SelectedWorks @ Widener University Commonwealth Law School
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Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States: Summary & Key Recommendations
No full textThis book contains key information and recommendations from a longer volume, Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (forthcoming 2019). Legal Pathways is based on two reports by the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP) that explain technical and policy pathways for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. This 80x50 target and similarly aggressive carbon abatement goals are often referred to as deep decarbonization, distinguished because it requires systemic changes to the energy economy. Using these technical and policy pathways, Legal Pathways provides a legal playbook for deep decarbonization in the United States, identifying well over 1,000 legal options for enabling the United States to address one of the greatest problems facing this country and the rest of humanity.Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States: Summary and Key Recommendations grows out of a desire to get the main messages of the longer volume to the broadest possible audience. It provides thumbnail summaries of each of the 35 chapters from Legal Pathways. It also contains key recommendations from each chapter, the key plays available for deep decarbonization. Finally, an index organizes the key recommendations by actor (e.g., local governments), enabling readers to see in one place all of the key recommendations for any particular actor, regardless of the chapter in which they originated.While both the scale and complexity of deep decarbonization are enormous, this book has the same simple message as Legal Pathways: deep decarbonization is achievable in the United States using laws that exist or could be enacted. These legal tools can be employed with significant economic, social, environmental, and national security benefits
Pushing Shadow Banking into the Light: Reforming the U.S. Tri‐Party Repo Market
No full textThe U.S. tri‐party repo market is one of the most active and liquid in global capital markets. Even more specialized than traditional repo, tri‐party repo has often operated in the shadows of global finance. The U.S. Federal Reserve, however, has helped make this market more transparent and less volatile than it has operated in the past. The U.S. tri-party market has approximately US$1.6 trillion outstanding of repos executed between large financial institutions. It became apparent, however, that the repo market had huge systemic risks due to the domination of two large custodians in the market. This domination resulted in huge amounts of inter-market interdependence. Recognizing the need for systemic changes, the U.S. Federal Reserve as a prudential regulator exercised enormous amounts of pressure on these institutions to reform the market. This reform process could also help serve as an important model for future reforms to other areas of shadow banking
The Executive Power of Political Emergency: The Travel Ban
No full textAs one of his first actions in office, President Trump chose to ban nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. The announcement and implementation of this “Travel Ban” were chaotic, fast-paced, and out of the ordinary. The first version of the Travel Ban quickly was replaced with a second version in an attempt to ameliorate the legal and policy weaknesses of the first version. The second version still was deeply flawed and spawned much litigation. Through a third version, the Trump Administration created a ban ultimately upheld by a Supreme Court majority willing to ignore pedigree in favor of an agency-provided facially neutral justification. This symposium contribution will describe the announcement and implementation of the Travel Ban, including all three versions. From there, it will explore how the Travel Ban resulted from a manufactured political emergency. Because of the way the Trump Administration portrayed immigration during the presidential campaign, the executive created a political emergency to take action against an artificial threat. The bungled implementation of the Travel Ban shows how the impetus for the ban was more political emergency than anything else. The initial announcement and implementation of the ban was political theater that took little regard for bureaucratic expertise on policy formation and implementation. The evolving ban in all its various forms represents an attempt to dilute the fingerprints of political emergency to cloak the ban in the garb of a more reasoned policy choice. That the Supreme Court ultimately upheld the ban based on the afterthought justification provided by agency experts raises important questions about the role of agencies in concealing discriminatory intent
Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky Strikes Down a Vague Ban on Speech in Polling Places, But Future Bans May Be Upheld
No full textThis article discusses the Supreme Court’s opinion in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky and criticizes the Court’s dicta suggesting that it would uphold well written bans on political apparel in polling places
Trump\u27s Travel Ban and the Limits of the US Constitution (El Espacio de Libertad, Seguridad y Justicia y el Derecho del Convenio Europeo de Derechos Humanos)
No full textThis article will describe the announcement and implementation of the Travel Ban, including all three versions. From there, it will explain how the Travel Ban reveals limits to the protections of the United States Constitution in immigration law. The Nineteenth Century plenary power doctrine gives the political branches of the US government virtually unrestricted power when it comes to some aspects of immigration law. The Travel Ban directly implicates that outdated interpretation of constitutional immigration law. The Travel Ban is the real life manifestation of concerns about plenary power. The Travel Ban exposes a severe deficiency in US immigration law that is incompatible with American values and must be fixed
Cities In Distress: Municipal Recovery Lessons From Pennsylvania
No full textAs we reflect on the five years since Detroit’s bankruptcy filing, Pennsylvania’s experience in intervening in its municipalities’ financial distress provides some useful insights on the problems plaguing municipalities as well as lessons for states
Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization: Postscript
No full textThis article is based on the introduction is to a new book, Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States (Environmental Law Institute Press, Michael B. Gerrard & John C. Dernbach eds., forthcoming 2019). It is entitled a postscript because it was published at the end of a year-long series of chapters from the book that were published as articles in the Environmental Law Reporter.The book is a playbook of legal pathways for enabling the United States to address what is perhaps the greatest problem facing this country and the rest of humanity. It identifies hundreds of legal options for reducing U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. In U.S. football, a playbook is a comprehensive listing of all of the plays that can be employed by a particular team. In any one game, some of these plays will be used, and some will not, depending on the circumstances. But coaches and other decision makers for the team draw from the playbook to employ an appropriate combination of plays in order to win. Similarly, this book attempts to provide a comprehensive description and explanation of legal pathways to decarbonize the U.S. economy. It is likely that not all of them will be used, but public and private decision makers can employ various combinations of these pathways to achieve the needed reductions in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.This article first explains the urgency of climate change and describes the significance of the Paris Agreement. It then summarizes U.S. technical and policy pathways to deep decarbonization, as set out in two reports by the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP) and in other studies. It explains why deep decarbonization is in the best interests of the U.S., and describes the value of understanding legal pathways to deep decarbonization
Lawyering as if Tomorrow Matters
No full textThis Article argues that all lawyers, not just environmental lawyers, have a unique and important role to play in protecting life on earth, and suggests that we all need to consider doing more than we have already been doing. It briefly explains the challenge and opportunity of climate change, and the approach sustainable development would take in broadening and deepening the approaches that we have been employing to address climate change. It also briefly outlines the challenge to environmental law, and particularly the use of environmental law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that is being mounted by the Trump Administration. It then describes seven different approaches that lawyers can consider to respond constructively to climate change. These suggestions are intended to provoke discussion and reflection about the necessary role of lawyers at an exceptionally important moment in human history
Essential UCC Concepts: A Survey of Commercial Transactions
No full textThis problem-based book contains conversational textual explanations of the core areas of the UCC tested on most bar exams. It focuses on Articles 2, 3, 4, and 9 with some coverage of relevant federal laws such as the Bankruptcy Code, Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, and the Truth in Lending Act. It teaches students core concepts of the UCC by working through practical problems of varying difficulty. It is designed for a 4-credit survey course; however, it is divided according to UCC Articles so a teacher may use individual chapters for supplemental problems in another course that covers a particular UCC article
Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo and His Two Most Important Questions: Reflections on the Choice of Tycho Brahe
No full textProfessor Jeff Powell once observed that we are defined as much by the questions we think important as the answers [we] think correct. Justice Benjamin Nathan Cardozo considered two questions to be particularly important for those invested in our legal system: first, how do judges decide cases, and second to what purpose does our judicial process work