Law Commons^™

Scale Economies, Scale Externalities: Hog Farming And The Changing American Agricultural Industry, Shi-Ling Hsu

Scholarly Publications

American agriculture is inexorably concentrating into the hands of a small number of large conglomerates. Expanding farms pursuing scale economies would normally have to abide by a system of environmental and other laws that would, in theory, require farms to account for negative externalities. If those laws were observed and enforced, they would help strike a balance between the greater profitability and the larger externalities of scaling up. But these laws are not widely observed nor rigorously enforced, which upsets this balance and gives large-scale farms a cost advantage while insulating them from corresponding responsibilities.

Perhaps nowhere in agriculture is …

A Primer: Air And Water Environmental Quality Standards In The United States, Jason J. Czarnezki

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article, designed as a resource for environmental law professors both domestically and abroad, addresses how environmental quality standards are created, implemented, and enforced in the United States. The answers to these questions are useful to those teaching U.S. environmental law and international scholars, especially in the European Union, who are faced with the challenge of creating new environmental quality standards under both national and EU directives. It must be noted that this project is complicated by the federal system within the country, and, thus, attention must be devoted to the federal-state relationship. In fact, the major relevant statutes, the …

A Primer: Air And Water Environmental Quality Standards In The United State, Jason J. Czarnezki, Siu Tip Lam, Nadia B. Ahmad

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of Senator Mcconnell's Letter Urging States Not To Comply With Epa's Clean Power Plan, Daniel Selmi

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

On numerous occasions Senator Mitchell McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, has attacked the upcoming Clean Power Plan regulations that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is scheduled to issue in June of this year. Most notably, on March 19, 2015, he sent a letter to the National Governors Association urging the governors of all fifty states not to prepare state plans in response to those regulations. In that letter he laid out what he termed his “serious legal and policy concerns” regarding the EPA proposal. The letter received wide publicity.

Daniel Selmi has written an essay analyzing legal statements made by …

States Should Think Twice Before Refusing Any Response To Epa's Clean Power Rules, Daniel Selmi

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

The date is approaching for EPA to finalize its rules for controlling carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, and states are contemplating their responses to those rules. A number of commentators have recommended that states “just say no” to EPA and refuse to prepare state plans complying with the rules. Some states are considering bills and a few have enacted laws that would make it difficult for their state environmental agencies to prepare responses that EPA could accept. In turn, EPA has announced it will release a “federal implementation plan” (FIP) for states that fail to submit legally adequate …

Federal Implementation Plans For Controlling Carbon Emissions From Existing Power Plants: A Primer Exploring The Issues, Daniel Selmi

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Much has been made of late about EPA’s authority to develop federal implementation plans (FIPs) to achieve the state-based GHG emissions reduction targets the agency is preparing establish under Clean Power Plan. Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, objectors have loudly urged states not to submit plans at all. Instead, they have argued, states need not be concerned about EPA imposing FIPs on their states. In turn, EPA has announced that it will release a draft federal implementation plan this summer.

Since 1970, Section 110 the Clean Air Act has required EPA to implement a FIP if a state implementation plan …

How Much Does The Existing Regulatory Patchwork Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions?, Justin Gundlach

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This paper offers an answer to the question, “What levels of greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions reduction do the constituent programs in the U.S.’s existing regulatory patchwork achieve?” Its answer represents an attempt to measure the same effect from eight regulatory interventions: EPA’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration program, as it is expected to operate following the Supreme Court’s UARG v. EPA decision in 2014; EPA’s Clean Power Plan; EPA’s renewable fuel standard; the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for light, medium, and heavy duty vehicles; the renewable electricity generation Production Tax Credit and Investment Tax Credit; the Regional Greenhouse Gas …