scope of authority delegated to administrative agencies. The dominant explanation of delegated authority is that it is necessary to take advantage of administrative agencies' expertise and expansive rulemaking capacity. Though this explanation makes sense in many settings, it falters in many areas and has given rise to a number of longstanding puzzles, such as why Congress does not invest in its own institutional capacity.
Unrecognized in this debate over the puzzles of delegation is that Congress may delegate to take advantage of another distinctive attribute of administrative decisionmaking: the credible …
Barriers To Participatory Erulemaking Platform Adoption: Lessons Learned From Regulationroom, Mary J. Newhart, Joshua D. Brooks
Barriers To Participatory Erulemaking Platform Adoption: Lessons Learned From Regulationroom, Mary J. Newhart, Joshua D. Brooks
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
Rulemaking, the process through which United States (U.S.) federal government agencies develop major health, safety and economic regulations, was an early target of electronic government (e-government) efforts. Because it was an established decision-making process that had substantial formal requirements of transparency, public participation and responsiveness it seemed a perfect target for technology-supported participatory policymaking. It was believed that new technologies could transform rulemaking, increasing its democratic legitimacy and improving its policy outcomes by broadening the range of participating individuals and groups (Brandon and Carlitz, 2003; Coglianese, 2004; Noveck, 2004). Despite the promise of a more deliberative and democratic process, rulemaking …
Ceri (Cornell E-Rulemaking) Moderator Protocol, Cornell Erulemaking Initiative
Ceri (Cornell E-Rulemaking) Moderator Protocol, Cornell Erulemaking Initiative
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
From 2005-2017, CeRI was a multidisciplinary group of Cornell University researchers engaged in theoretical and applied research, in partnership with government agencies and civil society groups, to discover how the design and process of online engagement can support public discussion that is informed, inclusive and insightful.
The Moderator Protocol was used by moderators (students in a Cornell Law School e-Government Clinic) to facilitate dialogue and discussion during live discussions on our RegulationRoom.org and SmartParticipation.com platforms. It is provided here as a resource and reference tool. Additional information on the project is available at SmartParticipation.com.
Forces Of Federalism, Safety Nets, And Waivers, Edward H. Stiglitz
Forces Of Federalism, Safety Nets, And Waivers, Edward H. Stiglitz
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Inequality is the defining feature of our times. Many argue it calls for a policy response, yet the most obvious policy responses require legislative action. And if inequality is the defining feature of our times, partisan acrimony and gridlock are the defining features of the legislature. So being, it is worth considering what role administrative agencies, and administrative law, might play in ameliorating or exacerbating economic inequality. Here, I focus on American safety net programs, many of which are joint operations between federal administrative agencies and state governments. In this context, a central mode of bureaucratic policy innovation comes in …
Gridlock?, Josh Chafetz
Strategic Rulemaking Disclosure, Jennifer Nou, Edward H. Stiglitz
Strategic Rulemaking Disclosure, Jennifer Nou, Edward H. Stiglitz
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Congressional enactments and executive orders instruct agencies to publish their anticipated rules in what is known as the Unified Agenda. The Agenda’s stated purpose is to ensure that political actors can monitor regulatory development. Agencies have come under fire in recent years, however, for conspicuous omissions and irregularities. Critics allege that agencies hide their regulations from the public strategically, that is, to thwart potential political opposition. Others contend that such behavior is benign, perhaps the inevitable result of changing internal priorities or unforeseen events.
To examine these competing hypotheses, this Article uses a new dataset spanning over thirty years of …
The Problem With Words: Plain Language And Public Participation In Rulemaking, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Cheryl Blake
The Problem With Words: Plain Language And Public Participation In Rulemaking, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Cheryl Blake
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This Article, part of the special issue commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Administrative Conference of the United States (“ACUS”), situates ACUS’s recommendations for improving public rulemaking participation in the context of the federal “plain language” movement. The connection between broader, better public participation and more comprehensible rulemaking materials seems obvious, and ACUS recommendations have recognized this connection for almost half a century. Remarkably, though, the series of presidential and statutory plain-language directives on this topic have not even mentioned the relationship of comprehensibility to participation until very recently. In 2012, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (“OIRA”) issued …
Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert C. Hockett, Saule T. Omarova
Public Actors In Private Markets: Toward A Developmental Finance State, Robert C. Hockett, Saule T. Omarova
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
The recent financial crisis brought into sharp relief fundamental questions about the social function and purpose of the financial system, including its relation to the “real” economy. This Article argues that, to answer these questions, we must recapture a distinctively American view of the proper relations among state, financial market, and development. This programmatic vision – captured in what we call a “developmental finance state” – is based on three key propositions: (1) that economic and social development is not an “end-state” but a continuing national policy priority; (2) that the modalities of finance are the most potent means of …
Democratic Deliberation In The Wild: The Mcgill Online Design Studio And The Regulationroom Project, Cynthia R. Farina, Hoi Kong, Cheryl Blake, Mary J. Newhart, Nik Luka
Democratic Deliberation In The Wild: The Mcgill Online Design Studio And The Regulationroom Project, Cynthia R. Farina, Hoi Kong, Cheryl Blake, Mary J. Newhart, Nik Luka
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Although there is no single unified conception of deliberative democracy, the generally accepted core thesis is that democratic legitimacy comes from authentic deliberation on the part of those affected by a collective decision. This deliberation must occur under conditions of equality, broadmindedness, reasonableness, and inclusion. In exercises such as National Issue forums, citizen juries, and consensus conferences, deliberative practitioners have shown that careful attention to process design can enable ordinary citizens to engage in meaningful deliberation about difficult public policy issues. Typically, however, these are closed exercises-that is, they involve a limited number of participants, often selected to achieve a …
Rulemaking Vs. Democracy: Judging And Nudging Public Participation That Counts, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Josiah Heidt
Rulemaking Vs. Democracy: Judging And Nudging Public Participation That Counts, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Josiah Heidt
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
An underlying assumption of many open government enthusiasts is that more public participation will necessarily lead to better government policymaking: If we use technology to give people easier opportunities to participate in public policymaking, they will use these opportunities to participate effectively. Yet, experience thus far with technology-enabled rulemaking (e-rulemaking) has not confirmed this “if-then” causal link. This Article considers how this flawed causal reasoning around technology has permeated efforts to increase public participation in rulemaking.
Unitary Innovations And Political Accountability, Edward H. Stiglitz
Unitary Innovations And Political Accountability, Edward H. Stiglitz
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
An important trend in administrative and constitutional law is to attempt to concentrate ever-greater control over the administrative state in the hands of the President. As the Supreme Court recently reminded us in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, one foundation for this doctrinal trend is a fear that diffusing power diffuses accountability. Here, I study whether institutional innovations resulting from such judicial decisions support this functionalist constitutional value of political accountability, emphasizing under-appreciated complications arising out of interbranch relations. For most of the Article, I conduct an indepth empirical case study of the legislative veto, one …
The Value Of Words: Narrative As Evidence In Policymaking, Dmitry Epstein, Josiah Heidt, Cynthia R. Farina
The Value Of Words: Narrative As Evidence In Policymaking, Dmitry Epstein, Josiah Heidt, Cynthia R. Farina
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Policymakers today rely primarily on statistical, financial, and other forms of technical data as their basis for decision-making. Yet, there is a potentially underestimated value in substantive reflections of the members of the public who will be affected by a particular piece of regulation. We discuss the value of narratives as input in the policy making process, based on our experience with Regulation Room–a product of an interdisciplinary initiative using innovative web technologies in real-time online experimentation. We describe professional policymakers and professional commenters as a community of practice that has limited shared repertoire with the lay members of the …
Unaccountable Midnight Rulemaking? A Normatively Informative Assessment, Edward H. Stiglitz
Unaccountable Midnight Rulemaking? A Normatively Informative Assessment, Edward H. Stiglitz
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Under a common view, the administrative state inherits democratic legitimacy from the President, an individual who is envisioned both to control administrative agencies and to be electorally accountable. Presidents' administrations continue issuing rules, however, even after Presidents lose elections. Conventional wisdom holds that Presidents use the "midnight" period of their administrations-the period between the election and the inauguration of the next President-to issue unpopular and controversial rules. Many regard this midnight regulatory activity as democratically illegitimate. Yet we have scant evidence that presidential administrations in fact issue controversial or unpopular rules during the midnight period. In this Article, I examine …
Is New Governance The Ideal Architecture For Global Financial Regulation?, Annelise Riles
Is New Governance The Ideal Architecture For Global Financial Regulation?, Annelise Riles
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
A central challenge for international financial regulatory systems today is how to manage the impact of global systemically important financial institutions (G-SIFIs) on the global economy, given the interconnected and pluralistic nature of regulatory regimes. This paper focuses on the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and proposes a new research agenda for the FSB’s emerging regulatory forms. In particular, it examines the regulatory architecture of the New Governance (NG), a variety of approaches that are supposed to be more reflexive, collaborative, and experimental than traditional forms of governance. A preliminary conclusion is that NG tools may be effective in resolving some …
Rulemaking 2.0: Understanding And Getting Better Public Participation, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart
Rulemaking 2.0: Understanding And Getting Better Public Participation, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
More than a decade after the launch of Regulations.gov, the government-wide federal online rulemaking portal, and nearly four years since the Obama Administration directed agencies to use “innovative tools and practices that create new and easier methods for public engagement,” there are still more questions than answers about what value social media and other Web 2 .0 technologies can bring to rulemaking–and about how agencies can realize that value.
This report, commissioned by the IBM Center for the Business of Government, begins to provide those answers. Drawing on insights from a number of disciplines and on three years of actual …
Balancing Inclusion And “Enlightened Understanding” In Designing Online Civic Participation Systems: Experiences From Regulation Room, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Josiah Heidt, Jackeline Solivan
Balancing Inclusion And “Enlightened Understanding” In Designing Online Civic Participation Systems: Experiences From Regulation Room, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Josiah Heidt, Jackeline Solivan
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
New forms of online citizen participation in government decision making have been fostered in the United States (U.S.) under the Obama Administration. Use of Web information technologies have been encouraged in an effort to create more back-and-forth communication between citizens and their government. These “Civic Participation 2.0” attempts to open the government up to broader public participation are based on three pillars of open government—transparency, participation, and collaboration. Thus far, the Administration has modeled Civic Participation 2.0 almost exclusively on the Web 2.0 ethos, in which users are enabled to shape the discussion and encouraged to assess the value of …
Regulation Room: How The Internet Improves Public Participation In Rulemaking, Jackeline Solivan, Cynthia R. Farina
Regulation Room: How The Internet Improves Public Participation In Rulemaking, Jackeline Solivan, Cynthia R. Farina
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
Cornell eRulemaking Initiative (CeRI) designed and operated Regulation Room, a pilot project that provides an online environment for people and groups to learn about, discuss, and react to selected proposed federal rules. The project is a unique collaboration between CeRI academic researchers and the government. The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) was CeRI's first agency partner and chose Regulation Room as its first open government "flagship initiative." USDOT received a White House Open Government Leading Practices Award for its collaboration in the project. CeRI owns, designs, operates, and controls Regulation Room, but works closely with partner agencies to identify suitable …
Rulemaking Vs. Democracy: Judging And Nudging Public Participation That Counts, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Josiah Heidt, Cornell Erulemaking Initiative
Rulemaking Vs. Democracy: Judging And Nudging Public Participation That Counts, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Josiah Heidt, Cornell Erulemaking Initiative
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
This essay considers how open government “magical thinking” around technology has infused efforts to increase public participation in rulemaking. We propose a framework for assessing the value of technology-enabled rulemaking participation and offer specific principles of participation-system design, which are based on conceptual work and practical experience in the Regulation Room project at Cornell University.
An underlying assumption of open government enthusiasts is that more public participation will lead to better government policymaking: If we use technology to give people easier opportunities to participate in public policymaking, they will use these opportunities to participate effectively. However, experience thus far with …
Regulation Room: Getting "More, Better" Civic Participation In Complex Government Policymaking, Cynthia R. Farina, Dmitry Epstein, Josiah Heidt, Mary J. Newhart
Regulation Room: Getting "More, Better" Civic Participation In Complex Government Policymaking, Cynthia R. Farina, Dmitry Epstein, Josiah Heidt, Mary J. Newhart
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
Purpose – Rulemaking (the process agencies use to make new health, safety, social and economic regulations) is one of the US Government’s most important policymaking methods and has long been a target for e-government efforts. Although broad transparency and participation rights are part of its legal structure, significant barriers prevent effective engagement by many citizens. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach – RegulationRoom.org is an online experimental e-participation platform, designed and operated by Cornell e-rulemaking Initiative (CeRI), the cross-disciplinary CeRI. Using the Regulation Roomas a case study, this paper addresseswhat capacities are required for effective civic engagement and …
Knowledge In The People: Rethinking "Value" In Public Rulemaking Participation, Cynthia R. Farina, Dmitry Epstein, Josiah Heidt, Mary J. Newhart
Knowledge In The People: Rethinking "Value" In Public Rulemaking Participation, Cynthia R. Farina, Dmitry Epstein, Josiah Heidt, Mary J. Newhart
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
A companion piece to Rulemaking vs. Democracy: Judging and Nudging Public Participation that Counts, this Essay continues to examine the nature and value of broader public participation in rulemaking. Here, we argue that rulemaking is a “community of practice,” with distinctive forms of argumentation and methods of reasoning that both reflect and embody craft knowledge. Rulemaking newcomers are outside this community of practice: Even when they are reasonably informed about the legal and policy aspects of the agency’s proposal, their participation differs in kind and form from that of sophisticated commenters. From observing the actual behavior of rulemaking newcomers …
Not By Technology Alone: The “Analog” Aspects Of Online Public Engagement In Policymaking, Dmitry Epstein, Mary J. Newhart, Rebecca Vernon
Not By Technology Alone: The “Analog” Aspects Of Online Public Engagement In Policymaking, Dmitry Epstein, Mary J. Newhart, Rebecca Vernon
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
Between Twitter revolutions and Facebook elections, there is a growing belief that information and communication technologies are changing the way democracy is practiced. The discourse around e-government and online deliberation is frequently focused on technical solutions and based in the belief that if you build it correctly they will come. This paper departs from the literature on digital divide to examine barriers to online civic participation in policy deliberation. While most scholarship focuses on identifying and describing those barriers, this study offers an in-depth analysis of what it takes to address them using a particular case study. Based in the …
Facilitative Moderation For Online Participation In Erulemaking, Joonsuk Park, Claire Cardie, Cynthia R. Farina, Sally Klingel, Mary J. Newhart, Joan-Josep Vallbé
Facilitative Moderation For Online Participation In Erulemaking, Joonsuk Park, Claire Cardie, Cynthia R. Farina, Sally Klingel, Mary J. Newhart, Joan-Josep Vallbé
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
This paper describes the use of facilitative moderation strategies in an online rulemaking public participation system. Rulemaking is one of the U.S. government's most important policymaking methods. Although broad transparency and participation rights are part of its legal structure, significant barriers prevent effective engagement by many groups of interested citizens. Regulation Room, an experimental open-government partnership between academic researchers and government agencies, is a socio-technical participation system that uses multiple methods to lower potential barriers to broader participation. To encourage effective individual comments and productive group discussion in Regulation Room, we adapt strategies for facilitative human moderation originating from social …
Regulationroom: Field-Testing An Online Public Participation Platform During Usa Agency Rulemakings, Cynthia R. Farina, Josiah Heidt, Mary J. Newhart, Joan-Josep Vallbé, Cornell Erulemaking Initiative
Regulationroom: Field-Testing An Online Public Participation Platform During Usa Agency Rulemakings, Cynthia R. Farina, Josiah Heidt, Mary J. Newhart, Joan-Josep Vallbé, Cornell Erulemaking Initiative
Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative Publications
Rulemaking is one of the U.S. government's most important policymaking methods. Although broad transparency and participation rights are part of its legal structure, significant barriers prevent effective engagement by many groups of interested citizens. RegulationRoom, an experimental open-government partnership between academic researchers and government agencies, is a socio-technical participation system that uses multiple methods to alert and effectively engage new voices in rulemaking. Initial results give cause for optimism but also caution that successful use of new technologies to increase participation in complex government policy decisions is more difficult and resource-intensive than many proponents expect.
Rulemaking 2.0, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Claire Cardie, Dan Cosley, Cornell Erulemaking Initiative
Rulemaking 2.0, Cynthia R. Farina, Mary J. Newhart, Claire Cardie, Dan Cosley, Cornell Erulemaking Initiative
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
In response to President Obama's Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, federal agencies are on the verge of a new generation in online rulemaking. However, unless we recognize the several barriers to making rulemaking a more broadly participatory process, and purposefully adapt Web 2.0 technologies and methods to lower those barriers, Rulemaking 2.0 is likely to disappoint agencies and open-government advocates alike.
This article describes the design, operation, and initial results of Regulation Room, a pilot public rulemaking participation platform created by a cross-disciplinary group of Cornell researchers in collaboration with the Department of Transportation. Regulation Room uses selected live …
Rulemaking In 140 Characters Or Less: Social Networking And Public Participation In Rulemaking, Cynthia R. Farina, Paul Miller, Mary J. Newhart, Claire Cardie, Dan Cosley, Rebecca Vernon
Rulemaking In 140 Characters Or Less: Social Networking And Public Participation In Rulemaking, Cynthia R. Farina, Paul Miller, Mary J. Newhart, Claire Cardie, Dan Cosley, Rebecca Vernon
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
Rulemaking—the process by which administrative agencies make new regulations—has long been a target for egovernment efforts. The process is now one of the most important ways the federal government makes public policy. Moreover, transparency and participation rights are already part of its legal structure. The first generation of federal erulemaking involved putting the conventional process online by creating an e-docket of rulemaking materials and allowing online submission of public comments. Now the Obama administration is urging agencies to embark on the second generation of technology-assisted rulemaking, by bringing social media into the process.
In this Article we describe the initial …
Achieving The Potential: The Future Of Federal E-Rulemaking, Report Of The Committee On The Status And Future Of Federal E-Rulemaking, Cynthia R. Farina
Achieving The Potential: The Future Of Federal E-Rulemaking, Report Of The Committee On The Status And Future Of Federal E-Rulemaking, Cynthia R. Farina
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.