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Substantial reductions in global power sector emissions will be needed by midcentury to avoid significant disruption of the climate system. Achieving these reductions will require greatly increased levels of financing, technological innovation, and policy reform. In the United States, the scale and complexity of the overall challenge have raised important questions regarding prevailing regulatory...

This Article proposes that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) consider promulgating an Open Access Distribution Tariff (OADT) to open the nation’s electric grid to new products and services at the consumer (distribution) level. Design of the OADT would be comparable to the Open Access Transmission Tariff that the FERC has used previously to open the nation’s transmission wires. This...

This Article proposes a hypothesis: By linking a reduction in reliance on fossil fuels to the value of promoting national security, what I have called the Military-Environmental Complex has the potential to change individual attitudes and beliefs, and therefore behavior and political debate, about energy use and climate change. Studies have shown that individuals with certain values or political...

Addressing climate change will require the successful development and implementation of new energy technologies. Such technologies can, however, pose novel and uncertain hazards. Furthermore, the process of energy innovation is technically difficult and occurs in the face of powerful forces hostile to new technologies that disrupt existing energy systems. In short, energy innovation is difficult...

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...

This Article explores the feasibility of adding flexibility to mandates for existing power plants in order to foster technology innovation and reduce compliance costs and emissions. Under new and proposed EPA rules a significant portion of the coal-fired electricity generating capacity will require multi-billion dollar investments to retrofit and comply with emissions standards on SO2, NOx, PM...

Despite a growing sense of urgency to improve energy systems so as to reduce fossil-fuel dependency, energy system change has been slow, uncertain, and geographically diverse. Interestingly, this regionally heterogeneous evolution of energy system change is not merely a consequence of technological limitations, but also and importantly a product of complex socio-political factors influencing the...

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...

The vast majority of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades is expected to come from outside of the developed world. Yet on the whole, scholars have made only modest headway in identifying the distinctive features of effective environmental regulation in the developing world. This Article argues that a particular feature of the emerging economies—sharp regional economic...

Transitioning from our current energy infrastructure to a smart grid will be essential to meeting future challenges. One key component of the smart grid is advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). AMI allows for the grid to be run more effectively and efficiently by making granular near real-time data about customers’ energy usage available. Coupled with the input and innovation of third-party...

Channeling the Queen of Hearts, the California Supreme Court drafts and votes on its merits opinions before the case under review is orally argued. The court can, and does, alter those opinions in light of the argument, often sprinkling in citations to oral argument before publishing the decision. Nevertheless, given that a majority has already signed onto a written opinion, oral argument in that...

Judges, like all public officials, are used to criticism. The task of resolving important legal controversies seldom pleases all sides, and scholars, pundits, and dissenting colleagues often spare no pains to remind us that we are not “infallible.” On many issues, no matter how we decide, we must take our lumps. That goes with the job. But it is one thing to be told that the outcome of a judicial...

Justice Liu’s response to Opinions First—Argument Afterwards treats Opinions First as an attack on the court—which it is not—rather than a wellsupported proposal for reform, which is the ground I had hoped to occupy. Instead of addressing the ways out of the box the court unfortunately finds itself in post-Stevens v. Broussard (I identified several), the Liu Response chooses to deny the existence...

Family law is now replete with proposals advocating for the legal recognition of nonmarital relationships: those between friends, relatives, unmarried intimate partners, and the like. The presumption underlying these proposals is that legal recognition is financially beneficial to partners. This assumption is sometimes wrong: Legal recognition of relationships can be harmful to unmarried...