Legislative Uncertainty Research Articles

How to Protect Consumer Data? Leave it to the Consumer Protection Agency: FTC Rulemaking as a Path to Federal Cybersecurity Regulation

In the wake of cases challenging the scope of the Federal Trade Commission’s authority and its role in regulating cybersecurity, this Note considers the centrality of the FTC as a protector of consumer data. It broadly examines the current state of cybersecurity regulation and the need for a uniform national regime to protect consumer data. In considering different methods for realizing such federal oversight, this Note examines legislative and administrative options. Tracing the development of both highlights their shortcomings and reveals a potential solution. In the face of concerning legislative movement and uncertainty surrounding the FTC’s current enforcement philosophy, this Note endorses the employment of the FTC’s rarely used, but highly effective, rulemaking authority as a tool to complement and enhance its adjudicative enforcement.

South Carolina forestland owners\u2019 willingness to accept compensations for carbon sequestration

BackgroundCarbon sequestration through recommended forest management practices is an ecosystem service that helps mitigate climate change and its impacts while generating carbon credits for forestland owners to sell in cap-and-trade programs. The California’s cap-and-trade program (California’s carbon market hereafter) allows forestland owners from any part of the contiguous United States to supply carbon credits to compliance entities. In this study, we estimate South Carolina (SC) private forestland owners’ willingness to accept compensations to participate in the California’s carbon market using a contingent valuation method.ResultsWe estimate forestland owners’ mean willingness to accept as $67 per acre per year. Our results reveal higher probability of participation of forestland owners with interests in preserving forest ecosystems than those who do not. Additionally, forestland owners who trust in information about climate change from scientists or government are willing to participate more than those who do not.ConclusionsVarious factors hinder landowners’ ability to participate in carbon markets. Forestland owners in SC consider legislative uncertainty and long-time commitment as the main barriers to participation in California’s carbon market. From this research, average forestland tenure in SC is 27 years, which is far less than the 100-year time commitment of the California’s carbon market. Of those who agreed to participate, choosing between adopting and not adopting any of the three main forest management practices in the California’s carbon market: 28% are likely to adopt improved forest management (IFM) practices, 24% are likely to adopt reforestation due to understocked forestlands, and 14% are likely to adopt avoided conversion. In another development, the concept of aggregation has dominated discussions in the California’s carbon market of late. It is an advocacy to include small-scale forestlands in the California’s carbon market. To aggregate, different forestland owners will combine their forestlands to participate. We find that 79% of SC forestland owners are willing to aggregate to participate. However, this research is unable to determine how much total forestland is available in SC for carbon market. We recommend future research in the State on forestland owners’ participation in carbon market should consider evaluating forestland availability.

FinTech – między niepewnością regulacyjną i fragmentacją rynkową. Jakie są perspektywy na jednolity rynek usług finansowych?

Sektor usług finansowych obecnie wszedł w erę wyjątkowego zawirowania, określanego mianem Finch. Jego przyczyna wynika z zastosowania nowoczesnych technologii finansowania. FinTech to duży i różnorodny ekosystem, przybierający różne formy. Pobudzają one cyfrową transformację sektora finansowego, co stanowi wyzwanie dla wszystkich uczestniczących w nim podmiotów. Biorąc pod uwagę zarówno korzyści, jak i zagrożenia wynikające ze zmian w sektorze finansowym, państwa członkowskie przyjęły różne mechanizmy prawne wywierające negatywny wpływ na stworzenie jednolitego rynku usług finansowych. Różne przeszkody, w tym luki prawne i niepewność co do prawa, utrudniają realizację tego celu, co z kolei skutkuje rozdrobnieniem rynku i zachęca do arbitrażu regulacyjnego. Schemat piaskownicy regulacyjnej może zmniejszyć bariery tylko wtedy, gdy przeniesie się z rynku krajowego na europejski.

Quantifying Legislative Uncertainty: A Case Study in Tax Policy

Whether a legislature will or will not enact law is often uncertain. This Article offers an empirical model for quantifying that uncertainty, and it develops this argument in the context of federal income tax rates. Specifically, we estimate a model of legislator preferences on tax rates and show that the political process can be well understood in terms of the preferences of key legislators. We use our statistical model to quantify the uncertainty of tax rates and forecast the direction of likely rate changes in the future. This argument has several implications for policymaking and the analysis of legislative uncertainty more generally. First, quantifying legislative uncertainty offers insight into the behavioral effects of the law. How people respond to the law depends on their perception of the law’s future trajectory. Second, our analysis allows us to explore the stability of major legislative reform. Our methodology allows us to demonstrate that reforms are sometimes predictably unstable. Such reforms can have the perverse result of increasing future legislative uncertainty.

Modelling the Intention to Adopt Cloud Computing Services: A Transaction Cost Theory Perspective

This paper uses transaction cost theory to study cloud computing adoption. A model is developed and tested with data from an Australian survey. According to the results, perceived vendor opportunism and perceived legislative uncertainty around cloud computing were significantly associated with perceived cloud computing security risk. There was also a significant negative relationship between perceived cloud computing security risk and the intention to adopt cloud services. This study also reports on adoption rates of cloud computing in terms of applications, as well as the types of services used.

California's regulatory forest carbon market: Viability for northeast landowners

Carbon markets have the potential to reward landowners for improved forest management and forest conservation. To date, the Over the Counter (OTC) voluntary market represents the greatest opportunity for forest landowners to participate in carbon transactions. However, lack of a consistent carbon price signal and sporadic demand coupled by high transaction costs has prevented widespread participation from family forest landowners. Adoption of a U.S. based cap-and-trade program reduces price risk and may provide incentives for sustainable forest management across large areas. Yet few studies have examined the supply side of carbon offsets and factors affecting project financial viability. To address this gap, we assessed how (1) property characteristics (i.e. stocking level, forest type, size etc.); (2) silvicultural treatments; and (3) protocol and legislative requirements affect the financial viability of compliance forest offset projects, focusing on California's Air Resource Board (ARB) program due to its significance as the world's second largest carbon market. We used forest inventory data from 25 properties in the northeastern United States to examine the viability of the sites as ARB offset projects. We utilized the U.S. Forest Service Forest Vegetation Simulator for our growth and yield simulations. To examine the factors that influence project viability, we used a classification and regression tree analysis performed in S-Plus software. Results indicate C stocking and property size are the most important property characteristics driving return on investment. However, protocol requirements and legislative assumptions impacting long-term monitoring costs are also important factors. While reduced price risk in a compliance carbon market has the potential to improve forest management in North America; high initial project development costs, long-term monitoring obligations, and legislative uncertainty are significant barriers that will limit family forest landowner market participation. The model developed here can be used by U.S. landowners to assess the financial viability of their property as a compliance offset project and can be utilized by policymakers to develop cost-effective climate change policy.

English

South Africa’s mining companies are facing many challenges, ranging from industrial actions, uncertainty in legislation, weaknesses in global export markets, and lack of access to capital. Accordingly, sound risk management and adherence to corporate governance principles and practices are essential to the sustainability of these companies. The objectives of this article are twofold: firstly, to provide a brief overview of the risk management practices based on King III requirement on governance practices, and secondly to assess the risk management disclosures in the annual reports thereof. The objectives were achieved through a literature review on risk management developments as per the requirements of the King III report on Corporate Governance, and supported by empirical evidence obtained from assessing the 2013 annual reports of these top mining companies. The study found that most South Africa’s mining companies do disclose their risk management practices in line with the recommendations of the King III report on corporate governance; however, such disclosures are often lacking detail on actual practices and accomplishments could be enhanced. Key words: Assurance disclosure governance, Johannesburg securities exchange {JSE}, King III, mining companies, risk management.

Carbon as an Emerging Tool for Risk Management

Since 2005, when the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) launched, green adoption in business and industry has been marred by fraudulent carbon credits, VAT swindlers and carbon cowboys, inefficiencies of a nascent market, and not least of all by legislative uncertainty. The disrepute afforded by these examples hindered low carbon growth and deterred emerging business models from adopting more carbon friendly practices. But, as this article argues, the shift toward liberal environmentalism has yielded a new generation of businesses seeking to incorporate carbon assets, emissions trading, and sustainability strategies across the value chain. Central to this shift is the notion of carbon as a tool for risk management in businesses, which occurred through the instrumentalisation of CO2 into a tradable asset. By utilising carbon as a financial instrument, businesses are able to manage project risk, market risk, and reputational risk more effectively. This article demonstrates this argument through industry examples and provides practical advice for businesses today.

Majority Status and Variation in Informational Organization

To maintain its policy cartel, the majority party requires information to recognize good policy and sufficient votes to realize it. There is ample research demonstrating the majority’s ability to mobilize votes, but no empirical research examining its ability to facilitate efficient information transmission. Here, I investigate differences between the majority and minority in maintaining an informational organization (representative committee delegations that share their information with copartisans) and examine the effects of this organization on expressed legislative uncertainty. By analyzing comprehensive new data, I find that the majority is most often able to maintain representative committee contingents, but the minority is not. Further, the majority is able to induce its nonrepresentative delegations to be informative; however, certain types of outlying contingents significantly increase the minority’s policy uncertainty. Finally, I conclude that the majority’s informational organization is superior to that of the minority and speculate that this may have electoral implications.

Maritime oil freight flows to 2050: Delphi perceptions of maritime specialists

This paper aims to synthesise maritime specialists' perceptions of changing patterns of maritime oil freight flows to 2050. Debate spans published maritime oil flows globally, diverse drivers of future flows including economic growth, shipping market changes and haul lengths. A classic Delphi study to explore the perceptions of likely trends and flows to 2050 recruited a panel of early career and established maritime specialists, many with long term career commitments to this industry. Underpinned by market volatility and legislative uncertainty, the perceptions of both groups coincided and were conservative. Local sourcing, new Arctic seaways and fossil fuel intolerance will tend to reduce oil freight work but perceptions of ship re-routing to avoid for example Emission Control Areas and piracy would tend to lengthen hauls. In advanced industrial nations, reducing energy intensities and diminishing social tolerance of fossil fuels imply gradually reducing maritime oil shipments. However, to achieve radical national commitments to carbon emissions reductions will necessitate specialist education for naturally conservative maritime professionals and vigorous oil import reduction policies to curtail domestic demand for oil shipments.

Majority Status and Variation in Informational Organization

In order to maintain its policy cartel, the majority party requires information to recognize good policy and sufficient votes to realize it. There is ample research demonstrating the majority's ability to mobilize votes, but no empirical research examining its ability to facilitate efficient information transmission. Here, I investigate differences between the majority and minority in maintaining an informational organization (representative committee delegations that share their information with their co-partisans) and examine the effects of this organization on expressed legislative uncertainty. By analyzing comprehensive new data on the legislative behavior of over 2,500 representatives in 14 jurisdictions from the 84th-108th Houses, I find that the majority is most often able to maintain representative committee contingents, but the minority is not. Further, the majority is able to induce its non-representative delegations to be informative, however, certain types of outlying contingents in the minority significantly increase the policy uncertainty of their co-partisans. Finally, I conclude that, in the aggregate, the majority's informational organization is far superior to that of the minority and this may have electoral implications.

2010 Election Changes Congressional Balance

You have accessThe ASHA LeaderPolicy Analysis1 Nov 20102010 Election Changes Congressional BalanceNew Congressional Composition May Affect ASHA-Related Issues Kate Fry Kate Fry Google Scholar More articles by this author https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.PA2.15142010.2 SectionsAbout ToolsAdd to favorites ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In American voters called for a new direction on Nov. 2, following an election cycle driven by a referendum on the economy, a rejection of the status quo, a strengthened Tea Party movement, millions in advertising spent by anonymous groups as a result of a 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision, and even the party called “The Rent Is Too Damn High” created on YouTube. More than 500 seats were contested in House, Senate, and gubnatorial races. Although the election results were a resounding statement on the current mood of the country, they leave a plethora of questions about the country’s legislative and political future. Control of Congress The Republican Party rode the largest election wave since 1948, capturing more than 60 seats to regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives. They also tightened their margins in the U.S. Senate, winning 24 of 37 races. The flood of new legislators from both political parties who will make up the 112th Congress will result in one of the largest classes of new members of Congress in the nation’s history. The Congress that will decide legislation important to ASHA members will look dramatically different from its predecessor. Many of the more than 100 new faces will serve on committees with jurisdiction over health care and education policies. The partisan ratio of members serving on these committees reflects the overall makeup of each chamber, leaving Republicans a significant number of slots to fill and leaving Democrats with fewer committee appointments. In the House, ASHA works primarily with three committees—Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means. Together they lost more than 20 members in the election and will experience leadership changes on the full committees and their subcommittees and membership changes when new committee assignments are made. In the Senate, ASHA works primarily with the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and the Finance Committee, which also will see a restructured membership and a change in leadership. ASHA-PAC: Bipartisan Force The ASHA Political Action Committee (ASHA-PAC) was extremely active leading up to the elections. ASHA-PAC supported 58 candidates in the primary and general elections; 93% won their races in the general election. ASHA-PAC rejects partisan politics and supports candidates who stand up for issues of importance to speech-language pathology and audiology and who are an in a position to influence legislation important to ASHA members. 2012 and Beyond The Republican takeover of the House and increased Republican presence in the Senate creates a scenario of legislative uncertainty for the next two years. Will the divided Congress usher in a new age of compromise or will it add to partisanship? ASHA’s public policy agenda is nonpartisan, but it will face a challenge in the new fiscally conservative and partisan legislative atmosphere. The new Republican majority will allow partisan legislation to pass the House, but the Democratic-controlled Senate can succeed in halting progress on bills. The administration already has announced its intent to use the veto if needed. Republicans undoubtedly will seek to make their mark on a number of initiatives, including health care reform. The likelihood of outright repeal of the reform bill is slim, but the House may find success in negating certain provisions of the bill through appropriations measures. Congress and the administration may be able to find common ground on education policies; work has already begun at reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), but with a change in leadership, the future of these efforts is uncertain. Overall, members of both political parties likely will use the next two years to position themselves for the 2012 election cycle. Expect “statement” legislation to emerge from both chambers as leadership teams seek to solidify their base of support and brand their image. Author Notes Kate Fry, director of political advocacy, can be reached at [email protected]. Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Additional Resources FiguresSourcesRelatedDetails Volume 15Issue 14November 2010 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in print: Nov 1, 2010 Metrics Downloaded 67 times Topicsasha-topicsleader_do_tagleader-topicsasha-article-typesCopyright & Permissions© 2010 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationLoading ...

Economic Modeling of an Oil and Gas Project Involving Carbon Capture and Storage: Snøhvit LNG Field (Barents Sea, Norway)

Summary The Snøhvit Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project developed by StatoilHydro and partners in Norway is used as an example to describe how the carbon capture and storage (CCS) component of an oil and gas project can be isolated, modeled, and analyzed from an economic point of view. The Snøhvit development, which started production in late 2007, involved a CCS component from day one. Approximately 700,000 tons of CO2 captured from the liquefaction plant will be reinjected every year in an underground formation offshore. Furthermore, there are interesting alternatives for CO2 capture from the on-site power plant and for the use of CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in a nearby oilfield, leading to several future development scenarios for CCS at Snøhvit. Different development scenarios for CCS are analyzed to select the best development option. The economic modeling framework will also be used to assess the impact of the uncertainties on the project economics. The analysis identifies that a key driver for the profitability of the project is the legislative setting for CCS. The involvement of the government is very important for the viability of the project, which needs a strong incentive, such as the current CO2 tax scheme or an emission trading scheme with strict allocation of emission targets. Under such conditions, a CCS project such as Snøhvit becomes a win-win situation: economically profitable for the operator and environmentally friendly. From a broader perspective, addressing the economic and legislative uncertainty currently surrounding CCS projects for the oil and gas industry is crucial because this represents the main limiting factor for the further development of such projects. It is therefore essential that economic modeling tools such as the framework described in the present work become industry standards to ensure that projects which could be profitable for both the operator and the environment are not abandoned by pure lack of analysis ability.

Managing scientific uncertainty in health legislation

Legislation and regulation of biomedical research is seldom a one-off process since biomedical science evolves rapidly, dynamically and often unpredictably. This paper discusses the challenges faced by regulators who need to produce legislation and policy in rapidly changing fields and outlines some practical suggestions for managing law reform and policy-making under these circumstances.

Executive budget proposal, executive veto, legislative override, and uncertainty: A comparative analysis of the budgetary process

This study examines the roles of the executive budgetary proposal, the executive veto, the legislative override, and legislative uncertainty about the executive's preferences in determining the outcome of a budgetary process. A sequential model of the budgetary process with three institutional agents — a legislature, an appropriations committee, and an executive — is presented. To focus attention on the executive proposal, the veto, the override provision, and uncertainty, simplifying assumptions are made: (1) the appropriations committee has monopoly agenda power, and (2) there is a closed amendment control rule. In order to characterize sequential equilibria of various combinations of veto rules and override provisions, we examine a particular arrangement of agents' preferences and a two item budget. The results demonstrate that the final budget depends critically on the executive proposal, the executive veto rule, the override provision, and the uncertainty. We achieve three striking results. First, the executive proposal may be effective in reducing the frequency of the exercised veto. Second, for a given override provision, a movement from the item veto to the item reduction veto leaves the executive worse off in some cases. Third, with the same change in institutions, the government budget may increase.