This webinar on January 29, 2019 was jointly hosted by CLOSUP and the Michigan Municipal League. The webinar features Professor Manny Teodoro from Texas A&M University, speaking on water and sewer system finance and policy, including how to measure affordability, and policy options for rate structures and related issues.
The United States has seen dramatic growth in energy development with much of it occurring on privately owned lands, creating a unique raft of opportunity and risk for landowners. The presentation reviews research on the nexus of property ownership rights and regulatory policy, with a focus on Shale and Wind Energy. It introduces the concept of 'Private Participation' in the planning and siting of energy projects and discusses how private property ownership will continue to influence the energy revolution.
Daniel Raimi discusses his book The Fracking Debate, in which he highlights stories of the people and communities affected by the shale revolution, for better and worse.
While much attention has been focused on the threats that hydraulic fracturing poses to water systems—whether by its consumptive use of freshwater or the risk of contaminating ground- and surface waters—the financial wealth that oil and gas development brings to state and local governments may provide opportunities to protect water resources. This diverse group of scholars will discuss their research at the intersection of fracking and water policy, and as a panel explore whether there are particular policies or practices that might be scaled-up or replicated outside their geographical area of study to create more sustainable energy-water systems.
Development of the Bakken formation represents a multitude of trade-offs. The region is one of the great granaries of the world, but it is also the site of a recent oil and gas boom made possible by hydraulic fracturing. Overlapping with these natural resources is also a grasslands biome - one of the largest areas of grasslands in Canada and the US, which contains breeding grounds for millions of birds. How local residents understand the landscape is crucial to making fair and adequate policy to protect the ecosystem and the economy. This talk examines how landowners grapple with economic, environmental, and social trade-offs when making decisions about land-use.
This talk will explore policies such as taxation, disclosure and regulation of drilling processes in a comparative manner across the states and municipalities on the Marcellus shale play.
Free and open to the public. Lunch provided. Speaker: Susan Christopherson, Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University See the presentation from the event:
A Distinctive US Approach to Shale Gas Development?
Abstract: Vertical drilling for natural gas, using at times another form of hydraulic fracturing, is permitted and has occurred for many years in the Marcellus Shale states.
****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.
Free and Open to the Public Panelists: Christopher Borick, Director, Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion Jacquelyn Pless, Energy Policy Associate, National Conference of State Legislatures Erich Schwartzel, Editor of Pipeline, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Moderator: Barry Rabe, Director, Center for Local, State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP) See the presentations from the event:
by Christopher Borick
Free and Open to the Public Panelists: Eric Lupher, Director of Local Affairs, Citizens Research Council of Michigan Sanya Carley, Assistant Professor, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Thomas P. Lyon, Professor, Ross School of Business and School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan Abstract Michigan and twenty-eight other states have enacted legislation that mandates increases in the amount of electricity that they use from renewable sources.
