Supreme Court Leaks and Recusals: A Response to Professor Steven Lubet\u27s SCOTUS Ethics in the Wake of NFIB v. Sebelius

As Professor Steven Lubet notes in his article, Stonewalling, Leaks, and Counter-Leaks: SCOTUS Ethics in the Wake of NFIB v. Sebelius, the ethical conduct of Supreme Court Justices has once again gained national attention. This time, however, the context for public outcry is due to actions of an in-house source who released confidential information to a member of the press concerning the voting behavior and the overall sentiments of members of the Court\u27s minority in one of the most significant and controversial rulings of the year: NFIB v. Sebelius (the Affordable Care Act ). Professor Lubet uses this leaking of significant and confidential information regarding the Court\u27s deliberations in the Affordable Care Act case as a segue into what he believes is a much larger group of issues-those concerning Supreme Court ethics and regulation of the conduct of members of the Court, the need for the adoption by the Court of a comprehensive code of judicial conduct to govern the actions of the Justices, and the need for reform of the Court\u27s recusal process and practices. In my response, I briefly evaluate the validity of a few of Professor Lubet\u27s comments and arguments addressing some of these issues, the viability of his suggestion for adopting a comprehensive code of judicial conduct to govern members of the Court, and his ideas for reforming the Court\u27s recusal process. I conclude by sharing a few of my own thoughts and suggestions on these important issues

Regulatory Negotiations and Other Rulemaking Processes: Strengths and Weaknesses from an Industry Viewpoint

In this Article, the author will describe some of the American Petroleum Institute\u27s experiences in recent EPA rulemaking processes, principally rulemakings conducted pursuant to the Clean Air Act. Then I will present my personal views on the advantages and disadvantages of regulatory negotiations compared with other rulemaking processes from the viewpoint of an industry trade association

Assessing Consensus: The Promise and Performance of Negotiated Rulemaking

Negotiated rulemaking appears by most accounts to have come of age. A procedure that once seemed confined to discussion among administrative law scholars has in the past decade captured the attention of policymakers throughout the nation\u27s capital. Congress officially endorsed regulatory negotiation in the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990, and it permanently reauthorized the Act in 1996. Over the past few years, the executive branch has visibly supported regulatory negotiation, both through the Clinton administration\u27s National Performance Review (NPR) and through specific presidential directives to agency heads. Congress has also begun to mandate the use of negotiated rulemaking by certain agencies in the development of specific regulations. As a result of these and other efforts, federal agencies have begun to employ the consensus-based process known as negotiated rulemaking

Assessing Consensus: The Promise and Performance of Negotiated Rulemaking

Negotiated rulemaking appears by most accounts to have come of age. A procedure that once seemed confined to discussion among administrative law scholars has in the past decade captured the attention of policymakers throughout the nation\u27s capital. Congress officially endorsed regulatory negotiation in the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990, and it permanently reauthorized the Act in 1996. Over the past few years, the executive branch has visibly supported regulatory negotiation, both through the Clinton administration\u27s National Performance Review (NPR) and through specific presidential directives to agency heads. Congress has also begun to mandate the use of negotiated rulemaking by certain agencies in the development of specific regulations. As a result of these and other efforts, federal agencies have begun to employ the consensus-based process known as negotiated rulemaking

An Innovative Technique for Water Leak Detection Stemming from Radio Astronomy : A Potential University Technology Transfer

There have been many documented cases of technology transfer from astronomy to other disciplines such as medicine, for example, a system for diagnosing breast cancer utilising software originally developed to mosaic planetary images. The approach taken in this research will involve using a technology originally developed for radio astronomy to detect water leaks in pipes that are part of water networks in various infrastructure systems. This is innovative research as it involves an interdisciplinary approach to explore a technology and evaluate its commercial potential. Experiments are underway in which signals from an acoustic phased array are amplified and digitized using a multichannel analogue-to-digital (ADC) converter and analysed using a software correlation technique to identify leak signatures. Therefore, the chosen technology’s commercialisibility will be tested for alternate applications which can be applied to infrastructures such as water networks. In addition, the importance of interdisciplinary research will also be reflected through this research

Urban Water Conservation and Efficiency Potential in California

Improving urban water-use efficiency is a key solution to California's short-term and longterm water challenges: from drought to unsustainable groundwater use to growing tensions over limited supplies. Reducing unnecessary water withdrawals leaves more water in reservoirs and aquifers for future use and has tangible benefits to fish and other wildlife in our rivers and estuaries. In addition, improving water-use efficiency and reducing waste can save energy, lower water and wastewater treatment costs, and eliminate the need for costly new infrastructure

Worker Rights Consortium Assessment re Far East Garment Textile and First Apparel (Thailand): Findings, Recommendations, and Status Report

WRC reports on its assessment of labor violations at the Far East factory in Thailand. Includes a discussion of logistics of the assessment and recommendations for the company to remediate the problems

Stopping The Presses: Evaluating The Effectiveness Of The 2013 Justice Department’s New Protections For Journalists

The Obama Administration ushered in a new era of accountability and communication between the government and those it governs. With the rise of social media and the creation of White House accounts on various platforms it seemed as if the Obama administration was taking his pledge to have the most transparent presidency of all time to serious heights. However, during the first term of the Obama administration, the justice department under Attorney General Eric Holder set some dangerous precedents. The justice department pursued several prosecutions of people who had leaked government secrets and developed a successful formula for these cases by way of the Espionage Act. Out of this behavior, a new landscape for the relationship between the government and the media was formed. After backlash, they conducted a review and used experts from outside the Whitehouse in the media, and academia to provide feedback. They then released a list of protections and new policies to protect journalists to undo the precedents they may have set and encourage future due diligence in the prosecutorial process regarding the role of media in leaks. I am evaluating how effective those protections are and whether they accomplish the goals they set out to meet.Plan II Honors Progra