Energy and Utilities Law Commons^™

Can Vermont Put The Nuclear Genie Back In The Bottle: A Test Of Congressional Preemptive Power?, Hope M. Babcock

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Even before the nuclear core meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors in Japan re-stoked public anxiety about nuclear energy, Vermont’s Senate, under the auspices of Vermont Act No. 160, voted to block continued operation of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant after the expiration of its forty-year operating license. This article examines whether a state can legislatively override a permit issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission extending the license of a power plant. The author places this question within a broader federalism context, in which states assert their sovereign rights to regulate the environment in the shadow of federal mandates. …

Threading The Constitutional Needle With Care: The Commerce Clause Threat To The New Infrastructure Of Renewable Power, Steven Ferrey

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

To date, the federal initiatives for renewable energy primarily focus on tax incentives and credits. State incentives comprise most of the other renewable energy incentives. Chief among these are Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPSs), feed-in tariffs, net metering, and system benefit charges/trust funds (SBCs). Government lacks the power to do anything it chooses. And this is especially true with the current state policy to build a new power infrastructure. The new energy infrastructure is all about renewable energy. Both SBC and RPS programs raise revenue by a charge reflecting the amount of power produced or transacted, and then distribute that revenue …

Virtual "Nets" And Law: Power Navigates The Supremacy Clause, Steven Ferrey

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

Net metering is the most utilized state incentive for renewable power nationwide, in place in more than eighty-five percent of all states. Utilities in all states have been required by federal law for the past seven years to make net metering available to all requesting customers. Yet a significant number of states have failed to comply with this federal law, and several other states have complied in a manner that has raised questions as to whether they have violated the Constitution's separation between state and federal jurisdiction over power. This article will not delve into the first issue of noncompliance …

Efficiency In The Regulatory Crucible: Navigating 21st Century ‘Smart’ Technology And Power, Steven Ferrey

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

The flow of money in U.S. energy policy choices has consequences, and the Obama administration’s 2009 federal stimulus package presents an interesting policy scenario. The current administration wants to pivot postindustrial America away from emitting global-warming gases and powering its economy with fossil fuels. Indeed, changing the energy technology and infrastructure of the United States has been the cornerstone of the Obama administration’s domestic policy. The federal government devoted significant amounts of stimulus funding to this agenda. It also maintained preferences for certain investments in energy efficiency and renewable energy through the tax code. A change of this significance revolving …

Faculty

LSU Journal of Energy Law and Resources

No abstract provided.

The Landsafe Socioecological Development Model For The Customary Commons Of Zambia: Evolution And Formalization, I.P.A. Manning

Natural Resources Journal

No abstract provided.

Enforcing The Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime: The Legality Of Preventive Measures, Cristian Defrancia

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Efforts to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear-weapons-related technology have increasingly involved economic, technological, and military forms of coercion implemented in an environment of low-level conflict. Coercive counterproliferation measures have included a range of actions, including targeted economic sanctions, industrial sabotage, cyber attacks, targeted killings, and military strikes. While the nonproliferation obligations of states are well-established under relevant treaties, state practice, and the international monitoring system of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), norms relating to the enforcement of those obligations are not clearly defined in legal instruments. This Article reviews the legality of prevention and enforcement measures …

Reading The Standing Tea Leaves In American Electric Power Co. V. Connecticut, Bradford C. Mank

University of Richmond Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court by an equally divided vote offour to four affirmed the Second Circuit's decision finding standing and jurisdiction in the case in American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut. While not binding as precedent beyond the Second Circuit,the case offers clues to how the Court is likely to rule in future standing cases. This article discusses the likely identities of the four Justices on each side of the standing issue in the case, as well as how Justice Sotomayor might have voted if she had not recused herself. Furthermore, the article examines how the decision expand- ed on …

Blowing Hot Air: An Analysis Of State Involvement In Greenhouse Gas Litigation, Caroline Cecot

Vanderbilt Law Review

In Massachusetts v. EPA (2007), the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the Clean Air Act ("CAA") to require the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") to regulate greenhouse gas emissions1 from motor vehicles if the EPA Administrator finds that the emissions endanger public health and welfare ("Endangerment Finding"). In December 2009, the Administrator made such an Endangerment Finding, obligating the EPA to work with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ("NHTSA") to develop average fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards for new light-duty vehicles. After issuing proposals and reviewing comments from the public, the two agencies announced their groundbreaking final regulation ("Tailpipe …

Energy And Environmental Justice: How States Can Integrate Environmental Justice Into Energy-Related Proceedings, James M. Van Nostrand

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Clean Energy And The Price Preemption Ceiling, Jim Rossi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Since the New Deal, federal preemption has precluded many state and local regulatory decisions that depart from wholesale electric prices determined under federal standards. Recent decisions treat prices that meet the federal standard as a preemption ceiling, which prohibits states from setting prices that exceed the wholesale price set in a competitive market. Both appellate courts and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission - the primary federal agency responsible for the electric power sector - have recently applied a price preemption ceiling to clean energy policies. I argue in this Article that this price ceiling preemption approach hobbles the advancement of …

Introductory Remarks: International Energy Governance, Lakshman Guruswamy

Publications

No abstract provided.

Can We Regulate Our Way To Energy Efficiency? Product Standards As Climate Policy, Noah M. Sachs

Law Faculty Publications

In this Article, I demonstrate that the regulatory strategy for energy efficiency is working. Although information disclosure, financial incentives, and other softer alternatives to regulation play a vital role in reducing energy demand, these should be viewed as complements to efficiency regulation, rather than replacements. The regulatory approach has led to substantial cost and energy savings in the past, it has enjoyed bipartisan political support, and it targets products and behaviors that are difficult to address through other policy tools. Given the politics of climate change in the United States, which make federal carbon taxes or a cap-and-trade system infeasible, …

Global Public Goods, Governance Risk, And International Energy, Timothy L. Meyer

Scholarly Works

Scholars and commentators have long argued that issue linkages provide a way to increase cooperation on global public goods by increasing participation in global institutions, building consensus, and deterring free-riding. In this symposium article, I argue that the emphasis on the potential of issue linkages to facilitate cooperation in these ways has caused commentators to underestimate how common features of international legal institutions designed to accomplish these aims can actually undermine those institutions’ ability to facilitate cooperation. I focus on two features of institutional design that are intended to encourage participation in public goods institutions but can create the risk …

Beyond Fukushima: Disasters, Nuclear Energy, And Energy Law, Lincoln L. Davies

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Adaptive Mitigation In The Electric Power Sector, Lesley K. Mcallister

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rebuttal In Defense Of The Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, Michael A. Swiger, Sharon L. White

Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy

This article rebuts certain assertions made by Mr. Thomas Schlosser in a recent article entitled Dewatering Trust Responsibility: The New Klamath River Hydroelectric and Restoration Agreements. The Klamath hydroelectric dams are not causing degrading fish disease conditions in the Klamath Basin. Dewatering Trust Responsibility overlooks the effects of water diversions for agriculture, pollution from pesticides and industrial operations and habitat degradation from timbering, ranching and other human activities on current Basin conditions. Under the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission license, PacifiCorp is taking extensive measures to protect aquatic resources in the Basin prior to …

Regulation, "Republican Moments," And Energy Policy Reform, David B. Spence

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Here Comes The Sun: Solar Power Parity With Fossil Fuels, Nathan Mee, Marc Miller

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

There is wide agreement across the political spectrum that the United States should develop domestic, renewable sources of energy. There are many ways to describe the challenges of a transition from a fossil fuel economy to one fueled by atoms, the sun, or the wind, but in a nutshell, the problem is said to be cost: the basic reason the United States continues overwhelmingly to rely on fossil fuels is that they are comparatively cheap, and alternative energy is relatively expensive.

Or so it seems. This Article is intended to encourage more open discussion about real energy costs. To keep …

India's Nuclear Civil Liability Bill And Supplier's Liability: One Step Towards Modernizing The Outdated International Nuclear Liability Regime, Arya Hariharan

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.