Struggling for Air

Power Plants and the "War on Coal"

Richard Revesz, Jack Lienke (Autoren)

Buch | Hardcover

232 Seiten

2016
Oxford University Press Inc (Verlag)
978-0-19-023311-2 (ISBN)

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Struggling for Air offers the most comprehensive analysis to date of the Obama administration policies that have become known as the "war on coal." Unconventionally, the authors trace the origins of this "war" to a fateful decision made by Congress almost half a century ago, when it passed the Clean Air Act of 1970.

Since the early days of the Obama administration, conservative politicians have railed against the President's "war on coal." As evidence of this supposed siege, they point to a series of rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency that require the nation's power plants to cut their emissions of several types of air pollution. It's true that, because coal produces far more pollution than any other major energy source, the EPA's rules are expected to further reduce the fuel's already shrinking share of the electricity market, in favor of cleaner options like natural gas, wind and solar power. Even so, the rules are hardly the "unprecedented regulatory assault" that opponents make them out to be. Instead, they are merely the latest chapter in a longstanding quest for redemption, a multi-decade struggle to overcome a tragic flaw in our nation's most important environmental law.

In 1970, a nearly unanimous Congress passed the Clean Air Act, which had the remarkably ambitious aim of eliminating all air pollution that posed a threat to public health or welfare. But there was a problem: for some of the most common pollutants, Congress empowered the EPA to set emission limits only for newly constructed industrial facilities-most notably, power plants. Existing facilities, by contrast, would be largely exempt from direct federal regulation-a regulatory practice known as "grandfathering." What lawmakers didn't anticipate was that imposing costly requirements on new plants while giving existing ones a pass would simply encourage those old plants to stay in business much longer than originally planned. For almost half a century now, the core problems of U.S. environmental policy have flowed inexorably from the smokestacks of these coal-fired clunkers, which continue to pollute at far higher rates than their younger peers.

In Struggling for Air, Richard L. Revesz and Jack Lienke chronicle the political compromises that gave rise to grandfathering, its deadly consequences, and the repeated attempts-by Presidential administrations of both parties-to make things right.

Richard Revesz is one of the nation's leading voices in the fields of environmental and regulatory law and policy. He is Lawrence King Professor of Law and dean emeritus at New York University School of Law, where he directs the Institute for Policy Integrity. He is also director of the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A native of Argentina, Revesz has authored eight books and more than 60 articles on law and public policy issues. Jack Lienke is an attorney with the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law, where his work focuses on climate change policy and other forms of environmental regulation. He was previously a litigation associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP in Manhattan, and a law clerk to the Honorable Janet C. Hall of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

Preface: Conflict and Context

I. Coal: A Primer

II. War Stories
Rise of the Rhetoric
Peeling Back the Propaganda

III. Congress Misses the Mark
Fly in the Ointment
Explaining the Error
What the Transcripts Tell Us
Unexpected Deals, Unexpected Devils
Missing the Mark

IV. Misadventures in Modification
Altered States
Spared Change
What Goes Up . . . Might Not Count
Old Plants, New Tricks
A Fishy "Fix"
A New Sheriff in Town
A Safer Harbor
Considering the Alternatives

V. Bad Neighbors
Tall Orders, Taller Stacks
There Goes the Neighborhood
Who Will Stop the Rain?
To Market, To Market
The Sincerest Form of Flattery
Grandfathering's Grim Toll

VI. A Warming World
The Carbon Loophole: A History
Between a Cap and a Hard Place
Let's Make a Deal
What's Grandfathering Got to Do with It?

VII. Hope for Redemption
The Dash to Gas
The Role of Regulation
Bumps in the Road Ahead

Conclusion: A Farewell to Harms

Erscheinungsdatum	31.01.2016
Verlagsort	New York
Sprache	englisch
Maße	213 x 147 mm
Gewicht	363 g
Themenwelt	Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz
	Recht / Steuern ► EU / Internationales Recht
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
	Technik ► Bergbau
	Technik ► Elektrotechnik / Energietechnik
	Wirtschaft ► Betriebswirtschaft / Management ► Rechnungswesen / Bilanzen
	Wirtschaft ► Volkswirtschaftslehre
ISBN-10	0-19-023311-7 / 0190233117
ISBN-13	978-0-19-023311-2 / 9780190233112
Zustand	Neuware