Tribes as Essential Partners in Achieving Sustainable Governance
Indigenous peoples have modeled sustainable development around the world. Incentivizing the innovation and instillation of wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources can come in the form of public funding, including renewable portfolio standards, feed in tariffs and green tag programs. This article analyzes ways in which tribal communities are helping to expand cooperative good governance.
Reshaping Municipal and County Laws to Foster Green Building, Energy Efficiency, and Renewable Energy
The efficient use of energy in the built environment has been recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and many other experts to offer a potential greater than any other sector to reduce CO2 emissions (as much as a 29% reduction of the projected baseline by 2020 according to the IPCC) using mature cost effective technologies. Many governmental units and professional organizations have committed to a goal of carbon neutrality in buildings by 2030. Local governments can have a critical positive impact on global warming and on meeting these goals by creating a receptive legal environment and enacting mandates that foster green buildings, energy efficiency, and renewable energy both in government operations and by the general population. There are a great many available tools and more are being developed every day. This paper(1) reviews why action at the local level is necessary; (2) provides a general overview of the organizational structures that have been developed to assist local governments in this effort; (3) reviews illustrative legal measures that have been taken at the local level to promote green building; (4) focuses on legal measures to increase energy efficiency; (5) addresses legal mechanisms employed to remove obstacles and foster development of renewable energy; (6) discusses planning for adaptation; (7) presents the opportunity afforded by comprehensive planning; and (8) describes some tools that have been developed to fund local efforts in this arena.
The Uses of Scientific Information in Environmental Decision Making
This Article explores the response of the legal system to the uncertainty which is inherent in the scientific analysis of environmental impact. The first principle of due process is that the assignment of responsibility correspond with the actor who did in fact cause the injury. We argue that existing concepts of cause-in-fact, the foundation of liability, place potentially severe constraints on the ability of the legal system to respond to the need to minimize the risks of future environmental injury. Further, these constraints exist to some degree regardless of whether the prohibitions or restrictions take the form of adjudication, administrative rulemaking or legislation. In any of these contexts a court or agency applying a standard or reviewing a regulation may respond to the claim that an activity should not be allowed because of its potential future adverse impact by deciding that it would be speculative to conclude that the activity might cause harm, or that the party seeking to assign responsibility has merely established a possibility rather than a probability of such impact. In short, an essential element of responsibility—cause-in-fact—may not have been established.