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Energy and Utilities Law Commons

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University of Maine School of Law

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Full-Text Articles in Energy and Utilities Law

Foreword, Adam Fortier-Brown Jul 2026

Foreword, Adam Fortier-Brown

Maine Law Review

Access to legal services in America has emerged as one of the most pressing structural challenges facing the legal community. As attorneys increasingly concentrate in metropolitan areas, large areas are left with few practicing attorneys and challenging prospects of attracting many more. The consequences of this challenge reach across nearly every aspect of life in these communities—from housing and family stability, to starting or winding down businesses, and critically, to the constitutional guarantees that attach when someone is charged with a crime. Yet, these challenges have also generated a period of genuine creativity and collaboration between communities and different institutions. …


Alternative Marine Fuels And Mrv Liability Under Unclos Part Xii, Andrey Chernov Jul 2026

Alternative Marine Fuels And Mrv Liability Under Unclos Part Xii, Andrey Chernov

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Shipping’s decarbonization depends not only on adopting alternative fuels but also on the reliability of the monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems that underpin compliance. Ammonia, hydrogen, methanol, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) each introduce distinctive risks of error at the stages of certification, custody transfer, onboard measurement, and verification. At the same time, maritime law is increasingly data-driven. The International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI) and Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) depend on reported fuel-use data, while the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) and FuelEU Maritime Regulation impose direct financial penalties for inaccurate reporting. This …


Toward The Wired Society: Prospects, Problems, And Proposals For A National Policy On Cable Technology, Gary H. Gerlach May 2025

Toward The Wired Society: Prospects, Problems, And Proposals For A National Policy On Cable Technology, Gary H. Gerlach

Maine Law Review

The city is already encroaching on the countryside in a modest cultural sense. Today many remote New England villages receive more channels of New York City television, and receive them more clearly, than do most residents of the five boroughs of the great city. This anomaly is because of a relatively new and still evolving technology, popularly called cable television. This article primarily addresses the broad problems now confronting the American people on how to devise wise national policies that will put this technology of the new communications to its best uses for the most people. In short, how is …


Toward The Wired Society: Prospects, Problems, And Proposals For A National Policy On Cable Technology, Gary H. Gerlach May 2025

Toward The Wired Society: Prospects, Problems, And Proposals For A National Policy On Cable Technology, Gary H. Gerlach

Maine Law Review

The city is already encroaching on the countryside in a modest cultural sense. Today many remote New England villages receive more channels of New York City television, and receive them more clearly, than do most residents of the five boroughs of the great city. This anomaly is because of a relatively new and still evolving technology, popularly called cable television. This article primarily addresses the broad problems now confronting the American people on how to devise wise national policies that will put this technology of the new communications to its best uses for the most people. In short, how is …


The "Best Location" Standard And Puc Review Of Proposed Transmission Line Routes: In Re Bangor Hydro-Electric, Maine Law Review Apr 2025

The "Best Location" Standard And Puc Review Of Proposed Transmission Line Routes: In Re Bangor Hydro-Electric, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

Forty-five years after the enactment of legislation delegating eminent domain authority to electric power companies, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court had its first opportunity in In re Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. to construe the statute's grant of review authority to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Rejecting the "arbitrary and capricious" review standard previously applied by the PUC, the court held that the statute required the Commission to determine whether the utility's chosen location "best serves the public interest." Under the former standard, the utility had been required to present only minimal evidence in support of its choice of location in order …


Reassessing "Confiscation" Under Section 305 Of Maine's Public Utility Law, Maine Law Review Apr 2025

Reassessing "Confiscation" Under Section 305 Of Maine's Public Utility Law, Maine Law Review

Maine Law Review

On March 11, 1975, the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) denied a petition by the New England Telephone and Telegraph Co. (the company) for an "interim" rate increase. The company had sought to increase its revenues by $6,582,987 per year, pending the outcome of its petition before the PUC of October 1974 for a permanent rate increase of $21 million annually. After the PUC refused the company a rehearing on its denial of the interim rate increase, the company appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, alleging that the PUC had acted so as to leave in effect rates which …


Federal Nuclear Policy And The 1987 Maine Nuclear Referendum: Viable Initiative Or Legal Cul-De-Sac?, David P. Crocker Oct 2024

Federal Nuclear Policy And The 1987 Maine Nuclear Referendum: Viable Initiative Or Legal Cul-De-Sac?, David P. Crocker

Maine Law Review

On November 3, 1987, Maine voters once again rejected a proposal which would have forced closure of the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant, the state's only nuclear utility. The vote was the most recent in a series of attempts to close the plant, utilizing the vehicle of popular referendum. This latest initiative was in large part a consequence of intense public outcry against the possible location of a permanent nuclear waste repository in the state. It is therefore uniquely and personally linked to current passions concerning the future of nuclear electrical generation in the nation. The previous referenda to close …


A Greater Purpose For Icebergs: Iceberg Trade To Combat The Effects Of Climate Change, Lee A. Foden Jul 2024

A Greater Purpose For Icebergs: Iceberg Trade To Combat The Effects Of Climate Change, Lee A. Foden

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Three-fourths of the planet’s freshwater is stored in glaciers, and as the glaciers melt, humans are forfeiting their greatest freshwater resource. Climbing global temperatures, attributable to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, accelerate glacial melt while intensifying drought and water scarcity. This Comment identifies a way to relocate our greatest freshwater resource before it melts into the salty sea. Further, this Comment discusses how an iceberg trade could ensure the right to water by creating access to freshwater for all. Finally, this Comment introduces the iceberg trade as an equitable remedy to be employed by the Paris Agreement in the …


The Public Order Of The Arctic: Problems And Prospects, Charles H. Norchi Jul 2024

The Public Order Of The Arctic: Problems And Prospects, Charles H. Norchi

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

No abstract provided.


It's A Soft Shell Life For Me: The Case For Expanding Npdes Permitting To Include Causes Of Ocean Acidification, Natalie L. Nowatzke Jan 2024

It's A Soft Shell Life For Me: The Case For Expanding Npdes Permitting To Include Causes Of Ocean Acidification, Natalie L. Nowatzke

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

Ocean acidification, a lesser-known counterpart to climate change, is primarily caused by the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This absorption, in turn, reduces the ocean’s pH, and has detrimental effects on the health of the entire ecosystem. This Comment examines the applicability of the “functional equivalent test,” coined by the Supreme Court in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, to the causes of ocean acidification. Using this test, this Comment proposes expanding NPDES permitting under the Clean Water Act to cover some landbased sources emitting carbon dioxide.


The Brave New World Of Energy And Natural Resources Development, Donald N. Zillman Jan 2019

The Brave New World Of Energy And Natural Resources Development, Donald N. Zillman

Faculty Publications

The world of energy and natural resources development has changed a great deal over the past 30 months, perhaps more so than in the preceding 30 years. Beginning with the June 2016 vote in the United Kingdom to leave the European Union and continuing through today, there are global signs of increasing emphasis on protecting national sovereignty and less on world efforts to address major environmental and energy issues. Admittedly, the United Nations-based effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions continues to move forward. However, more than a few nations are hinting that they may not live up to their commitments …


President Trump, The New Chicago School And The Future Of Environmental Law And Scholarship, Sarah B. Schindler Nov 2018

President Trump, The New Chicago School And The Future Of Environmental Law And Scholarship, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Recent presidents including Bill Clinton, G. W. Bush, and Barack Obama have refined how environmental law has been enacted and carried out. Under President Trump, the scope of public environmental law will most certainly narrow. It seems likely that the future of environmental law will depend not upon traditional federal command-and-control legislation or executive branch maneuvering, but instead upon activating environmentalism through expanded substantive areas and innovative regulatory techniques that fall outside the existing, traditional norms of environmental law and legal scholarship. This chapter is an attempt to acknowledge this monumental change, recognizing that these barriers to traditional environmental regulation …


Bargaining For Power: Resolving Open Questions From Nrg Power Marketing, Llc V. Maine Public Utilities Commission, Michael Keegan Apr 2017

Bargaining For Power: Resolving Open Questions From Nrg Power Marketing, Llc V. Maine Public Utilities Commission, Michael Keegan

Maine Law Review

Many industries are subject toregulation, whether by the federal government,the state, or both. Electric utilitycompanies’ retail rates are subject to regulationby the states, and their wholesale ratesharged among enterprises involved in providing the electric power to retail sellers are regulated by the federal government. Under the Federal Power Act of 1935 (“FPA”), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) is responsible for ensuring that rates for wholesale electric power sales and electric transmission are “just and reasonable.” The “classic scheme” of administrative rate setting called for rates to be established unilaterally by the regulated companies and set forth in rate schedules …


The Renewable Fuel Standard: Food Versus Fuel?, Brent J. Hartman Apr 2017

The Renewable Fuel Standard: Food Versus Fuel?, Brent J. Hartman

Maine Law Review

Created by the Energy Act of 2005 and substantially amended by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandates an increasing amount of fuel from renewable sources that must be blended into the transportation fuel supply of the United States. Starting in 2008, RFS began with a mandated volume of nine billion gallons. By 2002, RFS requires blending 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel. Thus, in a little over a decade, RFS requires the amount of renewable fuel to quadruple. Meeting the targets of RFS would make substantial strides in energy security and independence, …


Allocating Power: Toward A New Federalism Balance For Electricity Transmission Siting, Kevin Decker Apr 2017

Allocating Power: Toward A New Federalism Balance For Electricity Transmission Siting, Kevin Decker

Maine Law Review

Expansion and improvement of the nation’s electricity transmission system are crucial for increasing the amount of electricity generated by renewable energy sources. Renewable energy sources, such as wind and tidal, tend to be located far from population centers, and electricity transmission lines must bridge that gap. In addition to its importance for meeting renewable energy goals, a better connected and more robust transmission system also bolsters reliability because it can draw on many generation sources in the event that a generator or segment of the transmission network fails. And transmission facilitates generator competition by making it possible to transport lower-cost …


The Road Less Travelled: The Maine Energy Cost Reduction Act, Economic Federalism, And A Modern Approach To Preemption Analysis Under The Natural Gas Act Of 1938, Benjamin T. Mccall Jan 2017

The Road Less Travelled: The Maine Energy Cost Reduction Act, Economic Federalism, And A Modern Approach To Preemption Analysis Under The Natural Gas Act Of 1938, Benjamin T. Mccall

Maine Law Review

The saying “you can’t get there from here” is as authentically Maine as blueberries or lobster. Made famous in the mid-20th century by the storytelling troupe Bert and I, the colloquial phrase typifies the quirkiness and with that one often encounters north and east of the New Hampshire border. Despite the attempt at humor, the saying is apropos when one considers Maine’s position in both New England and the country. Being at the end of the line certainly has its advantages, among them being hundreds of square miles of untamed forest, and a bevy of natural resources that provide both …


Encouraging Private Investment In Energy Efficiency, Sarah B. Schindler Jan 2011

Encouraging Private Investment In Energy Efficiency, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Combating the negative effects of climate change requires finding ways to increase energy production while reducing energy demand. Every New England state has programs in place to encourage home and business owners to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings. Despite the clear fmancial benefits and environmental benefits that result from energy efficiency upgrades, most New Englanders have not taken advantage ofthe programs being offered by their states.


Following Industry's Leed : Municipal Adoption Of Private Green Building Standards, Sarah B. Schindler Jan 2010

Following Industry's Leed : Municipal Adoption Of Private Green Building Standards, Sarah B. Schindler

Faculty Publications

Local governments are beginning to require new, privately constructed and funded buildings to be “green” buildings. Instead of creating their own, locally-derived definitions of green buildings, many municipalities are adopting an existing private standard created by members of the building industry: LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). This Article explains and assesses the privately promulgated LEED standards. It argues that the translation of LEED standards, which were intended to be voluntary, into law raises several theoretical and practical problems. Specifically, private green building ordinances that rely on LEED do not ensure a reduction in the negative local environmental impacts …


The Role Of State Government In Nuclear Power Regulation: Jurisdictional Conflicts In The Us, Donald N. Zillman Jan 1998

The Role Of State Government In Nuclear Power Regulation: Jurisdictional Conflicts In The Us, Donald N. Zillman

Faculty Publications

The regulation of nuclear power in the United States provides ample opportunity for conflicts over jurisdiction. The Maine Yankee case demonstrates the complications that arise as a result. The article concludes, however, that state involvement in the federal process can be both useful and collaborative.


Energy Trade And The National Security Exception To The Gatt, Donald N. Zillman Jan 1994

Energy Trade And The National Security Exception To The Gatt, Donald N. Zillman

Faculty Publications

Three topics combine in this paper: international trade, national security, and energy. The specific focus of the paper is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the "essential security interests" exception contained in Article XXI. The provisions of the GATT set out the structure of a system to encourage international trade by reducing tariffs and other trade barriers. More broadly, many aspects of international trade in energy have developed outside the structure of GATT or with the implied assumption that Article XXI or another GATT exception would take them out of normal GATT arrangements. National security matters have …