Law Commons^™

Grid Governance In The Energy-Trilemma Era: Remedying The Democracy Deficit, Daniel E. Walters, Andrew N. Kleit

Faculty Scholarship

Transforming the electric power grid is central to any viable scenario for addressing global climate change, but the process and politics of this transformation are complex. The desire to transform the grid creates an “energy trilemma” involving often conflicting desires for reliability, cost, and decarbonization; and, at least in the short run, it is difficult to avoid making tradeoffs between these different goals. It is somewhat shocking, then, that many crucial decisions about electric power service in the United States are made not by consumers or their utilities, nor by state public utilities commissions or federal regulators. Instead, for much …

Do We Really Want Ethical Government, John D. Feerick

Faculty Scholarship

The question I would like to address in this article arises out of my recent work with the New York State Commission on Government Integrity. As you may recall, the Commission was appointed by Governor Cuomo in 1987 following a series of corruption scandals in our State involving officials at all levels of government. It was a nonpartisan group comprised of a former Secretary of State, a former judge of the State's highest court, a prominent civil libertarian, a former federal prosecutor, and other prominent citizens of this State.' The Commission had a very broad mandate. It was directed to …

The Dual State - Federal Regulation Of Financial Institutions - A Policy Proposal, Tamar Frankel

Faculty Scholarship

In 1983 South Dakota passed an Act permitting its chartered banks to sell and underwrite insurance.¹ The issue that I address is whether states should have the power to pass such a law. I am not concerned here with interpretation of positive law but with public policy implications.

The issue is a matter of congressional policy. Like most financial intermediaries banks are regulated by both state and federal laws,² but it is clear that the federal government has the power to preempt state laws that regulate banks. Therefore, whether South Dakota can pass the statute is not a …