Regulation
How About a Regulatory Action Lab?
I have just finished reading Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo’s excellent and very thoughtful book, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty. MIT economists Banerjee and Duflo reject broad, sweeping arguments concerning either the necessity for infusions of foreign aid or the futility of such efforts. Instead, they advocate detailed …
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CONTINUE READINGRomney’s Embrace of the House Republicans’ Anti-Environmental Agenda
A lot of Romney’s views about energy and regulation seem familiar. There’s a reason for that. Driven by the Tea Party, the House has passed numerous deregulatory laws, some of them multiple times. On average, the House Republicans averaged more than one anti-environmental vote for every day the House was in session in 2011. Romney …
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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 …
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CONTINUE READINGMcMahon versus Murphy – A Senate Race With High Stakes Environmentally
The Connecticut Senate race between Linda McMahon (R) and Chris Murphy (D) has major environmental implications. McMahon vigorously espouses the standard Republican positions on environment and energy. But Murphy stands out among Democratic Senate candidates in swing states because of his especially strong commitment on the environment. His House website emphasizes that commitment: Our environmental …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat Drives Anti-Regulatory Public Opinion?
Distrust of regulation has surged recently, but in a one-sided and somewhat surprising way. Here’s a graph from Gallup: The Gallup folks speculate that this is due to the GOP reaction to regulatory actions under Obama. That does not seem to fit the graph. You’ll notice that the GOP antagonism toward regulation began under Bush …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat foie gras and low carbon fuels have in common
Many of you may have heard of California’s ban on foie gras. The ban was signed into law in 2004 by that notorious hippie, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but did not take effect until 2012. Fewer of you may be aware of the current litigation over California’s low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) program. Litigation concerning both …
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CONTINUE READINGRevisiting the Origin of the Administrative State — Not a 20th Century Invention After All
Every institution seems to have a creation myth of some kind. Many people think that the federal bureaucracy was a creation of the New Deal, which deviated from the Framers’ vision of small government. More sophisticated people realize that the administrative state began in the late 19th century with the creation of the Interstate Commerce …
CONTINUE READINGMayor Bloomberg and the Granny State, or: When is a Soda Ban Not a Ban?
Yes, that’s right: granny state, not — as conservatives are wont to call it — the nanny state. Dan’s thoughtful post the other day suggested but did not spell out an important theoretical implication of New York City’s prohibition on large servings of sugared soft drinks: it represents an almost-classic form of the “nudge,” the …
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CONTINUE READINGWhy Developers Shouldn’t Blame Environmental Review for the Lack of Infill
Members of the business community are smelling blood when it comes to effectively dismantling environmental review statutes like the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). They now have a political opening with the high unemployment rate, some well-publicized bad outcomes of CEQA litigation, and examples of lawsuits by rival businesses abusing the process for competitive purposes …
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CONTINUE READINGNinth Circuit Finds Public Nuisance Lawsuit Unavailable to Address Climate Change Impacts on Threatened Native Alaskan Village
Today, the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion affirming a federal district court decision to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the Native Alaskan Village of Kivalina that sought damages from oil and electric power companies whose greenhouse gas emissions have contributed to climate change. Kivalina contended that the companies’ greenhouse gas emissions constituted a public …
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