Energy and Utilities Law Commons^™

Five Prairie Reflections On Reviving Rural America, Hannah Haksgaard, Sean Kammer, Travis L. Letellier

West Virginia Law Review

This Essay offers five reflections on Ann E. Eisenberg’s book Reviving Rural America: Toward Policies for Resilience. Each reflection approaches the book from the positionality of writing from rural America, specifically the prairies of South Dakota. Collectively, the reflections cover the politics of voting in a red rural state, policies of local municipal government, the central economic principles in the book, the presence of energy production in rural America, and environmentalism’s relevancy and impact.

Supreme Court Gives States The Green Light To Go Ham: The Dormant Commerce Clause In Renewable Energy In Light Of National Pork Producers, Ellie Carl

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Two years ago, the Supreme Court slaughtered the Dormant Commerce Clause in its decision in National Pork Producers v. Ross. While the case is not explicitly about environmental law, it significantly affects environmental laws and policies, especially pertaining to state renewable portfolio standards. These state policies are especially prone to Dormant Commerce Clause litigation, given the interstate nature of electric grids. This paper argues that the scope of the Dormant Commerce Clause in light of this decision is appropriate for ensuring that states have adequate wiggle room in renewable energy regulation, but not an excessive amount of leeway so …

Lead Telecommunications Cables: A Call For Concern?, Zachary Young

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

From the late 1800s until the 1950s, telecommunication companies across the United States utilized lead casing to protect their telecommunication lines. As technology developed and different types of plastic coatings were created, telecommunication companies phased out the use of lead cables. However, the lead cables remain in the air and buried in the ground, even continuing to provide telephone service for some. The failure to remove these cables, most of which are not in use anymore, has generated a slew of issues for the modem-day telecommunication companies that have inherited these cables from their predecessors. As the protective casing decays, …

Local Environmental Impacts Of Data Center Proliferation, Reid Lifset, Pranava Raparla, Amy L. Stein, Lauren Bridges, Jim Mcelfish, Tim Cywinski

UF Law Faculty Publications

Demand for data centers is increasing worldwide, raising questions about the electric grid, the transition to renewable energy, and distribution infrastructure. Northern Virginia is home to data centers that process nearly 70% of global digital traffic, leading officials to call for construction, at ratepayers’ expense, of new power plants and new transmission lines across four states, as well as the continued operation of coal-powered plants that had been scheduled to go offline. On December 6, 2024, the Environmental Law Institute and the Network for Digital Economy and the Environment co-hosted a panel of experts who examined the environmental impacts and …

Goldilocks And The Three Frameworks: An Argument For A Hybrid Approach To Regulating Fusion Energy Systems, Mitch Boyer

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Part I will explore the beginnings of nuclear power regulation in the United States by outlining the short lifespan of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), the NRC’s [Nuclear Regulatory Commission's] predecessor, and why the Agency’s two competing directives of protecting public safety and encouraging industry development eventually led to its dissolution in 1974. The subsequent separation and assignment of these directives to newly created agencies— safety to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and development to the Energy Research and Development Administration—demonstrates that the NRC’s primary statutory directive is regulating nuclear power safely. Part II will delve into the early days of …

Energizing Federal Action Toward A More Coherent National Nuclear Waste Policy, Sydney C. Schoonover

Vanderbilt Law Review

Nuclear power offers the United States one viable path toward decarbonization of the energy sector as the only zero-emission energy source capable of baseload generation. Despite the clear climatic, economic, and energy independence benefits of expanding reliance on nuclear power and the emergence of cheaper, safer, and more efficient advanced reactor technology that has lowered barriers to adoption, buildout of nuclear generation capacity faces impediments. The lack of a comprehensive national nuclear waste management strategy is perhaps the most significant obstacle to the siting of new nuclear power facilities. Currently, due to the federal government’s failure to establish a geologic …

“Everybody Else Seems To Be Able To Get Help”: Rural Regulation, Access Loss, And Antigovernment Sentiment, Jennifer Sherman

West Virginia Law Review

This Essay draws upon two decades of the author’s research on rural United States communities to explicate ways in which the regulatory state has intervened in rural areas and economies, often with the claim of protecting land, natural resources, and/or wildlife. The outcomes are frequently disastrous for the human populations of those communities and generally are not planned for or mitigated by policy. The Essay argues that rural distrust of and aversion to government oversight is not caused primarily by ideological or cultural stances, but rather is an outcome of experiences of abandonment by the agencies that are meant to …

Who Owns The Heat? Property Rights In Geothermal Energy, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Landowners can have ownership claims to oil, gas, water, and other tangible natural resources located in their subsoil. But can they also claim rights to the thermal energy found below their land? With 50,000 times more heat energy within the top 10,000 meters (around 33,000 feet) of the Earth’s surface than contained in all of the world’s oil and natural gas resources combined, geothermal energy is a tremendously promising, clean, and renewable energy resource. Yet, ambiguities in property rights related to the development and ownership of geothermal energy resources raise questions about who is entitled to benefit from that potential. …

Tomorrow’S Climate Law, Today, Daniel E. Walters

Faculty Scholarship

The prospects for domestic legislation or international treaties that would require governments, businesses, and individuals to stop emitting the greenhouse gases that cause global climate change are particularly bleak these days. Even as the United States has recently passed its most ambitious climate legislation to date in the Inflation Reduction Act and related “green industrial policy” legislation, these successes were ultimately a compromise with politicians who refused to consider more direct controls on emissions. Assuming they survive the second Trump Administration, the green subsidies and nudges contained in these laws, coupled with a groundswell of private environmental governance, will do …

Konstitusionalitas Model Putusan Bawaslu Dalam Penyelesaian Pelanggaran Administratif Pemilu, Muhammad Rifai Yusuf, Syarif Hidayat

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

As one of the institutions that carries out quasi-judicial functions in the field of general elections, Bawaslu could issue a decision through an adjudication process. In 2017, Bawaslu was criticized for its several decisions in the Sipol case held by the KPU for the registration of participants in the 2019 general elections, mainly because it was considered that Bawaslu equated its position with the Supreme Court by assessing that Sipol in the KPU Regulation was not in line with the Election Law. In 2024, decisions on election administrative violations appear to be softer or seem to avoid the same potential …

Orientasi Rigid Dan Moderat Dalam Penafsiran Original Intent Dan Praktiknya Di Indonesia, Muhammad Alwi Khoiri Ramdani, Susi Dwi Harijanto, Lailani Sungkar

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Metode original intent lazimnya menghasilkan penafsiran yang bersifat rigid sesuai niat perumusnya. Selama konstitusi tidak diubah, maka tafsiran original intent pun tidak berubah. Namun penggunaan metode penafsiran original intent di Indonesia dapat menghasilkan pemaknaan yang berbeda/berubah meskipun ketentuan konstitusi dan perumusnya tidak berganti. Hal ini terjadi karena terdapat perkembangan pemikiran dalam penerapan metode penafsiran original intent. Penelitian ini membahas mengenai perkembangan pemikiran tersebut dan menganalisa pola penerapan metode original intent dalam penafsiran konstitusi yang dilakukan oleh Mahkamah Konstitusi di Indonesia. Ini merupakan penelitian doktriner dengan pendekatan konsep dan kasus. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat perkembangan pemikiran dalam penerapan metode penafsiran …

Quo Vadis Hak Atas Kesehatan Reproduksi: Analisis Rekonstruksi Pengaturan Aborsi Di Indonesia (Perbandingan Hukum Indonesia Dengan Perancis), Dian Kencana Putri, Erna Dyah Kusumawati

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Pembatasan akses aborsi di Indonesia menyebabkan banyak perempuan dengan kehamilan tidak diinginkan terpaksa berhadapan dengan hukum. Pembatasan aborsi yang mengakibatkan kriminalisasi ini dapat menyebabkan dilema moral bagi banyak perempuan yang mengalami kehamilan tidak diinginkan. Padahal aborsi berpotensi terjadi pada setiap perempuan berusia produktif di Indonesia. Aborsi di Indonesia merupakan tindakan ilegal dan aborsi hanya dapat dilakukan dalam dua kondisi saja, yakni kedaruratan medis dan kehamilan yang disebabkan perkosaan. Artikel ini menganalisa bagaimana sebenarnya substansi aborsi dapat dimasukkan pada kategori hak kesehatan reproduksi perempuan dan mengapa negara Indonesia perlu mengubah kebijakan dan hukum mengenai aborsi. Untuk melihat seberapa pentingnya negara harus …

Get Your Act Together: The Alternative Fines Act In Federal Prosecutions Of Corporate Environmental Crimes, Josiah B. Harmar

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Quo Vadis Desain Pengamanan Hakim Dari Perbuatan Merendahkan Kehormatan Dan Keluhuran Martabat Hakim (Pmkh) Di Indonesia, Zainatul Ilmiyah

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Judges, as the main judicial actors in law enforcement, have an independent nature, both in terms of institutions and in terms of determining their decisions. However, in exercising their authority, judges are often faced with the risk of injury, both physical and psychological, by the public, who are not satisfied with the decisions made by the judges. With an empirical legal research method and using a conceptual approach, statute approach, and comparative approach, this study aims to find the best form in the design of an institutional model for judge and court security units. In this study, it was found …

Clean Data: Recursion As Pollution In Environmental Ai, Joshua Fairfield

Scholarly Articles

If “data is the new oil,” then corruption in the data used to train artificial intelligence (AI) constitutes a new form of pollution. Environmental AI has traditionally been discussed in terms of its indirect effects on the environment—the irony of burning power, processor cycles, and heat to produce solutions to stop and heal environmental damage. But there is a deeper problem. When environmental AI suggests interventions, its outputs are written onto the landscape. If that landscape is then read as data to retrain AI, there is a risk of model collapse and catastrophic forgetting, as the snake devours its own …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Re-Imagining Tomorrow: A Technology, Innovation Law, And Ethics Symposium On Addictive Technology And Children, Margaret Chon

Seattle University Law Review

In this Foreword, Professor Margaret Chon introduces Seattle University's Technology, Innovation Law, and Ethics (TILE) program, the 2024 TILE Symposium, and Dr. Gaia Bernstein’s Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies.

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Let The Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations For Content Moderation, Caitlin Ring Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, …

This Is Not A Game: The Addictive Allure Of Digital Companions, Nizan Geslevich Packin, Karni Chagal-Feferkorn

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have become an inescapable part of modern childhood, reshaping education, leisure activities, entertainment, and social interaction. From AI-powered tutors that adapt to individual learning styles to emotionally responsive chatbots that simulate human companionship, these systems promise unprecedented personalization, cognitive stimulation, and social support. However, these benefits mask significant risks that remain unregulated and inadequately addressed.

Although adults are also susceptible to forming deep emotional bonds with AI companions—often trusting them as if they possessed genuine understanding and empathy—children are particularly vulnerable. Their misplaced trust can more severely distort social development, weaken critical thinking, and foster unhealthy …

Constraining The Executive Branch: Delegation, Agency Independence, And Congressional Design Of Judicial Review, Jennifer L. Selin, Pamela J. Clouser Mccann

Northwestern University Law Review

While scholarship examining the relationship between Congress, federal agencies, and the judiciary reveals variation in the statutory details that affects administrative and judicial decision-making, few studies explore the extent to which congressional delegation decisions balance both the substantive and procedural independence of agencies against the possibility of the federal judiciary’s review of administrative action.

This Article enhances scholarly understanding of delegation by providing a qualitative, theoretical, and empirical account of the circumstances under which Congress manipulates federal agency exposure to the federal judiciary. Ironically, combined with statutory provisions dictating agency independence, increasing an agency’s exposure to unelected federal judges can …

State Of The Grid: Cybersecurity Best Practices For The Utility Industry, Corban Garcia

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Developing a strong cybersecurity posture is essential for protecting critical infrastructure, especially in the utility industry. This study analyzes a multi-layered cybersecurity approach that integrates risk management, technology, governance, and workforce training. Based on an examination of industry literature, six key steps were identified. These include assessing security posture, developing policies, implementing security controls, employee training, incident response planning, and regular audits. Each step plays a vital role in mitigating cyber threats and ensuring operational resilience. A comparative analysis of cybersecurity frameworks and real-world incidents highlights the necessity of proactive security strategies. Without these foundational steps, organizations face greater risks …

A Constitutional Mandate To Adopt Avs, Kevin Frazier

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

The rapid advancement of autonomous vehicle (“AV”) technology presents a unique opportunity to enhance public safety by drastically reducing road fatalities. Despite significant private sector investment and demonstrated improvements in AV performance, public adoption and integration remain hindered by regulatory gaps and societal skepticism. This Article argues that the federal government has an affirmative obligation, rooted in the doctrine of a right to effective government, to champion the adoption of technologies like AVs that meaningfully promote the general welfare.

Drawing on the Preamble’s mandate to advance the general welfare and lessons from the transition from the Articles of Confederation to …

Recent Case Decisions

Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal

No abstract provided.

Sovereign Lands, Brent D. Chicken, Tanner M. Boyzuick

Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal

No abstract provided.

West Virginia, Andrew S. Graham

Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal

No abstract provided.

Virginia, Zachary H. Barrett, Kizito Aidam

Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal

No abstract provided.