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Full-Text Articles in Energy and Utilities Law

Transmission Siting In Deregulated Wholesale Power Markets: Re-Imagining The Role Of Courts In Resolving Federal-State Siting Impasses, Jim A. Rossi Apr 2005

Transmission Siting In Deregulated Wholesale Power Markets: Re-Imagining The Role Of Courts In Resolving Federal-State Siting Impasses, Jim A. Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

During most of the twentieth century, state and local regulatory bodies coordinated the siting or power plants and transmission lines. These bodies focused on two important issues: 1) the determination of need, so as to avoid unnecessary economic duplication of costly infrastructure; and 2) environmental protection, so as to provide local land use and other environmental concerns input on the placement of necessary generation and transmission facilities. With the rise of a deregulated wholesale power market, the issue of need is increasingly determined by the market, not regulators. Environmental concerns with siting, however, frequently remain contested - especially locally - …


From Smokestack To Suv: The Individual As Regulated Entity In The New Era Of Environmental Law, Michael P. Vandenbergh Mar 2004

From Smokestack To Suv: The Individual As Regulated Entity In The New Era Of Environmental Law, Michael P. Vandenbergh

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A debate between advocates of command and control regulation and advocates of economic incentives has dominated environmental legal scholarship over the last three decades. Both sides in the debate implicitly embrace the premise that regulatory measures should be directed almost exclusively at large industrial polluters. This Article asserts that for many pollutants the premise is no longer supportable, and that much of the focus of regulation in the future should turn to individuals and households. Examining a wide range of empirical data, the Article presents the first profile of individual behavior as a source of pollution. The profile demonstrates that …


Beyond Elegance: A Testable Typology Of Social Norms In Corporate Environmental Compliance, Michael P. Vandenbergh Mar 2003

Beyond Elegance: A Testable Typology Of Social Norms In Corporate Environmental Compliance, Michael P. Vandenbergh

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Social norms scholarship faces the challenge of becoming a mature discipline. Norms theorists have proposed several elegant, widely applicable theories of the origin, evolution and function of norms. For the most part, these theories have suggested that social norms can be viewed as a refinement to the behavioral assumptions of rational choice theory. Although this approach at least implicitly suggests that accounting for norms will improve the predictive capacity of rational choice models, the work must overcome substantial hurdles if it is to do so. The wide range of norms and mechanisms of norm influence on behavior complicate the 'formal …


The Electric Deregulation Fiasco: Looking To Regulatory Federalism To Promote A Balance Between Markets And The Provision Of Public Goods, Jim Rossi May 2002

The Electric Deregulation Fiasco: Looking To Regulatory Federalism To Promote A Balance Between Markets And The Provision Of Public Goods, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Essay uses three recent books - two by a historians and one by an economist - to address the electric power deregulation fiasco in the U.S. It argues that public law has an important role to play in deregulated markets. At least in part, the essay argues, public law is to blame for the failure of deregulation in California. At the same time, the Essay suggests, without clarification of jurisdictional responsibility and incentives in public law, adoption of effective competitive market reforms to the electric power industries will not succeed in the future.


Universal Service In Competitive Retail Electric Power Markets: Whither The Duty To Serve?, Jim Rossi Jan 2000

Universal Service In Competitive Retail Electric Power Markets: Whither The Duty To Serve?, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article addresses whether traditional service obligations can coexist with retail competition. A rationale often given for universal service obligations in the telecommunications industry is that universal service, by promoting interconnectivity, enhances network system benefits for all customers. While the network economies argument may have worked to sustain universal service in the face of telecommunications deregulation, it is tenuous when applied to the natural gas and electricity industries. Many reformers look askance at the duty to serve in competitive retail utility service markets, often pointing to conflict between retail competition in electricity and the duty to serve. This article argues, …


Lessons From The Procedural Politics Of The "Comprehensive" National Energy Policy Act Of 1992, Jim A. Rossi Jan 1995

Lessons From The Procedural Politics Of The "Comprehensive" National Energy Policy Act Of 1992, Jim A. Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article examines the political and procedural history of the EP Act in order to arrive at some general lessons and recommendations regarding congressional formation of energy policy. At least two commentators on the EP Act praise it as the "second generation" of federal energy policy, based in laws that achieve "their mandates more by consensus than coercion." The EP Act's history, however, was far from smooth. Procedural obstacles, such as filibuster, inter-committee conflict, and inter-chamber conflict, led many to declare the EP Act dead on several occasions prior to its passage.


Redeeming Judicial Review: The Hard Look Doctrine And Federal Regulatory Efforts To Restructure The Electric Utility Industry, Jim M. Rossi Aug 1994

Redeeming Judicial Review: The Hard Look Doctrine And Federal Regulatory Efforts To Restructure The Electric Utility Industry, Jim M. Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Recent policy-effect studies denounce judicial review for its adverse effects on agency decision-making. In its strong version, the policy-effect thesis suggests that judicial review has paralyzed innovative agency decision-making. Professor Rossi reacts to policy-effect studies, particularly as they have been used to attack the hard look doctrine in administrative law. He revisits Professor Richard Pierce's policy-effect description of the effects of judicial review of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Professor Rossi's survey of recent FERC decision-making provides some support for an attenuated version of the policy-effect thesis but leads him to reject the strong version of the thesis. Much …