The design of efficient air pollution control strategies

This statement addresses gains in economic efficiency which could be obtained by removing barriers to advances in the technology and procedures commonly used for designing air pollution abatement strategies

The Real World of Arbitrariness Review

The Administrative Procedure Act instructs federal courts to invalidate agency decisions that are 'arbitrary' or 'capricious.' In its 1983 decision in the State Farm case, the Supreme Court firmly endorsed the idea that arbitrariness review requires courts to take a 'hard look' at agency decisions. The hard look doctrine has been defended as a second-best substitute for insistence on the original constitutional safeguards; close judicial scrutiny is said to discipline agency decisions and to constrain the illegitimate exercise of discretion. In the last two decades, however, hard look review has been challenged on the plausible but admittedly speculative ground that judges' policy preferences affect judicial decisions about whether agency decisions are 'arbitrary.' This study, based on an extensive data set, finds that the speculation is correct. Democratic appointees are far more likely to vote to invalidate, as arbitrary, conservative agency decisions than liberal agency decisions. Republican appointees are far more likely to invalidate, as arbitrary, liberal agency decisions than conservative agency decisions. Significant panel effects are also observed. Democratic appointees show especially liberal voting patterns on all-Democratic panels; Republican appointees show especially conservative voting patterns on all-Republican panels. Our central findings do not show that judicial votes are dominated by political considerations, but they do raise grave doubts about the claim that hard look review is operating as a neutral safeguard against the errors and biases of federal agencies. Because judicial policy commitments are playing a large role, there is a strong argument for reducing the role of those commitments, and perhaps for softening hard look review.

Do Judges Make Regulatory Policy? An Empirical Investigation of Chevron

In the last quarter-century, the Supreme Court has legitimated agency authority to interpret regulatory legislation, above all in Chevron U.S.A., Inc v Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc, the most-cited case in modern public law. Chevron recognizes that the resolution of statutory ambiguities often requires judgments of policy; its call for judicial deference to reasonable interpretations was widely expected to have eliminated the role of policy judgments in judicial review of agency interpretations of law. But this expectation has not been realized. On the Supreme Court, conservative justices vote to validate agency decisions less often than liberal justices. Moreover, the most conservative members of the Supreme Court show significantly increased validation of agency interpretations after President Bush succeeded President Clinton, and the least conservative members of the Court show significantly decreased validation rates in the same period. In a similar vein, the most conservative members of the Court are less likely to validate liberal agency interpretations than conservative ones and the least conservative members of the Court show the opposite pattern. Similar patterns can be found on federal appellate courts. In lower court decisions involving the EPA and the NLRB from 1990 to 2004, Republican appointees demonstrated a greater willingness to invalidate liberal agency decisions and those of Democratic administrations. These differences are greatly amplified when Republican appointees sit with two Republican appointees and when Democratic appointees sit with two Democratic appointees.

The New Legal Realism

The last decade has witnessed the birth of the New Legal Realism - an effort to go beyond the old realism by testing competing hypotheses about the role of law and politics in judicial decisions, with reference to large sets and statistical analysis. The New Legal Realists have uncovered a Standard Model of Judicial Behavior, demonstrating significant differences between Republican appointees and Democratic appointees, and showing that such differences can be diminished or heightened by panel composition. The New Legal Realists have also started to find that race, sex, and other demographic characteristics sometimes have effects on judicial judgments. At the same time, many gaps remain. Numerous areas of law remain unstudied; certain characteristics of judges have yet to be investigated; and in some ways, the existing work is theoretically thin. The New Legal Realism has clear jurisprudential implications, bearing as it does on competing accounts of legal reasoning, including Ronald Dworkin's suggestion that such reasoning is a search for 'integrity.' Discussion is devoted to the relationship between the New Legal Realism and some of the perennial normative questions in administrative law.

The sensitivity of r-process nucleosynthesis to the properties of neutron-rich nuclei

About half of the heavy elements in the Solar System were created by rapid neutron capture, or r-process, nucleosynthesis. In the r-process, heavy elements are built up via a sequence of neutron captures and beta decays in which an intense neutron flux pushes material out towards the neutron drip line. The nuclear network simulations used to test potential astrophysical scenarios for the r-process therefore require nuclear physics data (masses, beta decay lifetimes, neutron capture rates, fission probabilities) for thousands of nuclei far from stability. Only a small fraction of this data has been experimentally measured. Here we discuss recent sensitivity studies that aim to determine the nuclei whose properties are most crucial for r-process calculations.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to the Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Fission and Properties of Neutron-Rich Nuclei (ICFN5

Sensitivity studies for r-process nucleosynthesis in three astrophysical scenarios

In rapid neutron capture, or r-process, nucleosynthesis, heavy elements are built up via a sequence of neutron captures and beta decays that involves thousands of nuclei far from stability. Though we understand the basics of how the r-process proceeds, its astrophysical site is still not conclusively known. The nuclear network simulations we use to test potential astrophysical scenarios require nuclear physics data (masses, beta decay lifetimes, neutron capture rates, fission probabilities) for all of the nuclei on the neutron-rich side of the nuclear chart, from the valley of stability to the neutron drip line. Here we discuss recent sensitivity studies that aim to determine which individual pieces of nuclear data are the most crucial for r-process calculations. We consider three types of astrophysical scenarios: a traditional hot r-process, a cold r-process in which the temperature and density drop rapidly, and a neutron star merger trajectory.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to the Proceedings of the International Nuclear Physics Conference (INPC) 201

Emissions and air quality relationships for atmospheric trace metals

Atmospheric particulate matter samples taken in urban and rural locations can be analyzed routinely for more than forty trace elements. With the increasing use of automated X-ray fluorescence and neutron activation analyses (Dzubay, 1977; Cooper, 1973), the cost of trace metals determination in airborne particulate samples has been greatly reduced. As a result, large volumes of data are being acquired that contain considerable chemical resolution, including concentration data on toxic trace elements like lead, arsenic, cadmium and nickel

Depoliticizing Administrative Law

A large body of empirical evidence demonstrates that judicial review of agency action is highly politicized in the sense that Republican appointees are significantly more likely to invalidate liberal agency decisions than conservative ones, while Democratic appointees are significantly more likely to invalidate conservative agency decisions than liberal ones. These results hold for both (a) judicial review of agency interpretations of law and (b) judicial review of agency decisions for arbitrariness on questions of policy and fact. On the federal courts of appeals, the most highly politicized voting patterns are found on unified panels, that is, on panels consisting solely of either Democratic or Republican appointees. On the Supreme Court, politicized administrative law is also unmistakable, as the more conservative Justices show a distinctive willingness to vote to invalidate liberal agency decisions, and the more liberal Justices show a distinctive willingness to vote to invalidate conservative agency decisions. Indeed, it is possible to rank Justices in terms of the extent to which their voting patterns are politicized. The empirical results raise an obvious question: what might be done to depoliticize administrative law? Three sets of imaginable solutions have promise: (1) self-correction without formal doctrinal change, produced by a form of debiasing that might follow from a clearer judicial understanding of the current situation; (2) doctrinal innovations, as, for example, through rethinking existing deference principles and giving agencies more room to maneuver,, and (3) institutional change, through novel voting rules and requirements of mixed panels. Each of these solutions runs into significant problems, though the evidence suggests that mixed panels would greatly reduce politicized voting. An investigation of these solutions has implications for other domains in which judges are divided along political lines, and indeed in which nonjudicial officials, including members of regulatory commissions, show some kind of politicized division or bias. In multiple areas, politicized voting might be reduced through disclosure of existing patterns, through doctrinal changes, or through institutional change

Depoliticizing Administrative Law

A large body of empirical evidence demonstrates that judicial review of agency action is highly politicized in the sense that Republican appointees are significantly more likely to invalidate liberal agency decisions than conservative ones, while Democratic appointees are significantly more likely to invalidate conservative agency decisions than liberal ones. These results hold for both (a) judicial review of agency interpretations of law and (b) judicial review of agency decisions for arbitrariness on questions of policy and fact. On the federal courts of appeals, the most highly politicized voting patterns are found on unified panels, that is, on panels consisting solely of either Democratic or Republican appointees. On the Supreme Court, politicized administrative law is also unmistakable, as the more conservative Justices show a distinctive willingness to vote to invalidate liberal agency decisions, and the more liberal Justices show a distinctive willingness to vote to invalidate conservative agency decisions. Indeed, it is possible to rank Justices in terms of the extent to which their voting patterns are politicized. The empirical results raise an obvious question: what might be done to depoliticize administrative law? Three sets of imaginable solutions have promise: (1) self-correction without formal doctrinal change, produced by a form of debiasing that might follow from a clearer judicial understanding of the current situation; (2) doctrinal innovations, as, for example, through rethinking existing deference principles and giving agencies more room to maneuver,, and (3) institutional change, through novel voting rules and requirements of mixed panels. Each of these solutions runs into significant problems, though the evidence suggests that mixed panels would greatly reduce politicized voting. An investigation of these solutions has implications for other domains in which judges are divided along political lines, and indeed in which nonjudicial officials, including members of regulatory commissions, show some kind of politicized division or bias. In multiple areas, politicized voting might be reduced through disclosure of existing patterns, through doctrinal changes, or through institutional change