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As our planet faces more frequent and severe environmental threats due to climate change (including threats to biodiversity), environmental justice will be essential to ensure that the costs and burdens of combating these threats are shared equally, borne by all people worldwide in a fair and equitable manner. If the past is any indicator, however, environmental problems—and their "solutions"—disproportionately affect poor communities and communities of color, including Indigenous communities. Despite these past injustices, Indigenous lands, which make up only 20 percent of the Earth's territory, contain 80 percent of the world's remaining biodiversity—evidence that Indigenous peoples are among the most effective stewards of the environment. A primary reason for this remarkable statistic is the use and practice of Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge; ecological wisdom which has been passed down for generations and has been shown to strengthen community resilience in response to the multiple stressors of global environmental change. While the United States government has been slow to acknowledge the value of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, it has recently begun to incorporate that knowledge into environmental policy in response to the worldwide climate crisis. Continuing the integration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge into government environmental policy will ensure that such policies will be more effective at the federal, state, and local levels and more equitable in their application. Western scientists, government officials, and global leaders need to build trusting and co-equal relationships with Indigenous communities by actively listening to all cultures and respecting the many kinds of knowledge systems required to conserve the natural world and all living beings. This paper will address how incorporating Traditional Ecological Knowledge into U.S. policy would help safeguard the environment from further biodiversity loss and other ecological destruction, and advance environmental justice to ensure the fair treatment of all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on ideas about how narratives focus attention, this paper develops a "narrative policy image" using the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and Narrative Policy Framework explanations of the policy process. The concept of a narrative policy image is applied to test partisan expectations about presidential environmental policy stories in State of the Union Addresses over 73 years. This research finds that Democratic stories focus on problems like climate change and victims and Republican stories emphasize solutions like new programs and upholding the status quo. These trends point to potential story types and suggest a narrative policy image, including both narrative components and valence, may be a useful concept for understanding narrative attention in macropolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

False assumptions of stationarity, the idea that natural systems fluctuate within a set and predictable range, are common in conservation policies and public expectations developed since the late 1800s. With examples from United States national forest and water quality policy, we discuss the challenges of nonstationarity for planning and policy. We also raise questions about how resilience is becoming institutionalized. One central problem of managing for resilience is that it does not address the nuances and tradeoffs of managing nonstationary systems, such as keeping some components stable while transforming others. We recommend four paths forward: address root causes of change, increase adaptive capacity, develop science for nonstationarity, and enhance pragmatic flexibility without lowering environmental standards. Dealing effectively with nonstationarity in resource management and science, within our legal and management system of overlapping authorities and capacities, is critical for the intertwined future of people and nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing awareness of sustainability issues in industrialized countries has resulted in an unprecedented rise in the number of environmental innovations produced worldwide. However, while this is a general tendency, the amount and importance of environmental innovations is far from consistent across industrialized countries. The influence of countries' policy network styles – referring to which and how interest groups participate in making public policy choices is a dimension that has been subject to growing interest and controversy. We propose that companies from pluralistic countries will generate more environmental innovations, but the importance of environmental innovations will be higher in neo-corporatist countries. Our analysis, based on a longitudinal analysis of 84,274 environmental patents from the United States, Japan, Germany, and the UK during the period 1976–2003, indicates support for our prediction that neo-corporatist countries tend to generate more important environmental innovations than pluralistic countries. Yet, our findings do not support our hypothesis suggesting that pluralistic countries are more likely to generate a higher number of environmental innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst congressional gridlock, administrative rulemaking is the main pathway for environmental policy making. Scholars have assessed the role of the institutions of government (the president, Congress, and the courts) and key interest groups (i.e., business and environmental interests) in shaping rulemaking outcomes. What is missing from this literature is an assessment of the role of key implementers, state environmental agencies. This research fills this gap by assessing the role and impact of state government agencies in three case studies of rulemaking at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Based on original interviews and a public comment analysis, this research suggests that state agencies play an active and influential role in EPA rulemaking. And, in some cases, state agencies wield more influence than other interest groups. Interviewees argued that this influence stems from these agencies' unique voice as an implementation collaborator. As a result, researchers should incorporate an assessment of the role of these interests to more effectively explain regulatory outcomes at the EPA and potentially across the bureaucracy. [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]

President Trump has embarked on an ambitious and far-reaching attempt to reshape American environmental policy. In regard to climate change, water quality, and other areas, his administration's actions constitute an attempt to roll back existing environmental protections and torecalibrateAmericanenvironmentalfederalism.Theseactionslargelyrepresentacontinuationof the practice of presidential reliance on the tools of the administrative presidency that has shaped U.S. environmental policy over the past forty years, although the Trump Administration has employed these tools in an especially aggressive fashion. Because changing public policy through administrative means is a time-consuming process that invites legal challenge, the full implications of these efforts will not be known for several years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses several decisions issued by U.S. federal and state courts between October 1, 2016, and September 30, 2017 concerning toxic tort and environmental law. It reports several cases including "Petitpas v. Ford Motor Co.," that held no duty was owed to an allegedly exposed worker's girlfriend; Supreme Court's distinction between misfeasance and nonfeasance in "Riedel v. ICI Americas Inc.; and "Georgia Pacific, LLC v. Farrar" related to product containing asbestos.

The article explores objectives of Task Force on Environmental Aspects of the New York State Constitution as convened by the Executive Committee of New York State Bar Association. It reports how the task force supported the amendment in constitutional laws concerning environment through the Constitutional Convention.

The article highlights laws in New York to amend Constitutional Environmental Rights through constitutional convention. Topics discussed include opportunities and challenges in enforcing existing subnational environmental provisions; constitutional convention for the State of New York; and ways in which Environmental protection (land, water, air, plants and animals) is a responsibility of all and if anyone causes damage to them.

Alaska's narrow economy, dependent on federal spending and on absentee investment in exploitation of the state's natural resources, has generated especially vehement, comprehensive resistance to federal environmental protection of the state's wilderness areas. Falsely persuaded that the federal government has reneged on promises made at statehood in 1959 to develop resources on its Alaska lands, Alaska politicians, with broad public support, accuse federal officials of systematically impeding the state's economic advance. They do so despite a landmark case in federal court that declared the state's claims invalid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central concern in policy studies is understanding how multiple, contending groups in society interact, deliberate, and forge agreements over policy issues. Often, public discourse turns from engagement into impasse, as in the fractured politics of climate policy in the USA. Existing theories are unclear about how such an 'adversarial turn' develops. We theorize that an important aspect of the adversarial turn is the evolution of a group's narrative into what can be understood as an ideology, the formation of which is observable through certain textual-linguistic properties. Analysis 'of' these narrative properties elucidates the role of narrative in fostering (1) coalescence around a group ideology, and (2) group isolation and isolation of ideological coalitions from others' influence. By examining a climate skeptical narrative, we demonstrate how to analyze ideological properties of narrative, and illustrate the role of ideological narratives in galvanizing and, subsequently, isolating groups in society. We end the piece with a reflection on further issues suggested by the narrative analysis, such as the possibility that climate skepticism is founded upon a more 'genetic' meta-narrative that has roots in social issues far removed from climate, which means efforts at better communicating climate change science may not suffice to support action on climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars and policy makers celebrate cities as loci for addressing climate change. In addition to being significant sources of carbon pollution, cities prove to be dynamic sites of experimentation and ambition on climate policy. However, as U.S. cities set climate change goals far above those of their federal and state counterparts, they are butting up against the limits of their existing legal authority, most notably with regard to control over energy supplies. In response, many U.S. cities are exercising their legal rights to reclaim public ownership or control over private electric utilities as a method of achieving their climate change goals. Although there is widespread desire for cities to act within their legal authority to reduce carbon pollution, it is a different question entirely whether they should be encouraged to expand this authority by reclaiming ownership or control over tasks previously outsourced to private companies. On this question, energy law has much to learn from administrative law’s robust attention to outsourcing theory. This Article draws from the outsourcing literature to argue that climate change complicates traditional theories regarding whether cities should prefer publicly or privately owned electricity systems. By transposing these theories into energy law, it constructs a theoretical defense of why more public forms of energy ownership or control may be effective governance tools for the climate change era. In the last century, providing electricity was a task well suited to government oversight of private companies, as regulators primarily aimed to incentivize low prices and adequate supply. This century, however, climate change creates the need for more deliberative, experimental management of electricity to meet the additional aim of decarbonization while maintaining affordability and reliability. In this situation, outsourcing theory widely counsels against utilizing a private contractor model, and illustrates the difficulties inherent in using regulation to manage private companies. Instead, it is time for broader reconsideration of more public forms of energy control and ownership, of just the sort that leading U.S. cities are pioneering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the use of clean energy and the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the U.S. private sector, so as to prevent global warming, including in regard to the relationship between economic growth and GHG mitigation. An overview of the role that U.S. government policy plays in encouraging the use of clean energy is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) protects 1,027 bird species—the vast majority of native birds in the United States and its territories—by criminalizing the taking, killing, or selling of any migratory bird or bird part.3 Beginning in the 1960s, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) began prosecuting industrial firms for “incidental take,” the unintentional taking or killing of migratory birds. Incidental take is a negative externality of industry: firms kill birds—a natural resource shared by all—and do not compensate for their loss. A split in authority consequently arose on whether the strict liability misdemeanor of the MBTA criminalizes such unintentional killings. In response to concerns of incidental take, the FWS is now in a rulemaking process, by which it hopes to establish an incidental-take permit program, allowing firms to purchase take permits, compensate the FWS for estimated bird take, and evade or at least minimize the risk of prosecution. While the incidental-take circuit split has already received scholarly attention elsewhere, this Article tackles a larger conservation question, drawing on scholarship in the fields of emissions trading and conservation banking. This Article proposes two alternative market-based solutions to the menace of incidental take. First, the Bird Tax: a Pigouvian tax that seeks to correct the inefficient market outcome that results in uncompensated industrial and nonindustrial incidental take. Second, the North American Bird Market: a trilateral initiative building upon decades of successful environmental cooperation between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. By incentivizing clean energy, requiring industry to internalize its bird take, and promoting habitat restoration, the Bird Market is an efficient and clean theoretical solution to the menace of incidental take and the looming threat to our continent’s shared birdscape. In contrast to a comprehensive, upstream Bird Tax that targets both industrial and nonindustrial incidental take, the Bird Market would entail potentially restrictive financial and logistical costs due to its limited focus on the regulation of industrial take. As such, it is possible that the Bird Market is a mere flight of fancy—a thought experiment whose doom radiates from its very core —and nothing more. Despite these challenges, this Article’s presentation of the Market serves three other purposes. First, the Market serves as a vehicle to expose the sobering truth that the MBTA and incidental-take prosecutions are an expressive, but ultimately fruitless conservation mechanism. Second, the Market is an investigation of how to quantify and trade death with the goal of conserving life. Finally, the exposition of the Market and the critique of the MBTA is an attempt to tightrope walk the seemingly unbridgeable legal-analytical rift between the ritualized law and economics of Ronald Coase,4 and the touchy-feelythrow-your-hands-up-in-the-air neorealism of Arthur Allan Leff. Ultimately, because incidental industrial take is only a minor anthropogenic stressor, the Market will fail to achieve meaningful conservation goals for the same reasons that incidental-take prosecutions under the MBTA fail to achieve these goals. August 2016 marked the centennial of the first migratory bird treaty with Canada. One hundred years have passed, and this Article calls upon Congress to abandon its ancient conservation precepts and supplement our treaties and the MBTA with a meaningful international habitat-restoration program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economists have long embraced the idea that services provided by nature have inherent economic value. Ecologists, other scientists, and many in the environmental advocacy community have more recently come to focus on the connection between natural systems and economic value. The broadening interest in the economic value of nature over the last two decades led to the emergence of the interrelated and now commonly used terms ecosystem services and natural capital. To inform Canadian policy, this paper discusses some of the efforts that have been enacted elsewhere, with particular emphasis on those in the United States, and why some have been more successful than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability policymaking presents numerous challenges to local governments. Municipal leaders, especially in smaller cities and towns, report that they lack the fiscal capacity and/or technical expertise to adopt many environmental protection policies. This paper investigates whether the more than 2000 municipally owned utilities in the United States have the potential to mitigate those problems. Data from two surveys of USA local governments (n = 861), modeled in a pair of negative binomial regressions, find a positive correlation between those cities with municipal power companies and those with an increased number of community-wide sustainable energy policies. Follow-up interviews with officials reveal the potential mechanisms driving sustainability by local governments that own power companies. These mechanisms are the increased capacity that publicly owned utilities provide by virtue of income generated and access to energy-specific grants as well as the local nature of their operations, which allows a better fit of sustainable energy measures to local circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American cities vary considerably in the degree to which they pursue sustainability. What explains this variation? One plausible cause of such differences is that sustainability may be more appealing to high-income cities than to more economically challenged cities. Yet such strict economic determinism seems simplistic and removes politics from an inherently political process. The hypothesis here is that any such relationship between income and commitment to sustainability is conditioned by a city's level of environmental advocacy. The data utilized in this analysis are derived from two large-scale data sources. One is a comprehensive inventory of sustainability programs and policies in 50 large American cities. The other is a set of surveys in those same 50 cities. The multivariate model supports the hypothesis. Controlling for income growth and the predisposition of policymakers to be supportive of sustainability (as well as other alternative explanations), a city's commitment to sustainability is strongly linked to the advocacy of environmental and sustainability groups in the policymaking process. The example of Sustainable Seattle is used to illustrate the linkages that would seem to underlie the statistical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State-level public opinion on the environment within the US is examined, using data from the General Social Survey (GSS) from 2000 to 2010. A Multilevel Regression and Post-Stratification (MRP) approach is taken to estimate three different survey items on environmental issues at the US state level. This allows for a comparable understanding of state-level public opinion on environmental issues, which is then connected to economic, environmental, and political conditions, and representation in policy making. The findings indicate the MRP technique is a sophisticated way to make accurate estimations of state-level public opinion, and those estimates provide further insight into the shaping of public opinion and public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korean immigrants in the USA rely heavily on ethnic resources to start up small businesses. Ethnic resources include business networks and knowledge, start-up capital and access to labour power, which are embedded in networks of family, friends and co-ethnics. This paper shows how Korean dry-cleaners in Southern California used ethnic resources to mobilize in response to an environmental policy initiated by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD). While Korean immigrants used ethnic resources to start up dry-cleaning businesses, they found themselves working with a toxic chemical. In 2002, the AQMD required dry-cleaners in Southern California to convert to costly alternative machines by 2020. Korean dry-cleaners used ethnic-based collective action, particularly the Korean Dry Cleaning Association, as a means of fighting for regulatory concessions. They also used ethnic resources to overcome cultural and linguistic barriers to facilitate the adoption of alternative cleaning machines in compliance with the regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores the issues related to major environmental statutes in the U.S. Topic discussed include laws defined by the Clean Air Act for violators of federal and state laws and regulations on air pollution control; introduction of the Safe Drinking Water Act; and aim of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) to clean up hazardous substances at contaminated sites.

In recent years, communities have begun to implement both 'soft' and mandatory policies designed to address worsening air quality. Voluntary or soft transportation policies have included air quality alert systems that encourage people not to drive on days when the air quality index is above a specified threshold and public education/action campaigns that focus on reducing automobile related travel. In this article, we evaluate the effectiveness of one such soft policy, the Clear the Air Challenge (CAC), in reducing ground-level ozone during the Wasatch Front's summer ozone season. Using daily ozone data and color-coded daily air quality designations from 2006 through 2012, we estimate a range of nonequivalent control group models. In only one of the models does the CAC generate a statistically significant but small reduction in ground-level ozone. Future research should assess the full range of costs and benefits to the public associated with such soft transport policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of nature as capital is gaining visibility in policies and practices in both the public and private sectors. This change is due to an improved ability to assess and value ecosystem services, as well as to a growing recognition of the potential of an ecosystem services approach to make tradeoffs in decision making more transparent, inform efficient use of resources, enhance resilience and sustainability, and avoid unintended negative consequences of policy actions. Globally, governments, financial institutions, and corporations have begun to incorporate natural capital accounting in their policies and practices. In the United States, universities, nongovernmental organizations, and federal agencies are actively collaborating to develop and apply ecosystem services concepts to further national environmental and economic objectives. Numerous federal agencies have begun incorporating these concepts into land use planning, water resources management, and preparations for, and responses to, climate change. Going forward, well-defined policy direction will be necessary to institutionalize ecosystem services approaches in federal agencies, as well as to guide intersector and interdisciplinary collaborative research and development efforts. In addition, a new generation of decision support tools are needed to further the practical application of ecosystem services principles in policymaking and commercial activities. Improved performance metrics are needed, as are mechanisms to monitor the status of ecosystem services and assess the environmental and economic impacts of policies and programs. A greater national and international financial commitment to advancing ecosystem services and natural capital accounting would likely have broad, long-term economic and environmental benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the roles of science and environmental policy in relation to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA's) efforts to set national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS), and it mentions America's Clean Air Act and the EPA's attempted rerevision of NAAQS for photochemical oxidants (ozone). A risk-based standard for U.S. environmental laws is examined, along with U.S. administrative rulemaking and the ozone-related case Whitman v. American Trucking Assn’s.

American Indians interact with land and the environment in a manner that is distinct from non-native peoples. They view natural resources as an integral part of their way of life. As a result, Indian tribes desire to implement policies and programs that will protect their natural resources. In order to receive federal assistance for these policies and programs, however, a tribe must be federally recognized. The Duwamish tribe, which resides near Seattle, Washington, is not a federally recognized tribe. Despite years of fighting for recognition, the Duwamish cannot take part in the improvement of their tribal region's air and water quality. Alternatively, the Forest County Potawatomi Community is federally recognized. The tribe has utilized its federal status to redesignate its reservation lands under the Clean Air Act, which brings stricter environmental regulations on and around the reservation. As long as the Bureau of Indian Affairs' criteria for federal recognition continue to be arbitrarily and haphazardly enforced, unrecognized tribes like the Duwamish will continue to lack the power to address the environmental issues in their tribal region, in contravention of their fundamental beliefs and way of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Using a large national sample of U.S. cities the authors create an environmental policy index to explore the factors that explain the adoption and implementation of environmental policies at the local level. Using univariate, bivariate, and multivariate methods, these data indicate that cities with higher populations, more highly educated citizens, higher percentages of Hispanic residents, located in the West (and more specifically California), and that are central cities are more likely to engage in environmental policies. Furthermore, this article finds evidence of differences in engagement based upon the subarea of environmental protection examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of energy policy is driven by concerns about climate change. Views about the importance of carbon emissions affect debates on topics ranging from the regulation of electricity generation and transmission to the need for incentives to develop emerging technologies. Government efforts to fund and communicate climate science have been extraordinary, but recent polling suggests that roughly half of the American population is unsure or does not believe that anthropogenic climate change is occurring. Among some populations, belief in climate change is declining even as the climate science becomes more certain. Much of the doubt occurs among individuals who support free markets, and the doubt is fueled by the argument that governments and governmentfunded climate scientists are not accounting for information that is inconsistent with the climate consensus. This Article explores a private governance response: the creation of a prediction market to assess and communicate the implications of climate science. Markets not only allow the buying and selling of goods, but also provide information about the likelihood of future events. Research suggests that markets are often able to account for information that is outside of the conventional wisdom. In addition, individuals who are likely to doubt climate science may find markets to be credible sources of information. A climate market could take the form of an academic initiative along the lines of the Iowa presidential prediction market or could operate as a more traditional options market. Trading could occur over the types of predictions that matter for global climate change, such as the global average temperature or sea level in 2020 or 2100, with the current market value of the prediction signaling the likelihood of the outcome. The market will be subject to manipulation concerns, but experience with other prediction markets suggests that a climate prediction market could provide an accurate, credible, and widely disseminated signal about the status of the climate science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments are increasingly resorting to technology mandates to force development and commercialization of socially-desirable technologies that the market, for various reasons, seems unable or unwilling to provide in a timely manner. This Article analyzes three recent examples of government-imposed technology mandates, including explicit or de facto government requirements for electric vehicles, digital TV, and nonincandescent light bulbs. The analysis demonstrates that while all three mandates were motivated by legitimate and worthy goals, all three mandates encountered controversy, delays, confusion, and at best partial success. Three major conclusions can be drawn from these three cases studies: (1) Technology mandates should be a last resort for government to induce beneficial technologies; (2) When government resorts to technology mandates it should do a better job of trying to anticipate the social, economic, and technological implications of the intended technology change; and (3) When government resorts to technology mandates it should put into place mechanisms for ongoing review and adjustment of technology mandates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article investigates the tax bases of local jurisdictions that have imposed bans on horizontal slickwater fracturing, colloquially known as fracking. Local governments that draw little additional revenue from fracking are more likely to ban the practice because of environmental concerns. The correlation between the issuance of local fracking bans and the relative absence of additional local revenue from fracking indicates the importance of taxation in determining the proper balance between federal, state, and local governments in the process of making environmental policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relatively low level of concern about climate change among Americans has important implications for climate policy. While many studies have examined individual characteristics associated with climate change attitudes, fewer studies have considered the effects of environmental conditions on such attitudes. Here, we use two national samples of American adults to explore the impact of abnormal daily temperatures on levels of concern about climate change. We test the hypotheses that (1) abnormally warm temperatures, and (2) both abnormally warm and abnormally cool temperatures are associated with higher levels of concern. Using a generalized ordinal logit, we find that the quadratic form of deviation from mean temperature on the date of the survey is significantly associated with higher levels of concern, thus supporting the second hypothesis. We discuss several theoretical frameworks that may explain this result including availability bias, mental models, and implicit stimuli, and the implications for climate policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the beliefs and framing strategies of interest groups during a period of policy change and the factors explaining policy change. We develop propositions to explore questions concerning policy change primarily from the advocacy coalition framework as well as from other theorie. The propositions are tested by examining the promulgation of a Colorado regulation requiring the disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. Using coded data of documents published by organizations involved in the rulemaking process, we find divergence between industry and environmental groups on their beliefs concerning hydraulic fracturing, as well as their portraying themselves and each other as heroes, victims, and villains, but some convergence on their more specific beliefs concerning disclosure of chemicals. Interviews point to the importance of policy entrepreneurs, timing, a negotiated agreement, and learning for explaining policy change. The findings provide both theoretical and methodological insights into how and why policy changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metropolitan smog alerts are prominent public information campaigns designed to enhance public health and to curb driving and other emissions. Unlike many other voluntary information-based environmental policies, air quality alerts target household behavior via forecast information about ambient concentrations rather than firm or product characteristics. This paper explores behaviors with high emissions (driving) and with high exposure (outdoor recreation) and underscores the difference between altruistic and risk aversion motivations. Behavioral impacts are identified using the threshold nature of daily air quality forecasts. A regression discontinuity (RD) design finds elderly users and exercisers tend to curtail their use of a major park following smog alerts. The RD design also reveals that households do not drive less on smog alert days. Juxtaposing high emissions behavior with high exposure behavior in the same study highlights how public forecast information may better trigger some responses and struggle to trigger others. [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 article discusses the four approaches for management of coastal and estuarine stormwater in the U.S. Topics include the implementation of the pollutant trading programs to address excessive nutrients, sediment, and phosphorous, some municipalities offer rebates to commercial and residential landowners who employed low-impact development strategies to reduce the impact of coastal and estuarine stormwater runoff, and the land acquisition programs.

Unlike the regulation of other heavy industries, fracking—in which companies create cracks in shale rock to extract gas, oil, or other substances—has been exempted from federal reach, leaving regulation to the states, which appear vulnerable to capture by energy interests. As fracking has expanded, become more complex, and generated considerable controversy, some states have sought to quash local government efforts to impose more stringent regulations. Citizens and activists have sought redress through the courts, and some states are fighting over the transport of waste disposal across state lines. The story is one of fractured, fragmented federalism that illustrates the key role played by regulated interests that prefer state to federal regulation, resulting in a variable, often weak state regulatory regime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The emergence of hydraulic fracturing techniques is generating a dramatic expansion of the development of domestic natural gas resources in the United States and abroad. Fracking also poses a series of environmental protection challenges that cut across traditional medium and program boundaries. Formal constraints on federal government engagement thus far devolve considerable latitude to individual states for policy development. This provides an important test of whether recent scholarly emphasis on highly innovative state environmental and energy policies can be extended to this burgeoning area. Pennsylvania has moved to the epicenter of the fracking revolution, reflecting its vast Marcellus Shale resource and far-reaching 2012 legislation. This article examines the Pennsylvania case and notes that the state's emerging policy appears designed to maximize resource extraction while downplaying environmental considerations. The case analysis generates questions as to whether this experience constitutes an influential state early mover that is likely to diffuse widely or is instead an aberration in a rapidly diversifying state policy development process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stakeholder negotiation processes are increasingly used in environmental management, but are often difficult due to values differences among stakeholders. These values can be reflected in the language used by stakeholders, which may lead to conflict in negotiation processes. This study investigated whether there are widespread differences among Colorado water stakeholders in how they define the term 'conservation,' a key value and policy term, and whether this leads to conflict in negotiations. Using multiple methods in a cross-sectional case study, use of the term and possible policy implications were analyzed. Stakeholder respondents in this study who had experienced difficulty in water negotiations also perceived a higher degree of miscommunication in their negotiations. The most important finding presented here suggests that clarity of language and transparent discussion of key value-representative terms may aid in stakeholder negotiations, and that minority stakeholders may be more aware of values and language differences than their majority counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is likely that the political–economic coalition required for implementing a federal cap-and-trade programme for GHGs in the US is now sufficiently strong, the structural impediments that have prevented its legislative passage remain impressively durable and can be expected to continue to lay waste to congressional proposals for the foreseeable future. Indeed, given the complex history of environmental policy gridlock in Washington since the early 1980s, any expectations that a cap-and-trade programme could have been realistically achieved through the traditional legislative passage in Congress are fundamentally misplaced. Building on previous research, it is argued that – as with most other forms of environmental policy in the US over the past three decades – a national carbon market is more plausible given alternative policy pathways, which if taken are capable of circumventing the Federal Congress altogether. In particular, the interaction between litigation against the federal government and the ‘rulemaking’ authority possessed by the Executive Branch provides the potential space for the current administration to unilaterally establish a model rule for a national carbon-trading programme. Policy relevance This article aims to contribute to American climate policy debates by re-thinking the policy mechanisms most capable of establishing a national carbon market in the US. By taking into account the array of structural factors that have prevented the legislative passage of such a programme in federal Congress, a range of alternative policy ‘pathways’ is considered that have historically allowed progressive environmental policies to endure in Washington (despite increased Congressional gridlock over the past few decades). Two specific alternative strategies and the relationship between them are assessed: the use of litigation to impose legal obligations on federal agencies to regulate effluents, and the use of executive authority to define the nature and scope of environmental regulation. The administration's current potential to unilaterally develop a model-rule for a cap-and-trade programme under the Clean Air Act is emphasized, and the political implications of such a strategy are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In his work on policy development, John Kingdon discusses the role of 'policy entrepreneurs' in advocating particular solutions to policy problems. This article discusses a group of policy entrepreneurs in the US who have been actively seeking to shift drought policy away from a crisis response towards an approach based on risk management. The case is discussed by comparison with the development of Australian drought policy which has taken a risk management approach since 1992. Drought policy in Australia has largely been developed in a top-down fashion while in the US policy advocacy has been more bottom-up. This case highlights a key point that Kingdon and others have made, that policy entrepreneurs cannot succeed alone in achieving policy change, and raises the question as to whether the concept of 'policy entrepreneurs' is useful beyond being an appealing descriptor of influential but not decisive agents in the policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the attention surrounding local climate protection in the United States is associated with two networks: ICLEI Local Governments for Sustainability's Cities for Climate Protection and the U. S. Conference of Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement ( MCPA). However, the impact of these networks on member-city actions has not been clearly established. This paper examines whether, and to what extent, participation in climate networks leads to the implementation of greenhouse gas ( GHG)-reducing policies, above and beyond what would have been done in their absence. To account for the possibility that cities which join climate networks are systematically different from those that do not and control for self-selection induced bias, three statistical techniques-propensity score matching, Heckman full information maximum likelihood, and instrumental variables-are employed to estimate the 'treatment effect' of participation. Results suggest that impact is network specific: ICLEI membership causes small to moderate increases in cities' GHG-relevant activity, whereas the MCPA has no such effect. The characteristics of each network are evaluated in light of these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze those US colleges and universities that are participating in the Green Power Partnership (GPP). GPP is a voluntary environmental program initiated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2001 to help increase the use of green power (electricity produced from solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass, and low-impact small hydroelectric sources) among US organizations. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on literature in voluntary environmental programs to develop an understanding as to what types of campuses might be most likely to partner with the US Government to be leaders in the use of green power. It then characterizes partner campuses based on institutional, geographical, financial, student specific and sustainability variables. The study draws attention to the GPP participants that are also signatories of the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC). This provides leeway into future research that would benefit from investigating the motivations for and constraints to such dual commitments. Findings – The analysis reveals that GPP partners are primarily private, four-year institutions located in the northeast region. These campuses show a high level of awareness for the environment and vested interest on part of the students, as evidenced by the dominance of environmental studies in the curriculum, student-run organizations dedicated to sustainability issues, and adoption of green fees. Further, they are actively involved in the generation and use of electricity from renewable sources and more than two-thirds have also signed the PCC. Originality/value – This study is the first to explore EPA's GPP program with respect to the participation of higher education institutions (HEIs) in this program. It serves as a pioneer study, exploring a voluntary partnership between the US Government and the higher education sector and contributes to the understanding of the vital role of higher education in the development and deployment of renewable energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between the level of resilience and the level of sustainability plans and policies found in 40 American urban areas is examined. The resilience index reflects motivation, capacity and information; sustainability plans and policies are measured by a content analysis of city documents. The results show that: the presence of sustainability plans and policies is related to resilience, but not to aggregate measures of diversity, formal education or proportion of persons living in poverty; resilience has a significant impact on sustainability plans and policies even when controlling for diversity, education, poverty, and inequality; resilience is more likely to be present in a communitarian political culture; and resilience retains its impact on sustainability plans and policies even when controlling for type of political culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 1000 US municipalities have formally committed to reduce their local greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through participation in one of several climate-protection networks. This has attracted the attention of researchers interested in theories of free riding and local political decision making who question why municipalities become engaged in this global effort. However, whereas joining a climate-protection network or adopting an emissions-reduction goal are relatively low-cost acts, the implementation of such policies entails higher costs. This raises legitimate questions about the extent and type of follow-through made on municipal climate-protection commitments. With this paper I begin to fill in the data gap around municipal climate-protection initiatives and construct an index that quantifies the GHG-reduction policies implemented by local governments. Data informing the index are collected on municipalities in the US state of Indiana and are used to test theories of local political decision making. Findings point to the important role that policy entrepreneurs play in advancing local climate protection as well as to the potential inadequacy of membership in climate-protection organizations as an indicator of increased implementation of GHG-reducing activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Congress established the reclamation program in 1902, and the hundreds of federal water projects built in the twentieth century helped shape the West. Today, the Bureau of Reclamation plays an enormously important role in managing these projects. But with no new big dams to build, the Bureau has been forced to revise its mission to address today's water management challenges, such as stretching finite water supplies and restoring aquatic ecosystems. Through both site-specific enactments and programmatic statutes, Congress in recent years has given the Bureau new authority and direction to address these modern challenges. But Congress has left a significant gap in the Bureau's statutory powers by failing to provide general authority for restoration of ecosystems impaired by reclamation projects. This Article reviews Congress's expressed priorities for the reclamation program since 2002, identifies programmatic statutes intended to help the Bureau address the water issues of today's West, examines the absence of general environmental restoration authority, and concludes with options for legislation through which Congress might provide such authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine states' use of local clean air agencies and provide a preliminary assessment of what causes states to devolve air quality policy authority to the local level. Data from a unique comparative state survey shows that states vary widely in the number of local clean air agencies they employ and the amount of authority these agencies have to set standards, monitor air quality, and enforce regulations. Multivariate analyses suggest that second-order devolution is partly driven by a general propensity to decentralize policy authority, but that policy-specific factors relating to the problem and interest group environment affect devolution as well. These findings indicate that local agencies play an important role in U.S. air quality regulation, and that the dynamics of state devolution to local agencies deserve further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many US municipalities are engaged in climate mitigation planning, or efforts to reduce their communities' greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through land-use, transportation, and energy planning. However, they face a number of procedural and institutional obstacles that limit the adoption and implementation of those plans. The literature identifies some of the factors that lead municipalities to join relevant policy networks, but provides little guidance for overcoming the aforementioned obstacles and adopting policies to reduce community-wide GHG emissions. With this study I increase the understanding of climate mitigation planning by examining whether the adoption of these plans and policies is driven primarily by local demographic, economic, environmental, or political-institutional characteristics. My research is based upon a survey of 255 US municipalities. I combine the survey responses with secondary data and use multiple regression techniques to estimate the impact of fifteen demographic, political-institutional, economic, and environmental variables on the adoption of climate mitigation plans and policies. The influence of neighboring jurisdictions, the presence of staff members assigned to energy or climate planning, and the level of community environmental activism are found to have the greatest impact on climate mitigation policy adoption. These findings support the conclusion that the extent of climate mitigation planning is driven primarily by internal processes, and municipalities that are successful in this area do not fit any one profile according to their demographic, economic, or environmental characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the integrity of the emerging emissions allowance markets for greenhouse gases (GHG) under the international emissions trading system created by the Kyoto Protocol and the parallel European Union Emissions Trading Scheme. In particular, we suggest that accepted definitions of emissions baselines, initial allocation of emission credits, verification of “additionality” for GHG reduction beyond what would have occurred without trading, assuring permanence for offset-generating projects, preventing leakage of emissions-generating activities from protected project areas, monitoring, and reporting requirements are problematic. As with previous reforms that also rely on market allocation and expansion of private property rights, GHG trading deflects change in the social relations of production required for more sustainable production while commodifying access to the atmosphere and nature's ability to recycle carbon. Alternatives to this modern-day GHG indulgence system are considered, especially an upstream carbon tax, designed to force change in energy procurement and use. Although we found that most of the conditions required for the efficient operation of the international GHG markets are not being met thus far, further changes in the trading systems are being made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem: In the absence of U.S. federal action to address the problem of climate change, a diverse array of nonfederal policy entrepreneurs and climate action planners has produced an impressive body of plans and policies to fight climate change at the regional, state, and local levels. Their actions are highly laudable, but have they actually reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions? Purpose: This article evaluates the work of a group of innovative state-level policy entrepreneurs whose actions were chronicled by Barry Rabe, and a set of 29 state climate action plans systematically analyzed by Stephen Wheeler. It compares states with and without climate policy entrepreneurs and states with and without climate action plans, asks if either plans or entrepreneurs have been successful in reducing CO2 emissions, and identifies the elements within plans that are associated with the greatest reductions. Methods: The analysis uses multiple regression models to explain changes in per capita CO2 emissions attributable to residential, commercial, transportation, and total nonindustrial end users from 1990 to 2007. A package of control variables accounts for political, social, climatic, economic, and urban form factors, while policy variables isolate the effects of climate policy entrepreneurs, climate action planners, and specific policy recommendations within climate action plans. Results and conclusions: State-level climate actions reduce GHG emissions by a measurable but modest amount: about one half metric ton per person per year. This represents 2-3% of the average American's 24-ton annual total GHG emissions. The reduction is small in comparison to the magnitude of the problem, but a substantial tax increase or population shift away from sprawling areas would be necessary to achieve the same reduction. Specific policies I find to be associated with lower emissions include: building efficiency in both residential and commercial sectors, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) policies in the commercial sector, and California's vehicle efficiency standards in the transportation sector. Takeaway for practice: It is encouraging that we can already identify emission reductions related to state climate action. However, the observed reductions remain small com-pared to the scope of the problem. These findings should persuade states without plans to begin the planning process while encouraging states with plans to encourage more entrepreneurship aimed at developing a second generation of policy options for stabilizing our planet's climate with or without federal action. Research support: None. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem: Basing local climate action plans on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions inventories has become standard practice for communities that want to address the problem of climate change. Communities use GHG emissions inventories to develop policy despite the fact that there has been little theoretical work on the implications of the assumptions embedded within them. Purpose: We identify elements and assumptions in emissions inventories that have important policy implications for climate action plan formulation, aiming to help planners make informed, defensible choices, and to refine future GHG emissions inventory protocols and climate action planning methods. Methods: We conducted a content analysis of 30 city climate action plans selected as a stratified random sample. We collected data on 70 different factors and used summary and trend statements, typologies, and descriptive statistics to link our findings to our research questions. Results and conclusions: Climate action plans obviously vary in many details, but most contain all of the core GHG emissions elements suggested in common protocols. We found GHG emissions inventories to be technically accurate but found their reduction targets to fall short of international targets. We also found exogenous change and uncertainty to be unaccounted for in emissions forecasts and reduction targets. The plans generally do a poor job of linking mitigation actions to reduction targets. Takeaway for practice: GHG emissions inventories supporting climate action planning are reasonably standardized, but documentation of data and assumptions should be improved and GHG reduction targets should be justified. The effect of future changes that are beyond the direct control of the community plan should be accounted for in GHG emissions forecasts and reduction targets. Rapid anticipated population growth should be acknowledged and taken into account, both in GHG emissions forecasts and in setting reduction targets. Effects of mitigation may be difficult to predict reliably, yet can be partly offset by effective monitoring that evaluates progress and changes course when necessary. Research support: None. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]