Tapped Out: Threats to the Human Right to Water in the Urban United States

In the United States today, the goal of universal water service is slipping out of reach. Water costs are rising across the country, forcing many individuals to forgo running water or sanitation, or to sacrifice other essential human rights. The fixed costs of water systems have increased in recent years, driven in part by underinvestment in infrastructure. In many cities, this has been exacerbated by population shifts and the economic downturn. In this era of increasing costs and limited financial resources, water providers struggle to balance the competing priorities of modernization and universal access. This report, researched and written by students of Georgetown Law’s Human Rights Institute in the winter of 2013, details the causes, effects, and solutions to the affordability crisis affecting water in the urban United States

Renewable Portfolio Standard Legislation: The Case against the Status Quo

Our world today is faced with seemingly insurmountable, interconnected problems: global\ud warming, terrorism, poverty.\ud World energy needs are only rising, and with that growth will come a 57 percent increase\ud in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Consequences of global warming: rise in temperatures,\ud increase in water levels, melting of ice caps, variability of storms, etc. are not secluded to the\ud countries emitting high levels of greenhouse gases, but rather affect the entire world, and even\ud often disproportionately cause problems in developing countries. These same developing\ud countries are often the same countries hit the hardest by global poverty, a world issue that takes\ud the lives of 18 million people a year. That poverty gives rise to terrorism as people, who feel\ud unable to enact change due to a lack of resources, attempt to make their voices heard.\ud Each of these world problems appears too grand and too overbearing to tackle and\ud therefore as a country, and even as one global people, we have done little to affect change in any\ud of these areas. The United States spends less than one percent of its annual budget on foreign\ud aid, has not signed onto the Kyoto Protocol, has enacted no legislation at the national level to\ud encourage renewable energy development, and sent the vast majority of troops to Iraq as\ud opposed to Afghanistan where terrorist leaders are known to reside. These issues seem overwhelming, and they are, but that does not mean that some\ud progress cannot be made. As John W. Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education, and\ud Welfare, said, "We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised\ud as insoluble problems." The state of the world seems just so. Due to the fact that all three\ud problems are so deeply imbedded in one another, one action could potentially affect all three.\ud That one action is legislating a national Renewable Portfolio Standard. A Renewable\ud Portfolio Standard, or an RPS, mandates that a certain percentage of electricity generated within\ud a governing body must come from renewable sources. By enforcing RPS legislation, a\ud government can help develop a market for renewable energy, which in tum will reduce its\ud greenhouse gas emissions, encourage job growth, slow the effects of global warming, and\ud decrease a nation's dependence on foreign powers for energy needs.\ud RPS legislation currently is in place in 25 American states and the District of Columbia\ud and is achieving great success. The success though, is limited, and will not fully be experienced\ud until the 'patchwork' of laws throughout the country is standardized at the national level. \ud Utility companies have little incentive to develop renewable sources when they can still rely on\ud destructive, traditional means of electricity generation in states without RPS statutes. While\ud there is a school of thought that endorses the state-based approach, this paper will highlight its\ud shortcomings and support legislation at the national level.\ud In the first section of this paper, Renewable Portfolio Standard policies will be explained\ud in more detail. The costs, history, and far-reaching benefits of such a course of action will be\ud argued. A single policy in any country has the ability to affect the order of the world. In the case of the United States, a Renewable Portfolio Standard is an example of one such piece of\ud legislation.\ud In the second section of this paper, two approaches to the application of an RPS in the\ud United States will be explained. Currently, there is a system of state control in regards to\ud Renewable Portfolio Standards in the United States. While this system is better than nothing, it\ud never allows the country to see the fullest benefits of an RPS. A national RPS would be\ud significantly more effective than the status quo. It allows for uniformity in the laws, which is\ud helpful to businesses and investors, and is more efficient at truly developing a renewable energy\ud industry. It will also be argued that there should be only one ideology ofthose in favor of an\ud RPS, and why support for the state-based approach is essentially a lack of support for the policy.\ud We, as a country, have the chance to affect positive change on three pressing global\ud issues. As John W. Gardner would say, we have the ability to find opportunity in the midst of\ud world problems