This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the EPA overreached its authority under the Clean Air Act when it crafted the Clean Power Plan. Professor Barry Rabe said that deep political divisions have left the court to play arbiter.
“The...
The U.S. Supreme Court limited the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, dealing a blow to the Biden administration's efforts to address climate change. Ford School professors Barry Rabe and...
"Legislation can breathe and adjust and be reinterpreted, but at some point, you probably have to go back to the legislative drawing board," said Ford School professor Barry Rabe, "especially if you're thinking of taking on a massive issue like...
The administration of Donald Trump has used executive orders and regulatory changes in a far-reaching expansion of presidential power to reverse many policies of the Obama administration. In a new book published by the Brookings Institution Press,...
Vivian Thomson will offer an insider’s account of how power is wielded in environmental policy making at the state level. Drawing on her experience as a former member of Virginia’s State Air Pollution Control Board, she narrates cases in Alexandria, Wise, and Roda that involved coal and air pollution. She identifies a “climate of capitulation” —a deeply rooted favoritism toward coal and electric utilities in state air pollution policies. Thomson links Virginia’s climate of capitulation with campaign finance patterns, a state legislature that depends on outsiders for information and bill drafting, and a political culture that tends toward inertia. She extends her analysis to fifteen other coal states and recommends reforms aimed at mitigating ingrained biases toward coal and electric utility interests.
