Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Missed Connections In The U.N. Agenda: Applying The Women, Peace And Security Framework To The Feminization Of Poverty, Lauren A. Fleming

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Women, Peace and Security, a multifaceted agenda intended to address the particular ways in which conflict affects women, has been on the United Nations agenda since the landmark Security Council Resolution 1325 passed in 2000. The unequal burden of poverty on women, a phenomenon that has been coined “the feminization of poverty,” has been on the United Nations agenda for even longer, since the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women. Yet, despite the fact that poverty and inequality both cause and result in conflict in a violent cycle, the problem of the feminization of poverty has not been integrated into the …

The Dormant Commerce Clause As A Way To Combat The Anti-Competitive, Anti-Transmission-Development Effects Of State Right Of First Refusal Laws For Electricity Transmission Construction, Walker Mogen

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

To quickly decarbonize the electricity grid, new sources of renewable energy have to be connected to the grid. To connect these sources of energy to the grid, the rate of construction of new electricity infrastructure must increase quickly. The process to construct new electricity transmission infrastructure, however, is filled with chokepoints that slow its construction. State right of first refusal laws for transmission construction are one the things slowing the build out of the grid. These laws limit which companies can construct new transmission infrastructure to utilities and other companies already operating transmission infrastructure in a state. This Note, using …

Meeting Clean Energy Goals Will Require The Grid Of The Future, Ken Berlin, Rob Gramlich, Alexandra B. Klass, Josiah Neeley

Articles

The transmission grid is the critical superhighway that connects energy supply and demand. But our grid was designed for the power plants of the past—not for the diverse range of resources and technologies of our clean energy future. Over 70 percent of the nation’s transmission infrastructure is more than 25 years old, and in many areas of the country constraints have already been an impediment to renewable power. To meet greenhouse gas reduction goals, we will need to expand electric transmission systems by 60 percent by 2030 and possibly triple the capacity of these systems by 2050. The Infl ation …

Weathering State And Local Budget Storms: Fiscal Federalism With An Uncooperative Congress, David Gamage, Darien Shanske, Gladriel Shobe, Adam Thimmesch

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Throughout most of 2020, state and local governments faced severe budget crises as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased demand for state welfare services and rising state expenses related to controlling the spread of COVID-19 stretched state and local budgets to their breaking points. At the same time, layoffs, business closures, and social distancing measures reduced states’ primary sources of tax revenues. The traditional practice of American fiscal federalism is for the federal government to step in to provide aid during a national emergency of this magnitude, because state and local governments lack the federal government’s monetary and fiscal …

The Particle Problem: Using Rcra Citizen Suits To Fill Gaps In The Clean Air Act, Kurt Wohlers

Michigan Law Review

While the Clean Air Act has done a substantial amount for the environment and the health of individuals in the United States, there is still much to be done. For all its complexity, the Act has perpetuated systemic inequities and allowed harms to fall more heavily on low-income communities and communities of color. This is no less true for particulate matter pollution, which is becoming worse by the year and is a significant cause of illness and premature death. This Note argues that particulate pollution, traditionally only regulated on the federal level within the ambit of the Clean Air Act, …

Environmental Governance By Contract: The Growing Role Of Supply Chain Contracting, Michael P. Vandenburgh, Patricia A. Moore

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Corporate net zero climate commitments and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies have the potential to bypass barriers to international, national, and subnational government action on climate change and other environmental issues. This Article presents the results of a new empirical study that demonstrates the remarkably widespread use of environmental supply chain contracting requirements. The study finds that roughly 80% of the ten largest firms in seven global sectors include environmental requirements in supply chain contracting, a substantial increase over the 50% reported by a comparable study fifteen years ago. The Article concludes that the prevalence of environmental supply chain …

Whither Rationality?, Shi-Ling Hsu

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Reviving Rationality: Saving Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Sake of the Environment and Our Health. By Michael A. Livermore and Richard L. Revesz.

Evaluating Project Need For Natural Gas Pipelines In An Age Of Climate Change, Alexandra B. Klass

Law & Economics Working Papers

As the Biden administration attempts to make climate change the focus of many aspects of its domestic and international agenda, an independent federal regulatory agency—the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)—finds itself at the center of debates over the nation’s energy policies and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Under Sections 4 and 5 of the Natural Gas Act of 1938, FERC has the authority and obligation to ensure that rates, charges, and rules relating to interstate natural gas sales and transportation are just, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory. Under Section 7 of the Natural Gas Act, FERC also has the authority to grant certificates …

Contracting Tools For Transportation Data, Suzanne Bell, Olivia Dworkin

Journal of Law and Mobility

Troves of transportation data can be, and are, produced by smart infrastructure. Municipalities collect various kinds of transportation data, including traffic information such as accidents, flows, and volumes; bicycle information such as bike counts; pedestrian information such as pedestrian counts; smart bus stop information; street mapping information; location information for traffic signals; mapping details such as the miles of city streets; and information on roadwork and infrastructure planning such as construction or road closures expected to affect traffic.

Governments, educational institutions, non-profit enterprises, and businesses find transportation data useful for purposes such as improving infrastructure, reducing traffic congestion, improving vehicle …

Unreasonable Risk: The Failure To Ban Asbestos And The Future Of Toxic Substances Regulation, Rachel Rothschild

Law & Economics Working Papers

Every day, Americans are exposed to hundreds of chemicals in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the products we use. The vast majority of these chemicals have never been tested for safety. Many have been shown to cause serious health harms, ranging from cancer to autoimmune illness to IQ loss. They also have disproportionate effects on some of the most vulnerable populations in our society, such as children, minorities, and industrial workers.

The law that is supposed to protect Americans from dangerous chemical exposures – the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – was long considered a dead …

Opportunities And Challenges For Deploying Connected And Automated Vehicles To Address Transportation Disparities In Urban Areas, Erika Shepard, Kimberly Napoline, Frank Douma, Adeel Lari

Journal of Law and Mobility

As the development and testing of connected and automated vehicles (CAV) accelerates, it is important for government stakeholders, planners, and policymakers to have a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities CAVs will bring to infrastructure, communities, and lifestyles. There is general consensus among scholars and transportation practitioners that CAV will “disrupt” transportation systems, land use patterns, and socioeconomic power structures as they exist today.The implications of CAV on transportation infrastructure have been the subject of numerous academic and professional studies, suggesting both positive and negative effects may occur. Furthermore, in an American context, transportation planning has historically contributed to …

Setting The Agenda: The Legal And Historical Context To Best Understand How Transportation Technology Might Be Regulated To Combat Forced Labor, Brittany Eastman

Journal of Law and Mobility

Transportation is a piece of all human activity. As individuals and as a society, the logistics of getting people and goods from one place to another is a question we answer countless times a day. Just today, billions of people drove to work, took the bus to school, used a rideshare to get to the store, or took the train into the city to enjoy an evening out on the town. This list does not even consider all the items people have ordered online which will be shipped and delivered to homes. Even more exciting is the innovation that inspired …

A Congressional Review Act For The Major Questions Doctrine, Christopher J. Walker

Articles

Last Term, the Supreme Court recognized a new major questions doctrine, which requires Congress to provide clear statutory authorization for an agency to regulate on a question of great economic or political significance. This new substantive canon of statutory interpretation will be invoked in court challenges to federal agency actions across the country, and it will no doubt spark considerable scholarly attention. This Essay does not wade into those doctrinal or theoretical debates. Instead, it suggests one way Congress could respond: by enacting a Congressional Review Act for the major questions doctrine. In other words, Congress could establish a fast-track …

Regulating For Energy Justice, Alexandra B. Klass, Gabriel Chan

Articles

In this Article, we explore and critique the foundational norms that shape federal and state energy regulation and suggest pathways for reform that can incorporate principles of “energy justice.” These energy justice principles—developed in academic scholarship and social movements—include the equitable distribution of costs and benefits of the energy system, equitable participation and representation in energy decision making, and restorative justice for structurally marginalized groups.

While new legislation, particularly at the state level, is critical to the effort to advance energy justice, our focus here is on regulators’ ability to implement reforms now using their existing authority to advance the …

Exclusion Cycles: Reinforcing Disparities In Medicine, Ana Bracic, Shawneequa L. Callier, Nicholson Price

Articles

Minoritized populations face exclusion across contexts from politics to welfare to medicine. In medicine, exclusion manifests in substantial disparities in practice and in outcome. While these disparities arise from many sources, the interaction between institutions, dominant-group behaviors, and minoritized responses shape the overall pattern and are key to improving it. We apply the theory of exclusion cycles to medical practice, the collection of medical big data, and the development of artificial intelligence in medicine. These cycles are both self-reinforcing and other-reinforcing, leading to dismayingly persistent exclusion. The interactions between such cycles offer lessons and prescriptions for effective policy.

Not A Suicide Pact: Urgent Strategic Recommendations For Reducing Domestic Terrorism In The United States, Barbara L. Mcquade

Articles

America’s Bill of Rights protects U.S. citizens’ rights to free speech, to bear arms, and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, among other things. But, as the Supreme Court has consistently held, no right is absolute. All rights must be balanced against other societal needs, including and especially public safety. As the threat of domestic terrorism metastasizes in the United States, Americans need to use the practical wisdom that Justice Robert L. Jackson advised in 1949 to ensure the survival of the republic.

In recognition of this growing threat, the Biden administration issued the nation’s first National Strategy …

State Sponsored Radicalization, Sahar F. Aziz

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Where was the FBI in the months leading up to the violent siege on the U.S. Capitol in 2021? Among the many questions surrounding that historic day, this one reveals the extent to which double standards in law enforcement threaten our nation’s security. For weeks, Donald Trump’s far right-wing supporters had been publicly calling for and planning a protest in Washington, D.C. on January 6, the day Congress was to certify the 2021 presidential election results. Had they been following credible threats to domestic security, officials would have attempted to stop the Proud Boys and QAnon from breaching the Capitol …

Material Support Prosecutions And Their Inherent Selectivity, Wadie E. Said

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The government’s maintenance of a list of designated foreign terrorist groups and criminalization of any meaningful interaction or transactions – whether peaceful or violent - with such groups are no longer novel concepts. Inherent in both listing these groups and prosecuting individuals for assisting them, even in trivial ways, is the government’s essentially unreviewable discretion to classify groups and proceed with any subsequent prosecutions. A summary review of the past quarter-century reveals the government’s predilection for pushing the boundaries of what it deems “material support” to terrorist groups, all the while making greater and greater use of a criminal statutory …

The World Of Private Terrorism Litigation, Maryam Jamshidi

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Since 9/11, private litigants have been important players in the “fight” against terrorism. Using several federal tort statutes, these plaintiffs have sued foreign states as well as other parties, like non-governmental charities, financial institutions, and social media companies, for terrorism-related activities. While these private suits are meant to address injuries suffered by plaintiffs or their loved ones, they often reinforce and reflect the U.S. government’s terrorism-related policies, including the racial and religious discrimination endemic to them. Indeed, much like the U.S. government’s criminal prosecutions for terrorism-related activities, private terrorism suits disproportionately implicate Muslim and/or Arab individuals and entities while reinforcing …

The Energy Transition And Mining: Reconciling The Growth Of Renewable Energy With The Need For New Mineral Development, Alexandra B. Klass, Allison J. Mitchell

Articles

Under the Paris Agreement, the global governmental signatories embraced the goal to hold global average temperature increase to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” while “pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” Almost every country in the world signed on to the Paris Agreement, adopting the prevailing science that anthropocentric greenhouse gas emissions would result in rising global temperatures and catastrophic damages from climate change in the absence of immediate action. In pursuit of this goal, the signatories agreed that all member countries would work together to bring greenhouse gas emissions to zero within the …

What's Left Of The Affordable Care Act?, Helen Levy, Andrew Ying, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

We assess the progress of the Affordable Care Act a decade after it became law. Although most of it remains intact, some parts have been repealed and others have not been implemented as expected. We review how and why the law has aged. Legal challenges have done less damage than is commonly appreciated, with the exception of the Supreme Court case that thwarted full expansion of Medicaid. Most of the important changes have other sources. Some parts were born to fail. Others were dismantled in response to interest-group pressure. Still others have failed to thrive for any number of reasons. …

The Coronavirus And The Risks To The Elderly In Long-Term Care, William Gardner, David States, Nicholas Bagley

Articles

The elderly in long-term care (LTC) and their caregiving staff are at elevated risk from COVID-19. Outbreaks in LTC facilities can threaten the health care system. COVID-19 suppression should focus on testing and infection control at LTC facilities. Policies should also be developed to ensure that LTC facilities remain adequately staffed and that infection control protocols are closely followed. Family will not be able to visit LTC facilities, increasing isolation and vulnerability to abuse and neglect. To protect residents and staff, supervision of LTC facilities should remain a priority during the pandemic.

Income Inequality, Progressive Taxation And Tax Expenditures, James R. Hines Jr.

Book Chapters

There are important and growing concerns about income inequality in the United States and other high-income countries. These concerns reflect rising apprehension about the political and social consequences of inequality and worries that the advance of technology, expanding international trade and investment, and other economic developments may have significantly widened income gaps in recent decades and will continue to do so in the future. In the United States, these concerns have prompted renewed calls for political activism and vigorous searches for policy measures that might improve the relative economic positions of low- and middle-income Americans.

There are many ways in …

Environmental Law In The United States, Howard J. Bromberg, Joshua I. Barrett

Book Chapters

Environmental law in the United States comprises a complex patchwork of federal, state, and local statutes and regulations, along with the traditions of common law. Most statutory environmental programs emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. In the 1960s, writings such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) fueled environmental awareness in the United States; the first Earth Day, celebrated on April 22, 1970, symbolized the birth of vironmental law entered a new era in 1970, when President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act and the 1970 Clean …

Trump, Donald: Environmental Policy Of,, Howard J. Bromberg

Book Chapters

Businessman and US. president Donald John Trump was born in Queens, New York, to Frederick (Fred) Trump and Mary MacLeod. Fred Trump, a real estate developer, brought Donald into the family real estate business. Through his business operations, Trump became a billionaire. Donald also became a television celebrity with the reality show The Apprentice. In one of the most unpredictable elections in American history, Trump became the 45th president of the United States. His administration aggressively promoted development of oil, gas, mineral, and coal resources. In doing so, he revoked numerous environmental protections.

Montreal Protocol, Howard J. Bromberg, Mark S. Coyne, W. J. Maunder

Book Chapters

DATE: Signed September 16, 1987; took effect January 1, 1989; amended 1990, 1992, 1995, 1997, and 1999

The Montreal Protocol was created to help preserve the Earth’s ozone layer by severely limiting the production and use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs ) and other halogenated compounds.

Hemp Fiber, Howard J. Bromberg, Ming Y. Zheng

Book Chapters

Hemp, Cannabis sativa, is indigenous to temperate regions in Asia. All major industrialized countries but the United States cultivate hemp for its fibers and oil-rich seeds. The former Soviet Union was the world's leading producer until the 1980s. As of 2018, China was the largest producer, with other significant industries in Ukraine, Russia, China, Canada, Austria, Australia, Great Britain, Hungary, Romania, Poland, France, Italy, and Spain.

Cannabis was initially spread around the world because of its fiber, not its intoxicant chemicals or its nutritious oil seeds. It is one of the oldest sources of textile fiber, whose use for cloth …

A Study On The United States Renewable Energy Policy Design And Outcomes, Dmitry Zelik

SJD Dissertations

Energy is essential for the existence of modem civilization, and the amount of energy consumed by society is constantly growing. In 2015, the United States alone generated about 4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity. About 67% of the electricity generated was from fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum). The United States' high dependence on fossil fuels leads to numerous problems, such as increased greenhouse gas emissions, urban air pollution, as well as geopolitical and military tensions. There are two primary ways that scholars and politicians are trying to address the problem of fossil-fuel consumption--either by reducing the population's dependence on …

Searching For Effective And Constitutional Responses To Homegrown Terrorists, Barbara L. Mcquade

Articles

Thank you, Brad, and thank you to the Law Review for inviting me here today. Protecting national security while honoring civil liberties is the greatest challenge of our generation. As a prosecutor, I am charged with protecting national security, and I understand the importance of protecting the public from acts of terrorism. But prosecutors are also sworn to uphold the Constitution. In fact, at the U.S. Attorney's Office, we are also charged with prosecuting violations of civil rights. So in every case, we understand how important it is to protect people's constitutional rights, such as First Amendment rights to free …

Empirical Research For Public Policy: With Examples From Family Law, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

Perhaps more than in any other field, legal scholarship has aimed directly at influencing public policy. Hence, it is not surprising that empirical scholarship on law related issues often seems to have an agenda that extends beyond the common social science goals of adding to our knowledge base and understanding of human behavior to suggesting to policy makers and practitioners legal and administrative changes that will ameliorate problems they confront and, by the researcher’s lights, make this a better world in which to live.