Energy and Utilities Law Commons^™

Clean Electrification, Shelley Welton

University of Colorado Law Review

To combat climate change, many leading states have adopted the aim of creating a "participatory"g rid. In this new model, electricity is priced based on time of consumption and carbon content, and consumers are encouraged to adjust their behavior and adopt new technologies to maintain affordable electricity. Although a more participatory grid is an important component of lowering greenhouse gas emissions, it also raises a new problem of clean energy justice: utilities and consumer advocates claim that such policies unjustly benefit the rich at the expense of the poor, given the type of consumer best able to participate in the …

The Legal Climate On Climate Change: The Fate Of The Epa's Clean Power Plan After Michigan And Uarg, Israel Katz

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

One of the centerpieces of the United States’ effort to combat climate change is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) controversial Clean Power Plan, which consists of the first-ever federal regulations requiring states to achieve massive carbon dioxide emissions reductions from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants. The regulations operate by setting interim and final emissions target dates for states to ultimately reach an aggregate 32% reduction in carbon emissions by the year 2030. This Note argues that the current regulations will not survive judicial scrutiny, because the U.S. Supreme Court has moved away from traditional administrative deference in instances where an …

Stranded Costs And Grid Decarbonization, Jim Rossi, Emily Hammond

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Over the past half century, energy law has endured many stranded cost experiments, each helping firms and customers adjust to a new normal. However, these past experiments have contributed to a myopic regulatory approach to past stranded cost recovery by: (1) endorsing a preference for addressing all stranded costs only after energy resource investment decisions have been made; and (2) fixating on the firm’s financial costs and protection of investors, rather than on the broader impacts of each on the energy system.

The current transition to decarbonization is already giving rise to stranded cost claims related to existing energy assets …

Reconstituting The Federalism Battle In Energy Transportation, Jim Rossi, Alexandra B. Klass

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article explores the growing federalism tensions in efforts to expand the nation’s energy transportation infrastructure — the electric transmission lines, natural gas pipelines, natural gas import and export terminals and related infrastructure that power the U.S. electricity and transportation systems. It uses two illustrations — one involving an interstate electric transmission line (subject to state jurisdiction) and one involving and an interstate natural gas pipeline (subject to federal jurisdiction) — to highlight how the clear jurisdictional lines between federal and state authority over these projects created decades ago is no longer adequate for today’s energy needs. We believe that …

Book Review, The Electric Battery: Charging Forward To A Low-Carbon Future, Joel Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

The Electric Battery is the product of a Vermont Law School team led by Kevin Jones, the school’s Director of the Institute for Energy and the Environment. It is an essential resource for scholars, policymakers and others interested in the future for storage technologies in transportation and electricity, the sectors of the economy that produce the most greenhouse gases. Professor Jones brings considerable expertise to the project, having produced well-regarded reports on smart grid issues, and some projects mentioned in the book – such as the partnership between Tesla and Green Mountain Power – are located in the authors’ home …

Demand Response’S Three Generations: Market Pathways And Challenges In The Modern Electric Grid, Joel Eisen

Law Faculty Publications

Through a historical analysis spanning nearly five decades, this Article provides a comprehensive discussion of how demand response (reductions in electricity consumption in response to grid emergencies or price signals) has become both a growing resource on the electric grid and a policy trailblazer in the grid’s ongoing transformation. The discussion centers on three separate generations of efforts to promote demand-side measures in the electric grid, dating to the 1960s and oriented chronologically around important events in the electric power industry.

Demand response has been a test bed of important regulatory principles like frameworks for interactivity with the grid, the …

The Poles Of Power: Magnetic Bi-Directional Turn Of The Meter, Steven Ferrey

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

This article contrasts the legal practices of 44 states which have enacted specific state legal incentives to favor renewable power, comparing legal differences and which have been held to be illegal and why, suggesting alternative means to salvage their legality.

Legal Pathways For A Massive Increase In Utility-Scale Renewable Generation Capacity, Michael Gerrard

Faculty Scholarship

Decarbonizing the U.S. energy system will require a program of building onshore wind, offshore wind, utility-scale solar, and associated transmission that will exceed what has been done before in the United States by many times, every year out to 2050. These facilities, together with rooftop photovoltaics and other distributed generation, are required to replace most fossil fuel generation and to help furnish the added electricity that will be needed as many uses currently employing fossil fuels (especially passenger transportation and space and water heating) are electrified. This Article, excerpted from Michael B. Gerrard & John Dernbach, eds., Legal Pathways to …

Thorium’S Glow: Lighting The Way For Safe, Cheap Energy Production, Zachary Hawari

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

The Wind Blows In Virginia Too—Deconstructing Legal And Regulatory Barriers To The Development Of Onshore, Utility-Scale Wind Energy In Virginia, Mark L. (Buzz) Belleville

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Agenda: Flpma Turns 40, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

FLPMA Turns 40 (October 21)

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administers approximately 245 million acres of our public lands and yet, for most of our nation's history, these lands seemed largely destined to end up in private hands. Even when the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 ushered in an important era of better managing public grazing districts and "promoting the highest use of the public lands," such use of our public lands still was plainly considered temporary, "pending its final disposal." It was not until 1976 with the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) that congress adopted a policy that …

Getches-Wilkinson Center Newsletter, Fall 2016, University Of Colorado Boulder. Getches-Wilkinson Center For Natural Resources, Energy, And The Environment

Getches-Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the Environment Newsletter (2013-)

No abstract provided.

Measuring Brief (Save Our Climate), John Jurucich, Mary Margaret Roark

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

Best Brief – Save Our Climate

Measuring Brief (Sylvanergy), Josh Fortenbery, Cameron Jimmo, Kathryn Roberts

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

Best Brief – Sylvanergy

Measuring Brief (Granger), Christopher M. Becker, Robert A. Marcum, Bennett T. Richardson

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

David Sive Award for Best Brief Overall.

2016 Bench Memorandum

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.

2016 National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition Problem

Pace Environmental Law Review Online Companion

No abstract provided.

Protect Our Communities Foundation V. Jewell, Benjamin W. Almy

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In Protect Our Communities Foundation v. Jewell, the Ninth Circuit upheld a right-of-way grant issued by the BLM for the development of the Tule Wind energy facility in the McCain Valley in southern California. In its decision to uphold the district court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of the Defendants, the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) standards of compliance for a satisfactory Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”). The specific challenges raised by the Plaintiffs and addressed by the court were to the Statement of Purpose and Need, the Project Alternatives, the Mitigation Measures, and the “Hard Look” …

Un Environment Guide For Energy Efficiency And Renewable Energy Laws, Richard L. Ottinger

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Guide is written as a sequel to the 2007 UN Environment Programme Handbook for Legal Draftsmen on Environmentally Sound Management of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Resources.

This Guide, as the Handbook, is written in response to needs expressed, particularly by energy efficiency and renewable energy project initiators, government officials, energy managers, project developers and particularly developing country energy legal draftsmen, asking for assistance in drafting legislative provisions for promotion and implementation of sound energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.

The Guide describes the key legal issues associated with efficiency and renewable energy resource development, and presents legislative options …

Mining A Mirage: Reassessing The Shared-Value Paradigm In Light Of The Technological Advances In The Mining Sector, Aaron Cosbey, Howard Mann, Nicolas Maennling, Perrine Toledano, Jeff Geipel, Martin Dietrich Brauch

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment Staff Publications

While there has been a strong tendency in resource rich countries to push for more stringent local content regulations, the mining sector is looking to move towards increased automation.

In this study titled "Mining a Mirage: Reassessing the Shared-Value Paradigm in Light of the Technological Advances in the Mining Sector," CCSI, IISD and Engineers Without Borders researched the technological innovations that are being developed, assessing when these technologies could be rolled out, and quantifying the potential impacts automation may have on local employment and procurement and on the shared value paradigm. The objective was to better understand how governments could …

Case Study On The Galapagos Islands: Balance For Biodiversity & Migration, Cesar E. Neira

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

In this comment, the author will examine the Special Organic Law of the Galapagos. To better understand the impacts of the law, the comment will examine some of the more notable provisions of the 1998 version, and a few of the amended changes in 2015. Throughout this comment, themes such as migration and preserving biodiversity will be discussed. As we will see, this notion of balancing human needs and ecosystem in the islands is not always straight-forward.

Trouble In Paradise: Maintaining The Eu Ideal For Environmental Policy In Eestern Europe, Amanda L. Harb

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

Ten Central and Eastern European nations have joined the EU in the last decade. The conditions for joining the EU are scrupulous and expansive, covering everything from: election rules, food product labels, and battery disposal. CEE states who are newly inducted into the EU are currently striving to successfully implement the complete extent of collected EU law. Eastern Europe has long lagged behind the west in environmental policy. Extreme industrialization and widespread deregulation over the last century produced many areas with environmental degradation. The idea is that by adopting European environmental policy, Eastern European states can cash in on European …

Too Many Humans, Dwindling Resources, And Not Enough Space, Jorge T. Martinez

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

This paper will address the often-overlooked subject of human overpopulation and examine the role it plays in the environmental health of our planet. Part I will define overpopulation and how it is determined, as well as briefly examine animal overpopulations and their effects on the environment. Part II will turn to human population trends, the carrying capacity of humans on earth, and the environmental consequences of human overpopulation. The environmental issues currently faced in China, India, Africa, and other densely populated areas will be explored. Part III will analyze some of the legal solutions that have been implemented to curb …

Equal Protection For Animals, Pat Andriola

Environmental and Earth Law Journal (EELJ)

This paper presents a simple argument: through a Dworkinian moral reading of the Constitution, nonhuman animals fall under the Supreme Court’s equal protection doctrinal framework for suspect classification. Therefore, nonhuman animals are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The moral principle underlying equal protection is the ensuring of government’s empathetic and equitable treatment toward not just subgroups of humans (which have been judicially delineated by social constructs of race, gender, sexuality, and other defining characteristics), but toward all sentient beings who may become victim to the “tyranny of the majority.

Michigan V. Epa: Money Matters When Deciding Whether To Regulate Power Plants, Ruby Khallouf

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Natural Resources Journal

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Extraterritoriality, Externalities, And Cross-Border Trade: Some Lessons From The United States, The European Union, And The World Trade Organization, Max S. Jansson

Pace Environmental Law Review

In this article, process and production method (PPM) rules are analyzed under three jurisdictions: the United States, the European Union (EU), and the World Trade Organization (WTO. The approach is justified by the fact that their rules on interstate trade reflect very similar basic objectives related to anti-protectionism. Moreover, the regimes, to a large extent, share the same structure of rules on prohibition balanced with rules on justification. All in all, the regimes reveal similar syntax. The comparability of the U.S. Dormant Commerce Clause Doctrine with both WTO law and EU free movement law has been highlighted already in previous …

City Sustainability Reporting: An Emerging & Desirable Legal Necessity, Adam J. Sulkowski

Pace Environmental Law Review

This article will begin with a brief history of sustainability reporting, including recent developments related to its adoption by cities. The author will then review two major trends that, considered together, indicate sustainability reporting should be viewed as an emerging legal necessity for municipalities in the United States. First, the exemption shielding cities from the disclosure requirements of securities laws has eroded. Second, sustainability disclosures now fit the definition of what must—as a matter of materiality, if not specific mandates—be reported to investors. This means that the cities that have collectively issued over $3.67 trillion in securities2 should all be …

Incentive Regulation, New Business Models, And The Transformation Of The Electric Power Industry, Inara Scott

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

The electric utility sector is in the midst of paradigmatic change. Market forces include decreased load growth, technological advances in distributed energy resources, pressures for decarbonization, and demands for increased efficiency and new utility services. Meanwhile, as the utility monopoly is undermined and profits slow, financial analysts signal increasing risk to potential utility investors. Suggestions for transforming the existing regulatory structure abound. At the broadest level, such proposals reflect an established divide between energy policy, which traditionally focuses on economics and markets, and environmental law, which is based in the protection of natural resources and ecosystems. To marry the two …

Economic Solutions To Nuclear Energy's Financial Challenges, Zachary Robock

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

This Note presents a legal, economic, and regulatory roadmap to drive long-term innovation in sustainable energy generation. Next-generation nuclear power, which fundamentally mitigates many safety and nuclear waste issues, is the focus of this Note; however, the economic concepts can be applied to encourage solar, wind, advanced battery, and other sustainable technologies with high upfront costs and low long-term variable costs. Advanced nuclear energy generation is economically competitive on a long-term levelized cost basis, but suffers from a timing issue—a large amount of capital is needed upfront, with repayment over several decades, during which time significant capital costs can accrue …