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Regulating the Energy Transition
FERC and Cost-Benefit Analysis
This article, published in the Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, argues that, FERC’s management of this transition would be significantly enhanced if it embraced cost-benefit analysis—including accounting for important indirect costs and benefits such as the effect on climate change—to guide its decisionmaking. Changing course and adopting cost-benefit analysis will allow FERC to manage the energy transition while maximizing social welfare, enhancing transparency and accountability, and mitigating legal and political risk
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Option Value and the Social Cost of Carbon
What Are We Waiting For?
Scientists and economists have long recognized that significant uncertainties and irreversibility characterize climate change. And yet, the social cost of carbon (SCC), the preeminent policy tool to address climate change applied by the U.S. government, does not include the option value (OV) that arises due to these characteristics. We demonstrate a simple methodology for approximating the OV underlying the SCC using the Bachelier formula
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Managing the Future of the Electricity Grid: Modernizing Rate Design
This article, published in the Harvard Environmental Law Review, argues that the electricity sector is at a critical juncture, and that a shift to a paradigm with a long-term vision that includes better, economically efficient rate designs is necessary if we want to realize the clean energy future that the modern grid promises us.
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State Nuisance Law and the Climate Change Challenge to Federalism
Two legal questions must be answered before the plaintiffs can proceed to the merits of their cases. First, can one bring state nuisance suits for damages caused by interstate pollution? Second, if such claims can be brought, are they nevertheless preempted by federal law? This Note will demonstrate that there is significant legal precedent for allowing state nuisance suits concerning transboundary pollution and no basis for removing the current cases to federal court. It will then argue that courts should not find federal law preempts nuisance lawsuits against these defendants
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Institutional Pathologies in the Regulatory State
What Scott Pruitt Taught Us About Regulatory Policy
While Scott Pruitt’s aggressive deregulatory agenda while he served as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency got significant attention, many of his actions have been successfully challenged in the courts. This Article, published in the Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law, argues that these deregulatory efforts have been plagued by five pathologies that contributed to their legal vulnerability.
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