Program on Law, the Environment and the Economy: Interdisciplinary Seminars & Workshops

Beginning in the Fall of 2006, a new Provost-funded interdisciplinary Seminar on Catastrophic Risk Regulation (jointly sponsored by PLEE faculty Jason Johnston and Cary Coglianese with colleagues from Wharton and the Fels School) will bring leading scholars, regulators and policymakers to Penn to speak to groups of faculty and students from across the University of topics ranging from global warming to the management of natural hazards and terrorism risks.

The new Catastrophic Risk Regulation seminar builds upon the established PLEE series of Seminars on Law and the Environment. Since 2000, the Seminar on Law and the Environment has brought leading environmental and natural resource scholars to Penn Law where they have presented their work-in-progress at seminars attended by faculty and students from across the University. These workshops have not only facilitated faculty research by Penn scholars, they have given Penn Law students a unique opportunity to participate in the research process. The Seminar focuses annually on a different core area of environmental and natural resource policy.

For a list of upcoming seminars, please visit the Penn Program on Regulation Web site.

Over the years, Seminar topics and speakers have addressed various topics

Policies to harmonize private and public incentives in ecosystem protection and restoration

• Stanford Law Professor Buz Thompson discussed proposals to reform the Endangered Species Act to create better incentives for private landowners to conserve species habitat.
• Penn biologist Dan Janzen described his work to make the “wildland garden” a reality in Costa Rica by managing a national park to provide valuable ecosystem services to local residents.
• Attorney Margaret Bowman of Washington D.C.-based American Rivers, the nation’s leading organization in the dam removal movement, told the story (recounted that same week in a New Yorker story by John McPhee) of the removal of the Edwards Dam and dramatic restoration of the Kennebec River ecosystem in Maine.
• Leading natural resource economist Dean Lueck (now at the University of Arizona) discussed the law and economics of conservation easements, and David Hart, Director of the Patrick Environmental Center at the Academy of Natural Sciences, spoke about the aquatic ecology of dam removal and river restoration.

The political economy of regulatory reform

• Economist James Boyd of Resources for the Future, discussing the Total Maximum Daily Load provisions of the federal Clean Water Act and the movement to regulate on watershed (versus effluent-source) basis.
• Political scientist William Lowrey of Washington University in St. Louis presented empirical evidence on the extent to which political party affiliation predicts Congressional voting behavior on environmental issues.
• Gary Libecap, an environmental  economist now at the Bren School of the University of California, Santa Cruz,  analyzed the institutional determinants of international political cooperation on problems such as global warming.
• Jim Salzmann of Duke presented his work on markets for ecosystem services.

Regulatory federalism in environmental regulation

• Michael Faure of Masstricht University, Netherlands, spoke about centralization of environmental regulation in the European Union.
• Jurgen van der Heijden of University of Amsterdam described his recent work with the Dutch Covenant system.
• Wharton School economist Robert Inman presented his work explaining the success of regulatory federalism in South Africa.

Economist Joseph Kalt of Harvard and Arizona presented his findings on who devolving greater sovereignty to American Indian tribes had improved tribal governance and natural resource management.