Net Neutrality Powers Energy and Forestalls Climate Change

Drawing on my experience as a Commissioner of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) from January 2011 to January 2017, this Article explores the interdependence of the electricity sector and the open and neutral internet. Section II of this Article discusses the evolution of critical infrastructure laws and policies. Section III examines California’s energy loading order adopted in 2003 to increase energy reliability and protect the environment. Section IV analyzes the evolution of federal and state Smart Grid policies to infuse communications and information technologies including the internet into the energy ecosystem. Section V discusses FERC’s authorization of demand response−the reduction of energy consumption on call−as a resource eligible to bid in FERC wholesale energy markets. Section VI examines the internet’s role in electric grid reliability, public safety, and environmental protection as exemplified by California’s response to: the outage of the San Onofre Nuclear Power plant beginning in 2012, natural gas shortages in California during the Polar Vortex of 2014, and the methane leak at the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Storage field in Los Angeles beginning in November 2015 that diminished fuel resources for gas-fired electric power plants. Section VII analyzes the FCC’s 2018 Internet Freedom Order. It argues that the FCC’s failure to consider critical infrastructure including energy in its net neutrality repeal order constitutes arbitrary and capricious decision- making under the APA. This section examines the potential harms of ISP paid priority deals for electric reliability, safety, rates, and the environment. It analyzes the limits of antitrust, unfair competition, consumer protection laws, and disclosure rules which provide no redress for harms to energy safety, reliability, costs, and the environment, in contrast to the FCC’s 2015 Open Internet Order. Section VIII recommends that the FCC’s Internet Freedom Order be vacated in light of its serious deficiencies under the APA. Identity thieves allegedly submitted millions of comments in the Internet Freedom Docket in other people’s names without their authorization; the FCC’s shockingly poor comment process flunks the APA. This Article argues that publicly traded companies should report the FCC’s Internet Freedom Order as a material and cybersecurity risk under Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Rules. It argues that states and state Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) and Public Service Commissions (PSCs) (collectively PUCs) should protect their residents through the exercise of the police power inherent in the states and PUC’s jurisdiction. This Article concludes in Section IX by urging the maintenance of legally enforceable net neutrality rules to protect critical infrastructure, energy reliability, the economy, national security, public safety, democracy, and the open Internet

Contested Places, Utility Pole Spaces: A Competition and Safety Framework for Analyzing Utility Pole Association Rules, Roles, and Risks

As climate change augurs longer wildfire seasons, safe, reliable, and competitive energy and communications markets depend on sound infrastructure and well-calibrated regulation. The humble wooden utility pole, first deployed in America in 1844 to extend telegraph service, forms the twenty-first century’s technological scaffold. Utility poles are increasingly contested places where competition, safety, and reliability meet. Yet, regulators and academics have largely overlooked the risks posed by century-old private utility pole associations in California, composed of private and public utility pole owners and some entities who attach facilities to utility poles. No academic articles have examined the rules, roles, and risks Joint Pole Committees (JPCs) pose for energy and communications safety, service, competition, and regulation. This article fills that academic and regulatory gap by examining JPCs’ history and function and offering a framework to put safety, competition, and accountable governance at the forefront of utility regulation. This article lifts the veil over JPC practices obscured through their failure to register as non-profits and operation without government supervision. It examines potential harms to safety and competition posed by the Northern California Joint Pole Association\u27s rules that confer incumbents with effective veto power over potential competitors authorized to attach to utility poles by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Neither JPCs nor their members enjoy immunity from federal antitrust or state unfair competition laws, nor are they legally entitled to undermine CPUC competition policy or utility pole safety and reliability rules. Neither the CPUC nor competition authorities owe any deference to JPC standards, rules, functions, or decisions. This Article recommends CPUC and competition authority action and regulatory principles to address the competition and safety risks raised by JPC rules and roles

Antitrust Language Barriers: First Amendment Constraints on Defining an Antitrust Market by a Broadcast\u27s Language, and its Implications for Audiences, Competition, and Democracy

This Article explores whether the language of a broadcaster\u27s program appropriately defines an antitrust market, consistent with First Amendment and antitrust principles. In its evaluation of the 2008 private equity buyout of Clear Channel Communications, the Department of Justice ( DOJ ) defined the antitrust market by the language of the broadcast, as it had done for the 2003 merger of Univision and Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation. This Article uses social science research on Spanish and English-language radio and television to evaluate that decision. It argues that the distinct content and messages that characterize Spanish and English-language programming show that market definition is content-based and subject to strict constitutional scrutiny; however, that distinctiveness alone is insufficient to establish a separate antitrust market. Through an examination of advertiser and audience substitution between program languages, advertiser alternatives if faced with a price increase by merging parties, and a supply-side antitrust analysis of broadcaster entry between languages, the Article concludes that broadcast markets are not rigidly divided by language, but operate as one marketplace of ideas, with audience and advertiser loyalty contestable between languages

Cybersecurity Paradigm Shift: The Risks of Net Neutrality Repeal to Energy Reliability, Public Safety, and Climate Change Solutions

This Article contends that the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) January 2018 repeal of net neutrality rules created a “zero-day” cybersecurity vulnerability for the energy sector and other criti¬¬¬cal infrastructure. “A zero-day cybersecurity vulnerability is a previously unknown flaw in a computer program that exposes the program to external manipulation.” The flaw may also reside in compromised hardware that creates a “back door” into the internet-connected device. This Article argues that cybersecurity has been primarily viewed from a “hacker paradigm” that obscures systemic threats an Internet Service Provider (ISP) can create to energy reliability and cybersecurity through paid priority and other ISP practices… This Article contends that federal regulators, responsible entities under the FPA, and state energy sector regulators must act to identify and mitigate risks triggered by the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality rules. The energy sector’s state and federal legal duties do not allow it to rely on the market and unenforceable ISP promises to protect reliability, cybersecurity, and public safety. An open and neutral internet—the goal of net neutrality—is necessary to protect energy reliability crucial to America’s economy, public safety, national security, and deployment of climate change solutions. Following this introduction, section two of this Article discusses the ISP’s gatekeeper position on the internet and introduces the “hacker paradigm” and “cat video paradigm” that pervade internet and cybersecurity regulation. Section three provides an overview of federal energy sector reliability standards, highlighting the states’ role in energy reliability for the distribution segment of the energy grid. Section four discusses models for energy sector and critical infrastructure cybersecurity governance. Section five provides an overview of mandatory federal cybersecurity standards for the energy sector’s BPS. Section six explores the “hacker-focused” paradigm of many cybersecurity standards including the NERC standards FERC enforces for the energy sector. Section seven examines the Energy-Internet nexus, emphasizing the internet’s increasing integration into the energy sector. Section eight discusses simulations that test the electric grid for communications-induced faults and cascading failures. Section nine analyzes the consequences of FERC’s net neutrality repeal on energy sector reliability, cybersecurity, renewable energy deployment, and public safety. Finally, section ten recommends that FERC and state public utility commissions conduct grid simulations to test the effect of ISP-induced communications delays on grid reliability and renewable integration. It recommends that state energy regulators initiate proceedings to examine cybersecurity requirements for distribution-level energy resources. Those proceedings should request data from energy sector jurisdictional entities about ISP contracts and conduct, and then consider whether to limit contracts with such entities to ISPs that observe net neutrality. FERC should examine net neutrality repeal as a cybersecurity, reliability and resiliency risk in its Grid Resiliency and Reliability docket. Federal and state law require energy sector participants and regulators to ensure ISPs do not degrade Energy-Internet traffic or violate market manipulation rules and thereby compromise reliability, public safety, just and reasonable rates, the environment, and realization of climate change solutions

Legal Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Put Health, Safety and Equity First

The COVID-19 viral pandemic exposed equity and safety culture gaps in American legal education. Legal education forms part of America’s Critical Infrastructure whose continuity is important to the economy, public safety, democracy, and the national security of the United States. To address the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare for future viral pandemics and safety risks, this article recommends law schools develop a safety culture to foster health, safety, robust educational dialogue, and equity. To guide safety-and-equity-centered decision-making and promote effective legal education during and following the COVID-19 pandemic, this article contends legal education must put health, safety, and equity first. It proposes an ethical framework for legal education that centers diversity and inclusion as the foundation of robust educational dialogue. This article’s interdisciplinary analysis of COVID-19 scientific studies recommends law schools follow the science and exercise extreme caution before convening classes in person or in a hybrid fashion. COVID-19 infection risks serious illness, long-lasting complications, and death. It has preyed on America’s inequities. African-Americans, Native Americans, Latinx Americans, older Americans, and those with certain underlying health conditions including pregnant women face higher levels of hospitalization and death from COVID-19 infection. COVID-19’s inequitable risks may separate those participating in class in person, or online, by race, ethnicity, tribe, age, and health. Law schools must ensure that during the COVID-19 health emergency, hybrid or in-person pedagogical models do not undermine diversity and inclusion that supports educational dialogue and First Amendment values. The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the imperative of putting health, safety, and equity first in legal education

Improving implementation of evidence based practice for people with psychosis through training the wider workforce: results of the GOALS feasibility randomised controlled trial

Background and objectives There is a pressing need to improve access to evidence-based practice for people with psychosis. The primary aim of this study was to assess clinical feasibility of a manualised, evidence-based CBT intervention (GOALS) targeting a personalised recovery goal, delivered by the frontline workforce, following brief training. Secondly, we aimed to conduct preliminary statistical analyses of key outcomes and costs. Methods The GOALS study is a feasibility randomised controlled trial (ISRCTN 73188383). 75 participants with current psychosis were recruited and randomly allocated to receive either treatment as usual alone or with GOALS therapy. Results Brief training enabled frontline staff to deliver the therapy according to protocol and 74% of therapy participants partially or fully achieved their goals. There were significant improvements with a moderate effect size of 0.56 on goal attainment. However, preliminary statistical analyses found no significant differences between groups on our primary outcome of activity levels or other secondary outcomes Health economic analysis found that point estimates of costs, controlling for baseline costs, implied savings (even including intervention costs), but the difference was not statistically significant. Limitations The study was designed as a feasibility RCT, and therefore the results of secondary estimates of efficacy effects should be treated with caution. Conclusions This approach holds promise in supporting people with psychosis to reach personal recovery goals, cost effectively

Insights into the function of silver as an oxidation catalyst by ab initio, atomistic thermodynamics

To help understand the high activity of silver as an oxidation catalyst, e.g., for the oxidation of ethylene to epoxide and the dehydrogenation of methanol to formaldehyde, the interaction and stability of oxygen species at the Ag(111) surface has been studied for a wide range of coverages. Through calculation of the free energy, as obtained from density-functional theory and taking into account the temperature and pressure via the oxygen chemical potential, we obtain the phase diagram of O/Ag(111). Our results reveal that a thin surface-oxide structure is most stable for the temperature and pressure range of ethylene epoxidation and we propose it (and possibly other similar structures) contains the species actuating the catalysis. For higher temperatures, low coverages of chemisorbed oxygen are most stable, which could also play a role in oxidation reactions. For temperatures greater than about 775 K there are no stable oxygen species, except for the possibility of O atoms adsorbed at under-coordinated surface sites Our calculations rule out thicker oxide-like structures, as well as bulk dissolved oxygen and molecular ozone-like species, as playing a role in the oxidation reactions.Comment: 15 pages including 9 figures, Related publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm

Clinical predictors of 3- and 6-month outcome for mild traumatic brain injury patients with a negative head CT scan in the emergency department: A TRACK-TBI pilot study

Aconsiderable subset of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) patients fail to return to baseline functional status at or beyond 3 months postinjury. Identifying at-risk patients for poor outcome in the emergency department (ED) may improve surveillance strategies and referral to care. Subjects with mTBI (Glasgow Coma Scale 13–15) and negative ED initial head CT < 24 h of injury, completing 3- or 6-month functional outcome (Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended; GOSE), were extracted from the prospective, multicenter Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury (TRACK-TBI) Pilot study. Outcomes were dichotomized to full recovery (GOSE = 8) vs functional deficits (GOSE < 8). Univariate predictors with p < 0.10 were considered for multivariable regression. Adjusted odds ratios (AOR) were reported for outcome predictors. Significance was assessed at p < 0.05. Subjects who completed GOSE at 3- and 6-month were 211 (GOSE < 8: 60%) and 185 (GOSE < 8: 65%). Risk factors for 6-month GOSE < 8 included less education (AOR = 0.85 per-year increase, 95% CI: (0.74–0.98)), prior psychiatric history (AOR = 3.75 (1.73–8.12)), Asian/minority race (American Indian/Alaskan/Hawaiian/Pacific Islander) (AOR = 23.99 (2.93–196.84)), and Hispanic ethnicity (AOR = 3.48 (1.29–9.37)). Risk factors for 3-month GOSE < 8 were similar with the addition of injury by assault predicting poorer outcome (AOR = 3.53 (1.17–10.63)). In mTBI patients seen in urban trauma center EDs with negative CT, education, injury by assault, Asian/minority race, and prior psychiatric history emerged as risk factors for prolonged disability

Coronary dominance and prognosis in patients undergoing coronary computed tomographic angiography: Results from the CONFIRM (COronary CTAngiography EvaluatioN for Clinical Outcomes: An InteRnational Multicenter) registry

Aims: Coronary computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) has become an important tool for non-invasive diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD). Coronary dominance can be assessed by CCTA; however, the predictive value of coronary dominance is controversially discussed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence and prognosis of coronary dominance in a large prospective, international multicentre cohort of patients undergoing CCTA. Methods and results: The study population consisted of 6382 patients with or without CAD (47% females, 53% males, mean age 56.9±12.3 years) who underwent CCTA and were followed over a period of 60 months. Right or left coronary dominance was determined. Right dominance was present in 91% (n = 5817) and left in 9% (n = 565) of the study population. At the end of follow-up, outcome in patients with obstructive CAD (>50% luminal stenosis) and right dominance was similar compared with patients with left dominance [hazard ratio (HR) 0.46, 95% CI 0.16-1.32, P = 0.15]. Furthermore, no differences were observed for the type of coronary dominance in patients with non-obstructive CAD(HR 0.95, 95% CI 0.41-2.21, P = 0.8962) or normal coronary arteries (HR 1.04, 95% CI 0.68-1.59, P = 0.9). Subgroup analysis in patients with left main disease revealed an elevated hazard of the combined endpoint for left dominance (HR 6.45, 95% CI 1.66-25.0, P = 0.007), but not for right dominance. Conclusion: In our study population, survival after 5 years of follow-up did not differ significantly between patientswith left or right coronary dominance. Thus, assessment of coronary vessel dominance by CCTA may not enhance risk stratification in patients with normal coronary arteries or obstructive CAD, but may add prognostic information for specific subpopulations