A Strange Taking Case for the 2012 Term
Rick notes that the Supremes have decided to revisit Takings jurisprudence in a couple of cases this term. One of them, Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, involves an important legal issue, but the factual issues seem quite strange. The Supremes granted cert in Koontz to consider two questions: 1) can a property owner bring a Takings claim based upon its refusal to accede to demanded exactions (as opposed to submitting to them and then bringing a...
CONTINUE READINGAkin v. McCaskill on Energy
Rep. Akin and Sen. McCaskill have sharply different views on issues such as reproductive rights. The differences on environment and energy are less stark. McCaskill seems to be the better pick on environmental grounds because of her stronger support for renewable energy and Akin's general anti-regulatory stance. Akin's views of energy policy mirror Romney's current position. His website says that "energy regulations from the EPA and other agencies have stifled our...
CONTINUE READINGProperty Rights & the Takings Clause: Prominent on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Docket This Year
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court granted review in a potentially-important regulatory takings case, bringing to two the number of Takings Clause disputes on the justices' docket this Term. The newly-granted case, Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District, No. 11-1447, involves the question of whether a government-imposed condition on its approval of a private development project is compensable under the Takings Clause. In Koontz, a private landowner had sought...
CONTINUE READINGTwo Cheers for a Hybrid Sales + Carbon Tax
Dan's thoughtful post on the Hybrid Sales + Carbon Tax is worth careful consideration. My initial thought is that Dan underestimates it one way, but might overestimate it in two ways. I think he underestimates its political viability. He argues that "voters don’t like taxes, and sales taxes are especially easy for them to notice and dislike." Interestingly enough, though, of all taxes, voters seem to like sales taxes the best, because they are seen as "voluntary...
CONTINUE READINGThe Possible Merits of a Hybrid Sales+Carbon Tax
There's been a lot of discussion of carbon taxes, which economists virtually all love. Proposed carbon taxes would generally be imposed at the level of fossil-fuel sellers or importers, or when producers use carbon. Imposing the carbon tax on consumers would have some significant advantages. This could be done with some fancy VAT-type mechanism, but a garden-variety retail sales tax would also work. The only novelty would be in calculating the amount of the sales tax...
CONTINUE READINGClimate Change Politics: Calling Junior Appropriators!
"Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting over." At least that's the old saying (incorrectly attributed to Twain), and it is true. You can't study water law for more than a moment without seeing conflict. In the west, water law is particularly conflictual due to the system of prior appropriation: rivers are divided into senior and junior appropriators, with the former taking priority in dry times. That means that conflicts do not simply arise between use...
CONTINUE READINGMy 2011 Hamilton Project Paper on U.S Transport Infrastructure Investment
The blogosphere appears to have taken an interest in my 2011 Brookings Institution Hamilton Project paper (joint with David Levinson) focused on improving the rate of return on U.S investment in transportation infrastructure. Here is the Executive Summary: "The roads and bridges that make up our nation’s highway infrastructure are in disrepair as a result of insufficient maintenance — a maintenance deficit that increases travel times, damages vehicles, and can l...
CONTINUE READINGEffective Nudges for Encouraging Kids to Eat Veggies
I am in the airport lounge in Frankfurt, Germany. Having just eaten a tasty jelly doughnut, I thought I should post this NY Times piece which highlights that kids are throwing away the healthy veggies they are being served in school. Are the young environmentalists more likely to eat them? What nudge would Cass Sunstein suggest in this case to encourage kids to eat right? Can schools encourage habits that are not being pursued at home? A good social scienti...
CONTINUE READINGIs Rain a Miracle?
Starting this Sunday evening, with the festival of Shemini Atzeret, observant Jews add a brief passage in the middle of the Amidah, the central prayer of the Jewish liturgy. Addressing God, the line reads: You cause the winds to blow and the rain to fall. It's hardly surprising in one sense: with the beginning of autumn, it stands to reason that a line about stormier weather would be added. But there is a weird aspect to this addition: the ancient Rabbis (Mishnah Be...
CONTINUE READINGConservative versus Ultra-Conservative in the Hoosier State
The Indiana race features Joe Donnelly, a conservative Democrat, against Richard Mourdock, a Tea Party Republican. Both are more conservative than their counterparts in other competitive Senate races. I discussed Mourdock briefly in a post about Tea Party candidates. He stands out for his endorsement of the view that climate change is a hoax. This claim goes well beyond both his party's presidential candidate and Republican Senate candidates in other competitive s...
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