The Experts below are selected from a list of 195 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform

Jim Rossi - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • The Trojan Horse of Electric Power Transmission Line Siting Authority
    Lewis & Clark Law School Environmental Law, 2009
    Co-Authors: Jim Rossi
    Abstract:

    Reform proposals pending in the U.S. Congress would increase Federal and regional Authority to preempt states in siting transmission lines in order to allow the development of a high-voltage transmission grid for renewable resources. This Article recognizes the inadequacy of existing state siting Authority over transmission but takes a skeptical approach to expanding Federal siting jurisdiction as a solution to the problem, and argues that the over-attention to transmission line siting Authority is a bit of a Trojan horse in the climate change debate. Specifically, because it ignores the more difficult issues of how the costs and benefits of transmission are balanced and how it will be paid for, expanding Federal siting jurisdiction alone will not remove barriers to transmission infrastructure and may present some hidden problems of its own. Legislative focus on enhancing Federal Authority over transmission lines has confused responsibility for this issue, further delaying Federal administrators and regional bodies from taking proactive approaches that they currently possess Authority to implement. Further, transmission siting Authority reforms can actually undermine climate change goals if they do not contemplate regulators’ consideration of the full costs and benefits associated with a project. Reforms must also assess how the costs of transmission will be allocated and priced. Failure to do these things can make transmission siting Authority a Trojan horse in the climate change debate—masking fundamental issues that could harm the climate and keeping reformers from focusing on the more serious barriers faced by the large-scale development of renewable resources.

  • The Trojan horse of electric power transmission line siting Authority.(Greening the Grid Building a Legal Framework for Carbon Neutrality)
    Environmental Law, 2009
    Co-Authors: Jim Rossi
    Abstract:

    Reform proposals pending in the U.S. Congress would increase Federal and regional Authority to preempt states in siting transmission lines in order to allow the development of a high-voltage transmission grid for renewable resources. This Article recognizes the inadequacy of existing state siting Authority over transmission but takes a skeptical approach to expanding Federal siting jurisdiction as a solution to the problem, and argues that the over-attention to transmission line siting Authority is a bit of a Trojan horse in the climate change debate. Specifically, because it ignores the more difficult issues of how the costs and benefits of transmission are balanced and how it will be paid for, expanding Federal siting jurisdiction alone will not remove barriers to transmission infrastructure and may present some hidden problems of its own. Legislative focus on enhancing Federal Authority over transmission lines has confused responsibility for this issue, further delaying Federal administrators and regional bodies from taking proactive approaches that they currently possess Authority to implement. Further, transmission siting Authority reforms can actually undermine climate change goals if they do not contemplate regulators' consideration of the full costs and benefits associated with a project. Reforms must also assess how the costs of transmission will be allocated and priced Failure to do these things can make transmission siting Authority a Trojan horse in the climate change debate masking fundamental issues that could harm the climate and keeping reformers from focusing on the more serious barriers faced by the large-scale development of renewable resources.

Laura S Jensen - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Federal Authority vs state autonomy the supreme court s role revisited
    Public Administration Review, 1999
    Co-Authors: Laura S Jensen
    Abstract:

    Charles Wise's "Judicial Federalism: The Resurgence of the Supreme Courts Role in the Protection of State Sovereignty" (Public Administration Review, March/April 1998) provides an informative survey of recent cases in which the U.S. Supreme Court has considered assertions of national Authority versus subnational claims of governmental autonomy and decided in favor of the latter. Wise is to be credited for bringing these cases to our attention, for they indeed have significant implications for American Federalism and public administration. His brief synopsis, however, overlooks important aspects of some of these Court decisions which potentially render their meaning rather less auspicious than what he portrays. For the Supreme Court's current stance toward state sovereignty to be fully assessed, a closer look at these cases is required, one which better situates them within the larger political context in which they were made and should be interpreted. Consider first New York v. United States (505 U.S. 144, 1992), in which the State of New York and two of its counties successfully challenged the 1985 Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act's requirement that the states either regulate the disposal of low-level radioactive waste according to congressional dictates or accept ownership of it ("take title"). Given the contemporary trend coupling Federal policy making Authority with state and local responsibility for program implementation and administration, advocates of a more balanced Federalism have much to cheer in the New York majority's emphatic holding that the U.S. government may not constitutionally "commandeer" state governments and their administrative agencies into the service of Federal regulatory purposes. Yet they must not underestimate the fact that in reaching that decision, the New York Court also gratuitously upheld conditions of Federal aid that had not even been challenged in the case, reaffirming the government's effectively plenary power to regulate the behavior of subnational governments and individual citizens via the Spending Clause (U.S. Constitution, Article 1, [sections] 8). This is not the first case in which the Federal courts have volunteered the notion, in the course of overturning instances of direct regulation, that Congressional goals might be more easily achieved through the "alternate whip of economic pressure and seductive favor" (Maryland v. Environmental Protection Agency, 530 F. 2nd 215, 228, 1975), but the New York majority was remarkably blunt in reminding the political branches about the force of conditional aid: one of two "methods, short of outright coercion, by which Congress may urge a State to adopt a legislative program consistent with Federal interests" (505 U.S. 166). Even those justices dissenting in New York v. U.S. explicitly condoned conditional Federal spending schemes. As Justice White put it, the spending power offered the Government a way to enact the "take title" provision "under the Court's standards." Had Congress crafted the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act to condition the states' Federal grant assistance upon their willingness to accept ownership of or otherwise accept responsibility for the radioactive waste in question, the legislation would easily have passed constitutional muster (505 U.S. 208). The conditional spending power (i.e., the ability of Congress to attach conditions to the funds it expends) has become a vitally important source of national government Authority to monitor and regulate the activities of both subnational governments and American citizens. This is so not only because the U.S. budget has grown and Federal spending initiatives increased in number and scope, but especially because: long-standing Federal court doctrine permits conditional offers of aid to circumvent most if not all of the restrictions that the U.S. Constitution otherwise imposes on the Federal government's Authority to regulate the behavior of citizens or the states directly (Jensen, 1993, 1998). …

Anita K. Poole - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Heather Eckert - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • negotiating environmental agreements regional or Federal Authority
    Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2003
    Co-Authors: Heather Eckert
    Abstract:

    Abstract This paper examines the possible strategic advantage enjoyed by a country when its regional governments negotiate international environmental agreements rather than the Federal government. A model in which two countries negotiate an international agreement on the abatement of a shared pollutant is developed. Each country's exogenous constitution determines whether the Federal or regional government negotiates and enforces international agreements. We show that a region's relative aversion to abatement can provide the country with a strategic advantage when the region holds the regulatory powers. If the domestic region is sufficiently large and the foreign country's regulatory powers lie with either the Federal government or a larger region, the country is better off relative to Federal jurisdiction. This strategic advantage is analogous to that enjoyed by a Federal government that can delegate negotiation power. Therefore, domestic political institutions can create the same advantages as the ability to delegate.

Jake W. Looney - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.