The Carbon Tax Vacuum and the Debate about Climate Change Impacts: Emission Taxation of Commodity Crop Production in Food System Regulation

The scientific consensus on climate change is far ahead of U.S. policy on point. In fact, the U.S. has a legal vacuum of carbon taxation while climate change continues to impact the codependence of agriculture and the environment. As this Article shows, carbon taxes follow the polluter-pays model, levying taxes on the highest greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions—and contributions to climate change. But this is not only unsustainable; it would also undermine agricultural production and, thus, food security. This Article describes how the law can regulate climate change contributions and promote adaptation and mitigation supported through carbon taxes in the agricultural sector, twenty percent of GHG contributions will be left untouched, jeopardizing the future of U.S. food production at the environment’s expense. This Article reveals new avenues of climate change adaptation and mitigation through carbon taxation of genetically modified (“GMO”) commodity crops to bring the carbon tax to a previously overlooked contributor to climate change: intensive agriculture. However, adapting to and mitigating the effects of climate change, such as extreme weather events, droughts, and floods, can only be accomplished through concerted efforts of various industries, governments, and the public like cap-and-trade or carbon tax schemes imposing blanket limits on GHG emissions

A Window of Opportunity for GMO Regulation: Achieving Food Integrity Through Cap-and-Trade Models from Climate Policy for GMO Regulation

GMOs are the links of our centralized food system, largely dependent on international trade. GMOs are inherently unsustainable because they reduce biodiversity, harm the environment, and empower positive feedback loops between monocultures, industrial agriculture, and biodiversity depletion, thereby jeopardizing food safety, security, and sovereignty. Conglomerates of multi-national companies, in short BigAg, shape multi-lateral food trade and flood international markets with their small array and enormous volumes of crops, while controlling large aspects of agriculture and food production world-wide. Zooming in on the trans-Atlantic dispute about GE crops, this paper uses comparative law to explore how a cap-and-trade model borrowed from climate change policy might help to decentralize the current food system, thereby potentially restoring locally-oriented agriculture and food integrity. GMOs are under-regulated in the US and international trade frameworks enable the centralization of trans-Atlantic food systems, dominated by the US. This is possible because of the free trade/biotechnology policy in the US and the agricultural exceptionalism, which are, in theory, obstacles to food integrity. By comparison, the precautionary and protectionist approaches in the EU facilitate some food integrity, albeit not enough as a result of US trade pressures. The pressures could be partially lifted if there were a cap on those crops that enable the centralization of the system, namely GE crops patented and produced by US-American BigAg conglomerates. Essentially, when GE corn, soy, wheat, rice were capped in permissible trade volumes, other non-GE crops may enter the market, thereby diversifying and decentralizing food systems, encouraging local agriculture, and opening pathways where more sustainable practices could be instituted. In an effort to contextualize the herein proposed cap-and-trade upstream model regulation of GMOs borrowed from climate change policy, this paper explains the distinctions between GE and conventionally bred crops, between agriculture and food law, between the US free trade and the EU protectionism approaches (including the bedrocks of each legal framework) to trading GE crops, as well as the inherent dangers of the widespread use of GMOs in the trans-Atlantic food system. A likely conclusion of this paper will be that a cap-and-trade model, as proposed, may take decades to be passed into law, if ever, but it also highlights that the links between preserving food integrity, mitigating climate change, and maintaining open food trade are ripe for progressive and pro-active review

The Global History of Corporate Governance: An Introduction

This paper presents a synopsis of recent NBER studies of the history of corporate governance in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Together, the studies underscore the importance of path dependence, often as far back into preindustrial period; legal system origin, though in a more nuanced form than mere statutory shareholder rights; and wealthy families. They also clarify the roles of ideologies, business groups, trust, institutional transplants, and politics in institutional evolution and financial development. Other themes are the universality of business insiders' investments in, entrenchment, and a possible behavioral basis for this.

Doozy Productions

Doozy Productions is a project in producing songs performed and recorded in Sound Studio 3 at the S.I.NewhouseSchoolof Public Communications. The recordings range from a variety of musical genres, including rock, soul, and jazz. The purpose of the project was to produce the highest-quality music by using professional recording and mixing tools. Preparations for production included research on how sound functions and projects in an electronic medium, as well as listening to professional recordings across all genres. All music was recorded, mixed, and produced by Andrew Steier.* * “Electric Waltz” was produced by Emily Osgood and Andrew Steier

Dead People Don’t Eat: Food Governmentenomics and Conflicts-of-Interest in the USDA and FDA

Conflicts of interest permeate the governance of the federal advisory committees that issue recommendations to consumer protection agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and therefore, American consumers need a federal solution to protect their health from biased recommendations. In order to promote a business-friendly food pyramid, agribusinesses and food industrialists lobby for dietary guidelines that boost their sales. The resulting guidelines cause great damage to public health, spur environmental pollution, and result in a loss of democratic freedoms. As a result, the FDA and USDA's bifurcated task of protecting both food producers and consumers, creates a conflict of interest within the agencies that often favor the food industry over consumer protection.This paper describes the problems embedded within the FDA and USDA's conflict of interest and the resulting revolving door of the heavily invested lobbyists, and finally, suggests statutory amendments to solve this problem. The proposed amendments will dispense with ineffective disclosure requirements and eliminate the possibility of waiving conflicts of interest for advisory committee members. By rebalancing the composition of the advisory committees and the scientific basis for the dietary recommendations, the proposed amendments will close the loopholes that large food industrialists currently abuse. As a result, consumer protection agencies, such as the FDA and USDA, are empowered to police the federal advisory committees issuing the dietary recommendations and prevent government officials from breaching their fiduciary duties to American consumers

Investigation of the Effects of Graphic Cigarette Warning Labels on Youth and Adult Smoking Behavior in Southeast Asia

The objective of this dissertation was to investigate the impact of graphic cigarette warning label policies enacted in Thailand and Malaysia on youth and adult smoking outcomes. We sought to examine the effect of the policy on youth smoking intention, susceptibility, and behaviors. Among adults, who were all baseline smokers, we sought to examine the effects of graphic warning labels on smoking intensity, quit attempts, and cessation. Secondary data were utilized from the International Tobacco Control (ITC) South East Asia (SEA) Survey, a nationally representative cohort survey for which eight years of data spanning from 2005 to 2012 were available. Multiple wave-pairs of data were analyzed concurrently using generalized estimating equations (GEEs) with the predictors measured at a baseline wave (wave t) predicting outcomes measured at the next wave, the outcome wave (wave t + 1). Thus, it was possible for participants to provide data for multiple wave-pairs which increased the power of the study. We analyzed our data using two approaches. In our first approach, we utilized a quasi-experimental design capturing the time period after which Thailand had enacted the policy, but prior to policy implementation in Malaysia. Using this approach, outcomes were assessed for our Thai sample using the Malaysian sample as a control, whereby country differences reflected the effects of the graphic warning label policy. In our second approach, we limited the data to the post-policy implementation period in both countries to assess the effect of frequency of exposure to graphic warning labels on smoking outcomes among youth and adults. We employed measures of risk cognition and label salience as proxies for frequency of exposure, due to the potential collinearity between smoking status and exposure to warning labels which may have contaminated our analyses of smoking outcomes. This study found that graphic cigarette warning labels significantly reduced future smoking intention among Thai male youth smokers, as well as increased the odds of intending to quit smoking within 6 months. Among female never-smokers, the policy decreased intention to smoke. We also found high cognition of risk to be significantly associated with decreased susceptibility to smoking, decreased odds of smoking initiation, and reduced smoking intensity among male youth. Among adult smokers, our findings indicate that any label salience was associated with increased odds of attributing quit status to warning labels among male smokers in Thailand and all adult smokers in Thailand (versus no salience). High label salience was associated with increased odds of making a quit attempt among male smokers in Thailand, all smokers in Thailand, and male smokers in Thailand and Malaysia (versus low salience); and increased odds of attributing quit status to warning labels among male smokers in Thailand and all adult smokers in Thailand (versus low salience). A secondary goal of our research was to explore purchasing loose cigarettes, or loosies, as an effect modifier of the association between label salience and smoking outcomes. The investigation of loosies is imperative, as some researchers have raised concerns that smokers will employ avoidance tactics such as covering cigarette packs or purchasing loosies to avoid graphic labels. Our findings indicate that loosies are actually associated with positive smoking outcomes: among smokers reporting any label salience, we found reduced odds of high intensity smoking among smokers in Thailand and Malaysia who purchased loosies (versus those who did not purchase loosies). Among respondents who reported high salience, we found reduced odds of high intensity smoking among smokers in Thailand and Malaysia who purchased loosies (versus those who did not purchase loosies). In conclusion, the findings of this study support the effectiveness of graphic cigarette warning labels in reducing intention to smoke and smoking behaviors among youth and adults in Southeast Asia. If current trends persist, tobacco will kill more than 8 million people worldwide annually by the year 2030, with 80 percent of these deaths in low- and middle-income countries. It is imperative that we continue to support the implementation of cost-effective public health policies to reverse these trends and reduce smoking-related morbidity and mortality