This program features some of the best scholars of interest groups, policy advocacy, and social movements in the country. The papers presented span three disciplines (Political Science, Economics, Sociology) and include work that is experimental, formal, historical, comparative, qualitative, and quantitative. They deal with a number of topics, including corporate and nonprofit advocacy, health and environmental policy, and campaign finance.
In recognition of Earth Day, please join us for a very special lecture about what it takes to pass historic air quality legislation. Margo Oge served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 32 years, the last 18 of which she directed the Office of Transportation Air Quality. Ms. Oge led the Obama Administration’s landmark 2012 Clean Air Act deal with automakers, the nation’s first action targeting greenhouse gases. This regulation will double the fuel efficiency of automakers’ fleets to 54.5 mpg and cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2025.
****Watch the video**** Free and open to the public. Abstract The federal Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) is the premier national example of a non-regulatory environmental policy, and it illustrates well both the potential and limitations of using information disclosure to achieve policy goals. The TRI was adopted in 1986 as an amendment to the federal Superfund law, and since 1988 we have had annual reports on the release of over 650 toxic chemicals by some 20,000 industrial facilities around the nation.
Anthrax scares, nuisance lawsuits and political attacks and are all in a day's work for some climate scientists. In his July 2012 feature story in Popular Science, journalist Tom Clynes investigated the people and organizations behind the harassment—and their influence on scientific research, public opinion and policy.
The U.S. was founded as a maritime nation and was a world leader for most of the 19th and 20th centuries. We have lost much of that leadership. We have the largest Exclusive Economic Zone of all nations, and in 2010 got our first ever National Ocean Policy, but we are still stuck in the muck. We have failed to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea; application of Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning is sputtering; ecosystem-based management remains elusive; and the ocean is rarely mentioned as a source of jobs and new economic activity in the current debate.
Nuclear power is the primary carbon-free energy source technically capable of meeting the world's electricity needs. But current reactors use and generate special nuclear material that can be used for making nuclear weapons. Is it possible to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and simultaneously develop peaceful nuclear power technologies? At the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Panel Discussion, experts will describe and integrate technical and policy aspects of the nuclear power and nuclear nonproliferation problem.
University of Michigan Detroit Center
Ann Arbor Room
Panelists: John Gallagher, Director, Author, Writer, Detroit Free Press "Land Abandonment" Avis C. Vidal, Professor of Urban Planning, Department of Urban Studies & Planning, Wayne State University "Land Development" Moderator: Reynolds "Ren" Farley, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts University of Michigan Institute for Social Research
The widespread power outage in Texas in early 2021 was a devastating reminder of the importance of energy security. So was the spring 2021 ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline, a line that supplies half the gasoline to the US east coast. And...
Both the United States and Canada have made significant commitments to reduce their climate-changing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. But importantly, both countries have also adopted the same grand strategy to do so: “electrify...
The Mexico-U.S. cross-border integration of the oil-and-gas sector is profound, contrasting with electricity trade and renewables. Policies on both sides do not prioritize the decarbonization of the energy...
Reducing urban greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is critical to meeting larger climate change targets. Cities are responsible for as much as 75 percent of fossil fuel CO2 emissions due to high levels of energy use and consumption plus fossil...
As people around the world increasingly experience the effects of climate change, governments have been slow to enact policies that are consistent with the target of keeping global warming below 2oC agreed upon at the Paris climate talks in 2015....
Under the Biden administration and the Trudeau government, the U.S. and Canadian commitment to bilateral cooperation on climate is both strong and comprehensive. This stands in stark contrast to the complete lack of engagement under the previous...
Methane emissions took the spotlight at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. In the run-up to COP26, the United States (US) and European Union (EU) announced the Global Methane Pledge, a...
This paper examines the continued political challenge of developing a robust methane mitigation policy regime in most oil and gas producing jurisdictions in the United States and its North American neighbors. It invokes political scientist Matthew...
This course will consider the capacity of North American political institutions to shape effective environmental protection policies, devoting primary emphasis to the United States but also examining Canada and...
This course will consider the capacity of North American political institutions to shape effective environmental protection policies, devoting primary emphasis to the United States but also examining Canada and...
This course examines environmental and energy policies. We discuss the sources of environmental problems and what regulations are available to remedy these problems. We also cover energy markets, including fossil fuel extraction and...
Climate change often feels like a problem that our brains have been hardwired to ignore. Climate change is abstract and complex, making it hard for non-scientists (including policy-makers) to...
Drawing on an interdisciplinary social science literature, this course introduces theories and methodologies for science and technology policy analysis and familiarizes students with the landscape of science and technology policymaking in the US...
This course examines environmental and energy policies. We discuss the sources of environmental problems and what regulations are available to remedy these problems. We also cover energy markets, including fossil fuel extraction and...
PUBPOL 495 (Policy Seminar) is for students currently enrolled in the Public Policy Undergraduate Program only, no exceptions. Enrollment is by permission...
This course examines environmental and energy policies. We discuss the sources of environmental problems and what regulations are available to remedy these problems. We also cover energy markets, including fossil fuel extraction and...
This course is an advanced offering on environmental politics and policymaking, with a focus on the U.S. context. The course will focus most heavily in the area of climate and energy policy, though other topics may also be...
This course will consider the capacity of North American political institutions to shape effective environmental protection policies, devoting primary emphasis to the United States but also examining Canada and...