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Special districts are an increasingly important part of the local government equation in the United States, representing over forty percent of local governments. The spread of these governments is controversial, however, as some argue that they will have a negative impact on service delivery, due to a perceived lack of political accountability. Others argue that their focus on single policy issues allow them to more efficiently respond to the citizens they serve. Despite the controversy, only a few studies have quantitatively investigated the differences in service delivery between special district and general purpose governments. Building on Mullin's earlier work, in this research note we investigate the relationship between specialized local government and water utility rates. We find little direct difference between special districts and general-purpose governments, with some minimal support for a conditional relationship between special districts and scarcity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant proportion of the US population does not believe that climate change is a serious problem and immediate action is necessary. We ask whether individuals' experiences with long-run changes in their local climate can override the power of partisanship that appears to dominate this opinion process. We merge individual-level data on climate change perceptions and the main determinants previously identified by the literature with county-level data on an exogenous measure of local climate change. While we find that local climate change significantly affects perceptions and in the expected direction, partisanship and political ideology maintain the strongest effect. We then field a randomized online experiment to test whether partisanship also drives support for pro-climate policies and the willingness to make environmentally friendly individual choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal regulations in the United States of America concerning the environment are currently in the process of being re-implemented and redeveloped after years of roll-back under the Trump Administration. This opinion recommends three steps that individual states could take to support stronger environmental policies, which are rooted in 'environmental justice' in relation to issuing emission permits, so as to mitigate the impact of industry upon overburdened communities, and in doing so improve air quality, whilst the federal government reworks its own standards. Given the current political situation, which is heavily contested, and the complicated legal structure of the USA the opinion concludes, that in the context of issuing permits, and having considered a range of environmental law issues at each level of the United States government, that states have a vital role to play in mitigating the 'environmental impact' of pollution on underserved communities, and in tackling other environmental problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States' National Environmental Policy Act is a knowledge production process required by federal government agencies to assist in their evaluation of the environmental (and social) impacts of proposed federal agency actions prior to their implementation. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which manages immigrant detention in the United States, is included among these federal agencies. Using Texas as a case study, we explore how the National Environmental Policy Act process, as it relates to immigrant detention, systematically produces ignorance while also producing knowledge. We identify four forms of absence: absence of process in Department of Homeland Security's use of Categorical Exclusions and programmatic Environmental Assessments, absence of actors in the exclusion of people who are detained as an "affected" social group, absence of alternatives in how "meaningful alternatives" are identified in Environmental Assessments, and absence of discourse with the public in the Environmental Assessment process. In addition, we consider how these absences reflect and perpetuate existing social and environmental inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental policy making and implementation in the United States occurs within a federal system. This system has served its purpose for nearly five decades but is now being challenged by four trends: political polarization in Congress; increasingly divergent state policies; an erosion in federal funding; and federal policy instability. Taking the place of the old, relatively cooperative federalism is an increasingly disruptive federalism. It is time to reexamine the foundations of environmental federalism and the effects of the four challenges on the effectiveness and capacities of the US system. Such efforts to evaluate environmental federalism should account for variations among programs and statutes as well as the effects on policy stability. A benefit of a federal system for environmental protection is its contribution to stability in an era of polarization and conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a Just Transition framework for U.S. workers and communities that are currently dependent on domestic fossil fuel production. Our rough high-end estimate for such a program is a relatively modest $600 million per year. This level of funding would pay for (1) income, retraining, and relocation support for workers facing retrenchments; (2) guaranteeing the pensions for workers in the affected industries; and (3) mounting effective transition programs for what are now fossil fuel–dependent communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local governments play a large, if understudied, role in the implementation of environmental policy in the United States. The major environmental statutes outline explicit responsibilities for the federal and state governments in enforcement under a cooperative federalism framework, and a literature on environmental federalism has developed looking at how variables at the state level affect implementation. Largely ignored by this literature is the important part local governments play in implementation. This study explores one way local politics may influence implementation, investigating the effect of citizen preferences on municipal compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The findings show that utilities in Democratic leaning areas violate the SDWA less frequently than those in Republican leaning areas. The results suggest that just as politics influence environmental policy implementation at the federal and state levels, the local role in environmental policy is inherently tied to the political incentives facing municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few postwar cities grew as quickly as Phoenix, as suburban, pro-growth policies created a sprawling metropolitan area, but also problems like acute traffic congestion, which policymakers attempted to solve with an urban freeway. The Papago Freeway revolt highlights that transportation policy, like other aspects of suburbanization, had deep roots in intentional and incidental race and class discrimination at all levels of government and private decisions. Moreover, the debate reveals the changing relationship between the federal government and cities under President Nixon and the incendiary political, social, and cultural forces fracturing metropolitan America. The revolt led to design changes that mitigated some of the negative impacts of the freeway, but the Papago still resulted in inequitable outcomes for minorities and low-income populations in the inner city. Most important, it shows that ignoring historical inequities in policy decisions runs the risk of continuing or, worse, exacerbating them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Portland Metropolitan region, a single economic and ecological region with a bifurcated state and local governance structure, provides an opportunity to compare governance models and state policy environments in a single region. Using stakeholder interviews and secondary sources, we examine the role of state government policy in shaping and supporting different regimes. We find that Portland exhibits a stable, “smart-growth” regime that we characterized as a metropolitan eco-regime whereas Vancouver is in a period of fragmentation without a stable metropolitan regime. This is best explained by the differing state-level regulatory contexts and the different forms of polycentricity influenced by state action. Differences in regime and governance structure result in differently drawn and expanded urban growth boundaries with subsequent differences in land-use outcomes. We conclude with observations about state-level action and subsequent forms of polycentricity to support metropolitan eco-regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review article offers a critical assessment of three recent books on postwar conservatism in the United States. The broad themes of these works – anticommunism, the new class critique, and opposition to environmentalism – are used as a basis to review the extant literature and to analyse the historical trajectory of the conservative movement. Although American conservatism is generally a unified political force, important ideological divisions remain both among and between libertarians and social conservatives. These divisions are imperative for understanding the movement today and offer promising lines of future scholarship. Doody C (2013) Detroit’s Cold War: The Origins of Postwar Conservatism. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Horowitz RB (2013) America’s Right: Anti-Establishment Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party. Cambridge: Polity Press. Layzer JA (2012) Open for Business: Conservatives’ Opposition to Environmental Regulation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A democratic premise is that expert influence should not extend into the political domain of environmental policymaking. This article analyses the relationship between experts and policymakers in the historical development of the National Flood Insurance Program as a flood governance strategy in the United States. The article draws three conclusions. First, while experts asserted great influence on the development of this policy program, underlying values were evaluated and judged by policymakers. Second, as socio-political values changed, new types of experts were involved in the policymaking process. Third, these different types of experts had different implications for how value conflicts were addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A significant body of research suggests that environmental risks are more likely to be found in minority and low-income communities. Few studies have questioned whether communities of lower socioeconomic status may be less protected by regulatory agencies through the use of fines in instances of noncompliance. Using the Environmental Inequality Formation perspective (EIF) and data drawn from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) administrative enforcement cases within the U.S. Pacific Northwest from 2007 to 2011, this project finds that the factors primarily influencing fine severity include the type and severity of the offense. However, after controlling for other factors, fines are less severe against facilities surrounded by low-income households. This research confirms the need for scholars, policy makers, and activists to develop greater linkages between the EIF perspective and environmental sentencing by more clearly teasing out the roles that facilities, enforcement agencies, and especially communities play in these outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Clean Air Act (CAA) utilizes an intergovernment partnership, relying heavily on the states for implementation. However, local governments have emerged in recent years as key players in improving local air quality. With no official role under the CAA and research typically overlooking their efforts, they are serving as “hidden” partners in the implementation process. Nevertheless, they are playing a role in improving and maintaining air quality in some local communities. Analysis of air quality monitoring sites indicates these initiatives can be successful, if the local government has the capacity to effect change across the entire area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public servants are expected to be good stewards of resources, including the energy and environmental resources consumed in a public organization’s day-to-day operations. Many government organizations have enacted policies to mitigate the environmental impact of their operations. Even in the absence of formal policies, however, individual public employees might engage in a number of discretionary, pro-environmental behaviors known as eco-initiatives. What motivational factors cause a public employee to exhibit eco-initiative? To answer this question, we draw on a theoretical framework based on connectedness to nature, organizational commitment, public service motivation (PSM), and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). We use employee-level data from a large city in the southeast United States to examine employee participation in individual eco-initiatives. We contextualize these discretionary initiatives as interesting forms of OCB, which are directed toward the environment (OCB-E). Our findings suggest that connectedness to nature, organizational commitment, and PSM are significant predictors of eco-initiative in the public workplace. In addition, we find that PSM conditions the impact of organizational commitment on eco-initiatives for certain types of employees. We conclude with a discussion that underscores the importance of individual employee motivation in discretionary efforts that advance OCB-E and effective public stewardship generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traffic noise is a major problem in all large cities. The surface acoustical characteristics (e.g. referred to roads, pedestrian traffic areas, building façades, building surfaces, in general) affect the noise propagation in the urban environment. Through a better outdoor design and management (e.g. by means of green areas, porous asphalt, speed control), or building refurbishment actions (acoustic plaster, absorbing shading devices), the increasing of surface absorption could be useful to mitigate noise environmental pollution, and therefore to reduce the sound levels in the proximity of the building façades for their entire height. The reduction of the noise levels outside the buildings would determine lower indoor noise levels, and therefore a better situation, without direct actions on the building walls. Through a series of noise propagation calculations in urban environments, by means of a three-dimensional simulation model, the influence of some configurations and the potential impact of some intervention solutions are quantified. In the first stage of the research, the analysis of a simplified model is conducted, to evaluate the influence of noise on the building façades, based on a simplified geometry of the urban environment and of the surface acoustic features. The same analysis is validated by means of a more detailed model, corresponding to the configuration of an existing built area, to verify if the analyses performed by means of the simplified model can be extended to more complex layouts. Successively, calculations are developed to quantify the noise levels that occur with different acoustic (absorption of façades, soil, asphalt, or green elements) and geometric (road width, buildings height, presence of balconies, etc.) characteristics to show the potential reduction given by some interventions. Solutions that can lead to a more significant reduction of the noise in correspondence of the façades are then summarized. The simplified geometrical model appears to be suitable for preliminary investigations as the maximum error found for narrower roads is equal to 17%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy codes set efficiency standards for buildings in the majority of U.S. states. Under most energy codes, builders can comply by demonstrating that the projected private expenditures on energy bills for a proposed building are less than a certain threshold. Using theory and evidence, I show that energy codes would be improved if compliance was instead determined by the projected social damages. Relative to current practice, damage-based codes would likely provide stronger incentives for electricity than natural gas conservation, in most states. Implementation of damage-based codes would lead to substantial welfare gains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycentric theory, as applied to sustainability policy adoption, contends that municipalities will act independently to provide public services that protect the environment. Our multilevel regression analysis of survey responses from 1,497 municipalities across the United States challenges that notion. We find that internal drivers of municipal action are insufficient. Lower policy adoption is explained by capacity constraints. More policy making occurs in states with a multilevel governance framework supportive of local sustainability action. Contrary to Fischel’s homevoter hypothesis, we find large cities and rural areas show higher levels of adoption than suburbs (possibly due to free riding within a metropolitan region). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Powerful political actors in the international system quite frequently adopt unilateral policies whose implications extend beyond their respective borders. Examples include financial market regulation as well as taxation, trade and environmental policies. They do so to avoid lowest common-denominator outcomes in areas where they desire more ambitious international policies, and to motivate or coerce other countries to shoulder a part of the burden associated with problem solving. This article explores whether and how such unilateralism affects public opinion in other countries, arguing that such analysis can point to external constraints on unilateralism and is worthwhile also for normative reasons. Empirically, we examine the effect of a major unilateral European Union (EU) climate policy initiative, which regulates emissions from aircraft, on public opinion in India and the United States, the two largest democracies outside the EU. Based on survey experiments, we study the effects of cost and sovereignty considerations on people’s evaluation of the EU’s new policy. The results show that both types of concern play a significant role and may act as a constraint on unilateral European climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study assesses the relationship between the dependence of administrative agencies on particular funding sources and the influence external actors have on agency operations. Data from a unique survey of state air quality administrators indicate that clean air agencies differ substantially in the composition of their funding sources. Multivariate analyses suggest that these differences affect the amount of influence administrators perceive external actors to have on air quality enforcement. Increased dependence on state general fund financing is associated with increases in the perceived influence of both the legislature and the governor, while reliance on federal grants is associated with increased agency responsiveness to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Greater reliance on revenue gained through agency enforcement actions, on the other hand, is associated with increased perceived amounts of agency autonomy. These findings raise provocative questions about the implications of moving away from the regular appropriations process for the democratic accountability of bureaucratic agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulatory measures have proven the favored approach to climate change mitigation in the U.S., while market-based policies have gained little traction. Using a model that resolves the U.S. economy by region, income category, and sectorspecific technology deployment opportunities, this paper studies the magnitude and distribution of economic impacts under regulatory versus market-based approaches. We quantify heterogeneity in the national response to regulatory policies, including a fuel economy standard and a clean or renewable electricity standard, and compare these to a cap-and-trade system targeting carbon dioxide or all greenhouse gases. We find that the regulatory policies substantially exceed the cost of a cap-and-trade system at the national level. We further show that the regulatory policies yield large cost disparities across regions and income groups, which are exaggerated by the difficulty of implementing revenue recycling provisions under regulatory policy designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A clean energy standard (CES) is a potential policy alternative to reduce carbon emissions in the electric sector. We analyze this policy under a range of technological assumptions, expanding on the Energy Modeling Forum (EMF) 24 study scenarios, using a new modeling tool, US-REGEN. We describe three innovative features of the model: treatment of spatial and temporal variability of renewable resources, cost-of-service electric sector pricing, and explicit representation of energy end-use specific capital. We find that varying technology assumptions results in vastly different futures, with large contrasts in the distribution and scale of inter-regional financial flows, and in the generation mix. We explore regional differences in how the costs of CES credits are passed through with cost-of-service vs. competitive pricing. Finally, we compare the CES to an economy-wide emissions cap. We find that although the two policies result in a similar generation mix, price and electricity end-use results differ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although economists prefer a unique, economy-wide carbon price, climate policies are likely to continue to combine technology- and sector-specific regulations with, at best, some degree of carbon pricing. A hybrid energy-economy model that combines technological details with partial macro-economic feedbacks offers a means of estimating the likely effects of this kind of policy mix, especially under different scenarios of technological innovation. We applied such a model, called CIMS-US, in a model comparison project directed by the Energy Modeling Forum at Stanford University (EMF 24) and present here the interrelated effects of policies focused separately on electricity and transportation. We find that technological innovation encouraged by transportation regulation can inadvertently increase emissions from electricity generation and ethanol production to the extent that abatement from the regulation itself is effectively neutralized. When, however, regulation of electricity generation is combined with transportation policy or there is economy-wide carbon pricing, substantial abatement occurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Energy Modeling Forum 24 study included a set of policy scenarios designed to compare economy wide market-based and sectoral regulatory approaches of potential U.S. climate policy. Models from seven teams participated in this part of the study assessing economy-wide cap-and-trade climate policy and sectoral policies in the transportation and electric sector in terms of potential greenhouse gas emissions reductions, economic cost, and energy systems implications. This paper presents an overview of the results from the U.S. policy scenarios, and provides insights into the comparison of results from the participating models. In particular, various metrics were used to compare the model results including allowance price, the efficient frontier, consumption loss, GDP loss, and equivalent variation. We find that the choice of economic metric is an important factor in the comparison of model results. Among the insights, we note that the carbon price should cautiously be considered when other non-cap sectoral policies affecting emissions are assumed in tandem. We also find that a transportation sector policy is consistently shown to be inefficient compared to an economy-wide capand-trade policy with a comparable level of emissions reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information related to energy and environment, including events from April to June 2013. It mentions that emissions of carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced worldwide dropped between 1990 and 2010 and there is a decline in global extreme poverty. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), China and US are taking steps towards sealing a deal on global climate.

Federal environmental regulations under the Clean Air Act affect employment as local economies respond to a changing regulatory environment. We analyze the net employment growth and employment stability effects of Clean Air Act regulations, characterizing responses in these key indicators of local economic development. Using nationwide longitudinal county data from 1980 through 2005, we find that enhanced employment stability is associated with nonattainment areas for total suspended particulates (TSP) and 1-hour ozone; negative employment growth is found in TSP and carbon monoxide nonattainment areas, whereas positive employment growth for counties is found in 1-hour ozone and sulfur dioxide nonattainment areas. Also, regulatory effects persist after attainment status has been regained for TSP and transitory persistence is seen after regaining attainment status for 1-hour ozone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors examine U.S. public attitudes regarding global climate change, addressing the puzzle of why support for governmental action on this front is tepid relative to what existing theories predict. Introducing the theoretical concept of relative sociotropic time horizons, the authors show that believers in Christian end-times theology are less likely to support policies designed to curb global warming than are other Americans. They then provide robustness checks by analyzing other policy attitudes. In so doing, the authors provide empirical evidence to suggest that citizens possessing shorter “shadows of the future” often resist policies trading short-term costs for hypothetical long-term benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Best available science has long been the standard for using science to inform environmental and natural resource policy. This study examines the selection of data from federal, state or local, and nongovernmental sources for use in making ground-level natural resource policy, or biodiversity management decisions. The authors argue that aspects of neo-institutional theory are explanatory of data selection within a natural resource agency. They empirically test their theory by analyzing original data collected from a 2007 survey of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field offices, which attained a response rate of 36.6% (204 of 557 field offices). The authors find that data selection cannot merely be explained by the discussion of best available science. Rather, neo-institutional theory tenets of normative isomorphism and path dependency are explanatory of how science is selected for use in making biodiversity management decisions. However, coercive isomorphism does not possess the same explanatory ability with regard to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field office data selection. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 1970s, social scientists have argued that general pro-environmental attitudes have diffused throughout American society, rendering socio-demographics largely irrelevant in predicting support for such issues. The public reaction to the issue of climate change, however, is an exception to this narrative. While media bias, ideological framing, and business influence are often invoked to explain public apathy, I argue that ignoring class and culture in determining why climate change is so divisive is a potentially significant oversight. Using the cultural theory of Bourdieu, I examine how the conception of and reaction to climate change varies with economic and cultural capital using data from 40 interviews of Boston-area respondents. The results suggest that climate change may indeed be a 'classed' issue - both in how the respondents conceive of it in the first place, and how they speak of social class in the context of it. The results suggest that social scientists should go beyond rational-choice and media framing explanations, to take two prolific examples, in exploring how disagreements on the importance of climate change persist in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political polarization is often analyzed at the mass level through examination of attitudinal differences, but little attention is devoted to how polarization might be manifested through differences in individual behavior, especially in areas that do not appear to be explicitly political in nature. Political polarization, however, may extend to differences in lifestyles among individuals, especially differences in prosocial environmental behavior. This could be especially true for behaviors that are perceived as markers of political attitudes. In an examination of self-reported recycling and conservation behavior, we find that controlling for a range of alternative explanations for why individuals engage in pro-environmental behavior, partisan and ideological dispositions are among the most robust causes of such behavior. We demonstrate that these behavioral differences are exacerbated by attention to political news. The findings indicate that the effects of polarization extend beyond political attitudes into social and economic choices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Analysis of three cross-sectional polls administered by the Gallup Organization at 10-year intervals—in 1990, 2000, and 2010—demonstrates that partisan identification has become an increasingly important determinant of environmental concern within the American mass public. Polarization on global warming is especially clear, even when compared to a variety of other social, economic, and political problems, but party sorting seems to occur only as citizens acquire information and become familiar with elite cues. The implications of this for the U.S. environmental movement and the strategies it employs are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

How do we understand political polarization within the U.S. climate change debate? This article unpacks the different components of the debate to determine the source of the political divide that is so noted in the mainstream media and academic literatures. Through analysis of the content of congressional hearings on the issue of climate change, we are able to explain political polarization of the issue more fully. In particular, our results show that, contrary to representations in the mainstream media, there is increasing consensus over the science of the issue. Discussions of the type of policy instrument and the economic implications of regulating carbon dioxide emissions, however, continue to polarize opinion. This article concludes by exploring how these findings help us understand more recent political events around climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Municipal solid waste is a central concern for environmental policy, and the sociomateriality of waste--the ways in which waste is socially defi ned and dealt with--is an important issue for sustainability. We show how applying the European Union's waste policy through the European Waste Hierarchy (EWH) aff ects the sociomateriality of waste. The EWH ranks the desirability of diff erent waste-management approaches according to their environmental impact. We investigate how the EWH has been acknowledged and interpreted in fi ve diff erent organizational contexts with relevance for Swedish waste management: EU environmental policy, the Swedish EPA, two municipal wastemanagement companies, and the trade organization Swedish Waste Management which represents the interests of municipal bodies involved with waste. In addition to preventing the production of waste, the EWH aims to disassemble, circulate, and reintroduce as much material as possible into production processes. We show how these aims shape paradoxical relationships between economy and society on the one hand, and environment and nature on the other, and open the way for a discussion of a politics of consumption through material management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In environmental policy, the interactions of frontline environmental regulators and their counterparts in the regulated community constitute environmental protection in the United States. The authors offer a framework of the different types of interactions these actors may have with one another based on trust. Kettl and Fiorino, among others, have indicated that trust is a fundamental problem in environmental regulation. Building on these assertions, the authors delve into the extant trust literature and offer a definition of trust and, argue that trust is positive and should be sought in these relationships. The authors develop a framework of relationships between inspectors and facility personnel based on varying degrees of trust and offer testable hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Studies of environmental policy performance tend to concentrate on the impact of particular policy institutions or of single policy instruments. However, environmental policies most often consist of a package of policy instruments. Further, these studies pay no or very little attention to policy instruments directed at the demand side of the market. Therefore this article develops a policy typology for government intervention aimed at creating green markets. The typology distinguishes between four types of policy based on the balance between the supply-side and demand-side policy instruments. On the basis of the typology, a hypothesis on their ability to expand green markets is generated and tested in a comparative analysis of the performance of organic food policies in Denmark, Sweden, the UK and the US, focusing on their impact on organic consumption. Our analysis demonstrates that cross-country variation in organic food consumption is explained by differences in the packages of policy instruments applied, controlling for numerous systemic and individual-level alternative explanations. The analysis suggests that for environmental and political reasons, governments should apply more demand-side instruments when introducing environmental policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although local governments are becoming more active in pursuing environmental sustainability initiatives, understanding the participation mechanisms utilized by communities is critical for improving the management and success of sustainable development. Since sustainable development can also be relatively complex and requires specialized skills, a network of organizations can bolster the capacity of local governments to plan and implement sustainability initiatives. This study is intended to contribute to the literature on sustainability by presenting a conceptual model of sustainable development governance. This model focuses of collaboration among local governments, residents of the community, and organizations of a support network. On the basis of a national survey of U.S. cities, the authors present evidence on the extent to which cities utilize elements of the conceptual model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, scholars have noted a broadening of environmental justice research, both geographically and conceptually, to include global issues that expand beyond the spatial distributions of environmental ‘goods' and ‘bads' to include other dimensions including recognition, participation, and capabilities. The purpose of this report is to consider how this broadening has influenced research topics and themes, the geographic locations of researchers, and the future course of environmental justice research. We searched for articles identifying environmental justice as a keyword from 2000 to 2009 in Scopus, Web of Science, and GeoBase. While the number of articles published looking at environmental justice has increased over the past decade, our search contradicts the previous claims that environmental justice research has greatly expanded conceptually or geographically beyond its traditional origins. Our findings show that environmental justice research remains firmly rooted in the United States, focusing on the distributional aspects of environmental harms. We introduce alternative research methodologies that can be used to inform a more holistic and just approach to research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agenda theories suggest that problem indicator, focusing event, and information feedback enhance issue attention. However, few studies have systematically tested this. This study, using time series data and vector autoregression (VAR), examines how climate problem indicator, high-profile international event, and climate science feedback influence media and congressional attention to global warming and climate change. The findings confirm that these attention-grabbing factors indeed generally promote issue salience, but these factors may work differently across agenda venues. Attention inertia, interagenda interaction, and partisan advantage on agenda setting are also included and analyzed in the VAR modeling. Implications of the study and recommendations for future research are discussed in conclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose. To explore the feasibility of engaging community businesses in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention. Design. Randomly selected business owners/managers were asked to display discreetly wrapped condoms and brochures, both of which were provided free-of-charge for 3 months. Assessments were conducted at baseline, mid- program, and post-program. Customer feed back was obtained through an online survey. Setting. Participants were selected from a San Diego, California neighborhood with a high rate of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Participants. Fifty-one business owners/managers who represented 10 retail categories, and 52 customers. Measures. Participation rates, descriptive characteristics, number of condoms and brochures distributed, customer feedback, business owners'/managers' program satisfaction, and business owners'/managers' willingness to provide future support for HIV prevention were measured. Analysis. Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U, Fisher's exact, and McNemar's tests were used to analyze data. Results. The 20 business owners/managers (39%) who agreed to distribute condoms and brochures reported fewer years in business and more employees than those who agreed only to distribute brochures (20%) or who refused to participate (41 %; p < .05). Bars were the easiest of ten retail categories to recruit. Businesses with more employees and customers distributed more condoms and brochures (p < .05). More than 90% of customers supported distributing condoms and brochures in businesses, and 96% of business owners/managers described their program experience as positive. Conclusion. Businesses are willing to distribute condoms and brochures to prevent HIV. Policies to increase business participation in HIV prevention should be developed and tested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buildings are the dominant driver of daily and seasonal electric load cycles, and account for 40 percent of U.S. final energy use. They account for roughly 10 percent of direct U.S. CO2 emissions and roughly 40 percent once indirect emissions from electricity generation are included. This paper explores possible evolution of this sector over the coming century, its potential role climate action and response to climate policies, and the potential benefits advances in building technologies for addressing climate change. The paper presents a set of scenarios based on a detailed, service-based model of the buildings sector that is embedded within a long-term, global, integrated assessment model, MiniCAM. Eight scenarios are created in total, combining sets of assumptions regarding U.S. building service demand growth, two assumptions regarding the improvements in building energy technologies, two assumptions regarding long-term U.S. climate action --- a no-climate-action assumption and an assumption of market-based policies to reduce U.S. emissions consistent with a 450 ppmv global target. Through these eight scenarios, the paper comments on the implications of continued growth in building service demands, the ability of efficiency measures to reduce emissions, the strong link between decarbonization of electricity generation and building sector emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When environmental issues emerged on the international agenda in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the United States was of one of the strongest and most consistent supporters of international environmental treaties and agreements. The member states of the European Union subsequently ratified all the international treaties created in this period, but U.S. leadership was crucial and European states were laggards in many cases. Since the 1990s, the political dynamics of international environmental policy have shifted, with the European Union emerging as a global environmental leader and the United States repeatedly opposing multilateral environmental agreements. The authors argue that a "regulatory politics" model that synthesizes the effects of domestic politics and international regulatory competition provides the most powerful explanation of why the United States and European Union have "traded places" with respect to their support for international environmental agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on an examination of bilateral diplomatic relations between Canada and the United States in the 21st-century using the political philosophy of professor John W. Holmes. It presents an overview of challenges concerning the Canada-U.S. border, including economic and financial relations, border security, immigration and refugee policies, border infrastructure, regulatory differences, and energy and environmental policy differences. It states that Holmes believed in finding a middle way between the extremes of assimilation or utter independence between the U.S. and Canada. It comments on Canadian relations after the election of U.S. President Barack Obama. It talks about Holmes' views on treaties with the U.S. due to difficulties in getting treaties through the U.S. Senate.

Many studies have documented gender differences in attitudes toward and experiences with science. Compared to men, for example, women are less likely to study science and to pursue careers in science-related fields. Given these findings, should we expect gender differences in support for scientific involvement in U.S. environmental policy? This study empirically examines the relationship of gender to attitudes toward science and preferred roles of scientists in environmental policy among various environmental policy participants. Data collected in 2006 and 2007 from national surveys of four different groups involved in environmental policy and management suggest that social context, including education and occupation, shapes the way that gender matters. Specifically, we find that gender is less important among scientists and managers than among interest groups and the general population regarding attitudes toward science and views about preferred roles of scientists in environmental decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of the language of environmental justice as a frame for collective action on socio-environmental concerns has now evolved and extended far beyond its original formulation in the USA. This article examines two ways in which the use of the environmental justice frame has globalized. The first involves the international emergence of ideas, meanings and framing processes in new settings around the world. The 'horizontal' diffusion of an environmental justice frame is traced, examining processes of transfer, reproduction and contextualization that are taking place within the political and institutional cultures of different countries. The cases of the UK and South Africa are examined in detail. The second involves the 'vertical' extension of the environmental justice frame to encompass concerns that do not end at national borders but that involve relations between countries and global scale issues such as trade agreements, transfers of wastes and climate change. The implications of these two shifts, the tensions that have emerged around them and their relevance to the pursuit of progressive global social policy objectives are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like 30 other states in the U.S., Michigan recently began addressing the problem of climate change through comprehensive mitigation action planning. The Michigan climate initiative involved combining a stepwise, fact-based, stakeholder decision process and technical analyses to formulate a consensus-based climate action plan. This paper reports on the results of work conducted by policy analysts and facilitators of the policy-making process in response to state government and stakeholder decisions on three key aspects. First is the choice of policy actions used to establish a comprehensive portfolio of actions and economy-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) goals and targets. Second is the design of policy instruments to use to implement these specific GHG mitigation actions. Third is the decision on whether the state should pursue its target for net GHG reduction through sector based policies and measures, a regional cap and trade program, or both combined. We summarize the results of applying a formal model for analyzing the implications of alternative environmental policies and instruments. The model was applied to data on the financial costs/savings and applicability of a spectrum of GHG reduction options developed by a consensus of stakeholders from all segments of the Michigan population. We conclude that a combination of sector-based measures and market incentive-based policies could attain a low cost, high co-benefit solution if Michigan joined with other Midwestern States in developing the cap and trade aspect of its climate action plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the environmental policy American Clean Energy Security (ACES) Act in the U.S. The act is said to have a great impact on climate change, and have been approved by the U.S. House in June 2009. Despite the support by labor unions, the labor still have to look into the legislation's economic and social impact towards the employees. It notes that the bill aims for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions of industries while ensuring employment, wage provisions, and training for workers.

The article presents abstracts of articles about planning including those focusing on settlement house work and social reform, the development of heating and cooking technology in the U.S. in the 19th century and emergence of historic sites as tourist destinations in the U.S. in the late 19th century.

Over the coming decades, the cost of U.S. climate change policy likely will be comparable to the total cost of all existing environmental regulation--perhaps 1-2 percent of national income. In order to avoid higher costs, policy efforts should create incentives for firms and individuals to pursue the cheapest climate change mitigation options over time, among all sectors, across national borders, and in the face of significant uncertainty. Well-designed national greenhouse gas mitigation policies can serve as the foundation for global efforts and as an example for emerging and developing countries. We present six key policy design issues that will determine the costs, cost-effectiveness, and distributional impacts of domestic climate policy: program scope, cost containment, offsets, revenues and allowance allocation, competitiveness, and R&D policy. We synthesize the literature on these design features, review the implications for the ongoing policy debate, and identify outstanding research questions that can inform policy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on city planning-related topics, including visions of waterfront development in postindustrial Philadelphia, the construction of a town planning perception of Colombo, and city planning and the U.S. census.

America has the potential to create jobs that do much good. Green jobs are no longer a concept, they are a reality and they are vital to economic growth and a driver for economic recovery. Environmental issues will be swept up as we address the economy. The choices will never be between one green or the other. And labor must be a partner in this effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]