The social discount rate used in cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is an interest rate applied to benefits and costs that are expected to occur in the future in order to convert them into a present value. This conversion is done to ascertain what those benefits and costs are worth today. The social...

Economic theory predicts that individual recycling behavior gravitates toward extremes--either diligent recycling or no recycling at all. Using a nationally representative sample of 3,158 bottled water users, this article finds that this prediction is borne out for consumer recycling of plastic...

This Article examines the growing opposition to the use of eminent domain for energy transport projects such as oil pipelines, gas pipelines, and electric transmission lines. Such projects were protected from the state legislative reforms that restricted eminent domain following the Supreme...

Whether or not the federal government should price carbon continues to be debated. There were several scholarly pieces examining the relative advantages and disadvantages of cap and trade v. a carbon tax at the time of Congressional Debate on the American Clean Energy and Security Act in 2010....

As technologies change and the scale of human activity grows, so, too, does the law. The surge of oil and gas production in the United States, spurred by hydraulic fracturing in shale formations, has fomented a sea change in oil and gas law, substantially infusing this area with more complex...

Capital markets are cast as both villain and hero in the climate playbill. The trillions of dollars required to combat climate change leave ample room for heroics from the financial sector. For the time being, however, capital continues to flow readily toward fossil fuels and other...

From employment to education, many areas of our daily lives have gone virtual, including the virtual workplace and virtual classes. By comparison, the way we generate, deliver, and consume electricity is an anachronism. And the electric industry’s outdated business model and regulatory...

History’s biggest oil boom is happening right now, in the United States, ushering in the third age of oil and gas law. The first age of oil and gas law also began in the United States a century ago when landowners and oil companies developed the oil and gas lease. The lease made the modern oil...

As we examine the course of environmental laws in this country, the pressures on existing laws and what ends we should be aiming for in the future, it is necessary to explore the animating policy decisions and innovations of these laws. But we also must be courageous enough to openly debate the...

Personal choices drive global warming nearly as much as institutional decisions. Yet, policymakers overwhelmingly target large-scale industrial facilities for reductions in carbon emissions, with individual and household emissions a mere afterthought. Recent advances in behavioral economics,...