Cost Benefit Analysis and Ecology

Valuing environmental benefits

• Market Value

• Travel cost/shadow prices

• Contingent Valuation/wtp problem

Can CBA accommodate the precautionary principle? How does CBA account for future costs?

Back to values:

David Broder (1990): "The argument is no longer about values. That’s over; and the environmentalists have won. The argument is now about policies. And those with the best evidence and the best arguments, not just the purest hearts, will prevail.”

Do you agree?

Private Law/Torts

Private Law/Torts

Private plaintiff(s) vs. private defendants

Coordination, or free rider problems

Theories of liability

• private nuisance

• public nuisance

• trespass

• negligence

• negligence per se

• strict liability

Madison v. Ducktown Sulphur (TN, 1901):

Madison v. Ducktown Sulphur (TN, 1901):

• smoke pollution from smelter ruining timber and farming land in Appalachia

• private nuisance action

Should court grant injunction? Damages?

Madison v. Ducktown Sulphur (TN, 1901):

• smoke pollution from smelter ruining timber and farming land in Appalachia

• private nuisance action

Should court grant injunction? Damages?

What factors matter? Who was there first? Relative benefits of competing land uses?

“[S]hall we … grant [plaintiffs request] to blot out two great mining and manufacturing enterprises, destroy half of the taxable values of a county, and drive more than 10,000 people from their homes?”

Tennessee Copper (USSC, 1907):

• same smelter, same damage

Tennessee Copper (USSC, 1907):

• same smelter, same damage

• public nuisance

Should court grant injunction?

No damages requested—why?

Should states have superior rights to private individuals in this situation?

Missouri v. Illinois (USSC, 1906)

Missouri v. Illinois (USSC, 1906)

• Chicago pollution polluting Lake Michigan

• City reversed river’s flow Illinois River Mississippi River typhoid in St. Louis

No. of typhoid cases increased after flow reversed. Is Missouri entitled to injunction?

Missouri v. Illinois (USSC, 1906)

• Chicago pollution polluting Lake Michigan

• City reversed river’s flow Illinois River Mississippi River typhoid in St. Louis

No. of typhoid cases increased after flow reversed. Is Missouri entitled to injunction?

Missouri permits upstream Missouri towns to discharge raw sewage. Does that matter to

the court? Should it matter?

Spread of Environmental Values, post WWII

WHY?

• industrialization pollution?

• developments in science of ecology?

• liberal social movements

• broadening prosperity?

• leisure goods

• post-materialism hypothesis

US vs. other industrialized democracies

RISE OF PUBLIC LAW

1. Catalyzing Events

Silent Spring FIFRA

Scenic Hudson NEPA

Cayuhoga River fire +

Santa Barbara oil spill CWA

RISE OF PUBLIC LAW

1. Catalyzing Events

2. “Federalization”

Common State regulation federal law regulation

RISE OF PUBLIC LAW

1. Catalyzing Events

2. “Federalization”

3. Politics

Industry vs. environmentalists

Left vs. right

STATUTES TIMELINE.doc

NEXT TIME:

Property rights and the limits of regulation