Assessing Consensus: The Promise and Performance of Negotiated Rulemaking

Negotiated rulemaking appears by most accounts to have come of age. A procedure that once seemed confined to discussion among administrative law scholars has in the past decade captured the attention of policymakers throughout the nation\u27s capital. Congress officially endorsed regulatory negotiation in the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990, and it permanently reauthorized the Act in 1996. Over the past few years, the executive branch has visibly supported regulatory negotiation, both through the Clinton administration\u27s National Performance Review (NPR) and through specific presidential directives to agency heads. Congress has also begun to mandate the use of negotiated rulemaking by certain agencies in the development of specific regulations. As a result of these and other efforts, federal agencies have begun to employ the consensus-based process known as negotiated rulemaking

Pledging, Populism, and the Paris Agreement: The Paradox of a Management-Based Approach to Global Governance

For many observers, the Paris Agreement signaled a historic breakthrough in addressing the problem of global warming. In its basic design, however, the Agreement is far from novel. Its dependence on each nation’s self-determined pledge to reduce greenhouse gases mirrors the domestic policy strategy called management-based regulation—a flexible regulatory approach that has been used to address problems as varied as food safety and toxic air pollution. In this article, I connect insights from research on management-based regulation to the international governance of climate change. Unfortunately, management-based regulation’s track-record at the domestic level gives little reason to expect that the Paris Agreement will lead to major long-term behavioral change needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Although a management-based regulatory strategy may have been the best option available for securing a widespread global climate agreement, this strategy seems to offer little assurance of forward momentum on climate policy due to an inherent paradox created by the Agreement’s management-based design: global progress will depend on domestic politics. Especially given the rise of nationalistic populism around the world, the Paris Agreement will succeed only if political efforts within individual countries push back the threat to global cooperation posed by populism and convince domestic leaders to support serious climate action

Cyclotomic structure in the topological Hochschild homology of DXDX

Let $X$ be a finite CW complex, and let $DX$ be its dual in the category of spectra. We demonstrate that the Poincar\'e/Koszul duality between $THH(DX)$ and the free loop space $\Sigma^\infty_+ LX$ is in fact a genuinely $S^1$-equivariant duality that preserves the $C_n$-fixed points. Our proof uses an elementary but surprisingly useful rigidity theorem for the geometric fixed point functor $\Phi^G$ of orthogonal $G$-spectra.Comment: Accepted version, 46 pages. Replaces the first half of the earlier preprint "On the topological Hochschild homology of $DX$." Part of the author's thesi

Coassembly and the KK-theory of finite groups

We study the $K$-theory and Swan theory of the group ring $R[G]$, when $G$ is a finite group and $R$ is any ring or ring spectrum. In this setting, the well-known assembly map for $K(R[G])$ has a companion called the coassembly map. We prove that their composite is the equivariant norm of $K(R)$. This gives a splitting of both assembly and coassembly after $K(n)$-localization, a new map between Whitehead torsion and Tate cohomology, and a partial computation of $K$-theory of representations in the category of spectra.Comment: Accepted version. 44 page

Citizen Participation in Rulemaking: Past, Present, and Future

Administrative law scholars and governmental reformers argue that advances in information technology will greatly expand public participation in regulatory policymaking. They claim that e-rulemaking, or the application of new technology to administrative rulemaking, promises to transform a previously insulated process into one in which ordinary citizens regularly provide input. With the federal government having implemented several e-rulemaking initiatives in recent years, we can now begin to assess whether such a transformation is in the works-or even on the horizon. This paper compares empirical observations on citizen participation in the past, before e-rulemaking, with more recent data on citizen participation after the introduction of various types of technological innovations. Contrary to prevailing predictions, empirical research shows that e-rulemaking makes little difference: citizen input remains typically sparse, notwithstanding the relative ease with which individuals can now learn about and comment on regulatory proposals. These findings indicate that the more significant barriers to citizen participation are cognitive and motivational. Even with e-rulemaking, it takes a high level of technical sophistication to understand and comment on regulatory proceedings. Moreover, even though information technology lowers the absolute cost of submitting comments to regulatory agencies, it also dramatically decreases the costs of a wide variety of entertainment and commercial activities that are much more appealing to most citizens. Given persistent opportunity costs and other barriers to citizen participation, even future e-rulemaking efforts appear unlikely to lead to a participatory revolution, but instead can be expected generally to deliver much the same level of citizen involvement in the regulatory process

[Review of] Dirk Hoerder, ed. The Immigrant Labor Press in North America, 1840s-70s (Three volumes)

Dirk Hoerder has undertaken a truly mammoth task -- the identification, analysis, and the location of surviving collections of the immigrant labor press published in the United States and Canada from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. For the most part his efforts have been successful. Without question he has provided researchers interested in the American immigrant experience or American labor history with a valuable research tool

Rotatable non-circular forebody flow controller

The invention is a rotatable, non-circular forebody flow controller. The apparatus comprises a small geometric device located at a nose of a forebody of an aircraft and a non-circular cross-sectional area that extends toward the apex of the aircraft. The device is symmetrical about a reference plane and preferably attaches to an axle which in turn attaches to a rotating motor. The motor rotates the device about an axis of rotation. Preferably, a control unit connected to an aircraft flight control computer signals to the rotating motor the proper rotational positioning of the geometric device

Oregon-Burgundy Challenge

This document summarizes the Oregon-Burgundy Challenge, which took place at the International Wine Center (IWC) in New York City on September 12, 1985. The tasting was a blind comparison of the 1983 Pinot Noir vintages from Burgundy, France and Oregon, U.S.A. Inspired by comparative tastings conducted by several Oregon winemakers, and frustrated by the lack of respect Oregon Pinot Noirs were seeing in the wider market, Stephen Cary suggested the tasting to IWC President Al Hotchkin, who predicted poor results. The Oregon Wine Advisory Board (now the Oregon Wine Board) funded the event that presented 10 Oregon wines and 7 French wines; judges were asked to identify the origin of each wine and to select their three favorites. As a group, the twenty-five judges could not correctly identify the place of origin for at least 50% of the wines. The Oregon wines placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and tied for 4th and 5th. With many displeased French winemakers, a second competition took place two years later where Oregon, once again, swept the top two spots and tied for 3rd. These events helped Oregon wines earn the respect of the French (as well as wine consumers throughout the United States) while still maintaining a positive relationship between the two winemaking regions