'Mal-Adaptive' Federalism
'Mal-Adaptive' Federalism

Author: Jim Rossi

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13:

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While the federal government has been slow to address problems such as climate change, many states have adopted innovative approaches to address the climate impact of using natural resources to produce energy, including aggressive approaches to regulating carbon emissions and renewable and clean energy standards. This Article identifies an emerging challenge that subnational regulation faces in the energy and environmental context -- what I will call “maladaptive” federalism -- and argues that federalism discussions need to account for its possibility. Part I highlights adaptive regulation as a form of federalism, echoing a vision for subnational regulation many federalism scholars and policymakers have endorsed over the past two decades. Part II argues that policy choices by subnational units of government that fail to account for or consider these coordination benefits should not be celebrated as a form of adaptive federalism merely because they are state policy choices. I identify subnational recalcitrance (on inaction by states) and backlash (or reversing course) as two potential types of maladaptation, provides examples of each, and use these to illustrate the structural features of subnational governments that make maladaptation most likely. Part III argues in favor of pro-adaptation tools that federal agencies can use to address the enactment costs of states taking maladaptive approaches. In certain contexts, focusing on enactment costs associated with the structure of state governments will superior to federal policies that preempt subnational units of government altogether by making the policy choice for them. Such tools not only make maladaptation less likely; they also help to ensure that when a state does opt for an maladaptive policy path that it does so because it is making explicit tradeoffs in ways that are more likely to be welfare-enhancing and politically accountable.

Adapting Water Federalism to Climate Change Impacts
Adapting Water Federalism to Climate Change Impacts

Author: Robin Kundis Craig

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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Climate change regulation has proven a fertile ground for debates on federalism. To date, however, these debates have concentrated on climate change mitigation and the “proper” roles of the states and the federal government in regulating to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This Article posits that climate change adaptation also has federalism implications for environmental regulation and natural resources management. In particular, the federal and state governments have always asserted overlapping - and sometimes conflicting - interests in water, and, as a result, water regulation and management have always been subject to an uneasy federalism balancing. For example, water allocation and water rights are generally considered issues of state law - but if the water crosses state lines, or state regulation affects navigation, the federal government asserts a superior and preemptive role. In between these endpoints, the federal Clean Water Act adopted an intricately structured cooperative federalism that imposes certain minimum federal requirements for water quality but allows states to choose water quality goals, while aquatic species protection remains a largely unstructured mishmash of overlapping state and federal interests and authorities. In light of existing shortages of water and the imminent need to adapt to climate change impacts on water resources, reconsidering the proper federalism balance in water resources management is inevitable, as several congressional bills attest. Specifically, the traditional assumption of state superiority over matters of water allocation has come into question in light of the intimate connections between water availability and national energy policy, national food security, and interstate conflicts. This Article explores the potential for climate change and the increasing need to adapt to its impacts on water to alter traditional notions of water federalism, concluding that an increased federal role in water management is likely but could take many forms, some more attune to the multiple interests in water than others.

Navigating Climate Change Policy
Navigating Climate Change Policy

Author: Edella Schlager

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780816530007

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This timely volume challenges the notion that because climate change is inherently a global problem, only coordinated actions on a global scale can lead to a solution. It considers the perspective that since climate change itself has both global and local causes and implications, the most effective policies for adapting to and mitigating climate change must involve governments and communities at many different levels. Federalism—the system of government in which power is divided among a national government and state and regional governments—is well-suited to address the challenges of climate change because it permits distinctive policy responses at a variety of scales. The chapters in this book explore questions such as what are appropriate relationships between states, tribes, and the federal government as each actively pursues climate-change policies? How much leeway should states have in designing and implementing climate-change policies, and how extensively should the federal government exercise its preemption powers to constrain state activity? What climate-change strategies are states best suited to pursue, and what role, if any, will regional state-based collaborations and associations play? This book examines these questions from a variety of perspectives, blending legal and policy analyses to provide thought-provoking coverage of how governments in a federal system cooperate, coordinate, and accommodate one another to address this global problem. Navigating Climate Change Policy is an essential resource for policymakers and judges at all levels of government who deal with questions of climate governance. It will also serve as an important addition to the curriculum on climate change and environmental policy in graduate and undergraduate courses and will be of interest to anyone concerned with how the government addresses environmental issues.

The Ideological Origins of American Federalism
The Ideological Origins of American Federalism

Author: Alison L. LaCroix

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2011-10-15

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0674062035

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Federalism is regarded as one of the signal American contributions to modern politics. Its origins are typically traced to the drafting of the Constitution, but the story began decades before the delegates met in Philadelphia. In this groundbreaking book, Alison LaCroix traces the history of American federal thought from its colonial beginnings in scattered provincial responses to British assertions of authority, to its emergence in the late eighteenth century as a normative theory of multilayered government. The core of this new federal ideology was a belief that multiple independent levels of government could legitimately exist within a single polity, and that such an arrangement was not a defect but a virtue. This belief became a foundational principle and aspiration of the American political enterprise. LaCroix thus challenges the traditional account of republican ideology as the single dominant framework for eighteenth-century American political thought. Understanding the emerging federal ideology returns constitutional thought to the central place that it occupied for the founders. Federalism was not a necessary adaptation to make an already designed system work; it was the system. Connecting the colonial, revolutionary, founding, and early national periods in one story reveals the fundamental reconfigurations of legal and political power that accompanied the formation of the United States. The emergence of American federalism should be understood as a critical ideological development of the period, and this book is essential reading for everyone interested in the American story.

Adaptive Federalism in Belgium
Adaptive Federalism in Belgium

Author: Richard Cullen

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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This article reviews the major (Federal) constitutional changes in Belgium which began with language related reforms in 1970. The historical background is discussed and some comparative observations are also made.