Published July 25, 2017 by Michael Franz

Professor Starobin on the Legal Risks of Regulating Climate Change at the Local

Shana Starobin, newly appointed assistant professor of Government and Environmental Studies, has published a new commentary piece in an online symposium on Climate Change and Public Administration in the journal Public Administration Review, a leading venue for scholars and practitioners of public administration. The symposium brings together timely commentaries for students of government and public policy seeking to reflect on how the current political environment in the United States (and recent moves to pull out of international environmental agreements) will affect the policy landscape for future action on climate change.

Check out Professor Starobin’s contribution about efforts in Albuquerque, New Mexico to enforce more energy efficient standards in building codes. According to Starobin and her co-author:

“With the federal government’s receding role on climate change, subnational governments may offer the only meaningful hope for the United States to make significant policy progress.  Although state and local affirmation of the Paris Agreement provides reason for optimism, a necessary condition for success of subnational regulation will be careful attention to larger legal constraints, a hard lesson Albuquerque officials learned nearly a decade ago.”

Professor Starobin will teach “Environmental Policy and Politics” (ENVS 2330 / GOV 2910) this fall.