Browsing by Subject "Policy analysis"
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Item Open Access A Retrospective Policy Analysis: Investigating Public Influence on the 2012 Ballast Water Management Regulations(2016-04-23) Schopp, MichelleAquatic nuisance species (ANS) are a global problem placing significant strain on the environment and its ecosystems. A primary culprit contributing to the introduction of ANS in waterways worldwide is ballast water, used by vessels to maintain stability while at sea. For nearly two decades, an acceptable method of ballast water management was to exchange ballast outside the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) prior to entering U.S. waters, however, these and other methods were only enforceable in certain areas of the U.S. In 2009 the U.S. Coast Guard published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) seeking to create a Ballast Water Discharge Standard for vessels calling on U.S. ports and waterways. Over 2,000 comments were collected, and in 2012 a Final Rule (FR) was issued. This project analyzed those comments, and determined whether the public materially influenced the U.S. Coast Guard’s FR, while providing justified recommendations for improving public influence and policy alternatives.Item Open Access Breakfast Breakdown: Examining Systematic Differences in Compliance with Nutrient Guidelines in the School Breakfast Program(2010-12) Cheney, MeganIn policy circles and academic publications, discussions of the School Breakfast Program focus on encouraging participation and expansion. The hope is that breakfast provision will improve the diets of low-income children and bolster students’ academic achievement. Yet policymakers have done little analysis of the program’s implementation. What research there is indicates that the majority of schools do not serve breakfasts that meet federal nutrition requirements. Before a nation-wide effort to increase School Breakfast Program participation is undertaken, factors that indicate successful (or unsuccessful) program implementation must be identified. This study uses data from the School Nutrition Dietary Assessment Study-III to explore relationships between select school characteristics and the nutritional value of the school’s subsidized breakfasts. Key variables include age of the student population, the racial/ethnic composition of the school, district poverty levels, urbanicity, program participation, and the availability of competitive foods. Significant relationships between levels of nutrients provided and age of the student population, racial/ethnic composition of the population, income, urbanicity, and participation rates suggest that systematic differences exist in School Breakfast Program implementation. These disparities have important implications for the future of school nutrition policy.Item Open Access DRILLING FOR GREEN CAPITAL: A Policy Study on Stimulating a Green Economy in the State of Texas(2009-04-24T18:44:03Z) Young, KristinePolicy at the state level plays a vital role in shaping economic growth. Some states, such as Pennsylvania, have actively enacted policy to stimulate a green economy. This report is a comparative case study of existing policy mechanisms for economic development in Pennsylvania and Texas. Pennsylvania has focused on economic opportunities in environmental initiatives, such as brownfield redevelopment and the cleantech industry. The Keystone Principles and Keystone Green Investment Strategy are examples of key policy tools utilized in Pennsylvania to stimulate the economy and conserve natural resources. Texas has a very strong economy, but relies heavily on energy intensive industries. The state has a strong policy agenda of economic development and business recruitment. The date collected for this case focuses on these strengths. Policy mechanisms that have built the state’s economy include the Industry Cluster Initiative, the Economic Development Bank and the Texas Enterprise Fund. The Pennsylvania case study data is used to develop recommendations on how to design and deploy incentive structures for green businesses in the State of Texas. The policy study discovers existing programs in Texas correlate with Pennsylvania’s policy mechanisms. A key element in Pennsylvania’s programs is environmental criterion to conserve natural resources, a ‘green criteria’ or ‘green objective.’ The purpose of green criteria is to weigh in on the environmental impacts of economic activities. Three recommendations are presented for Texas: 1. Incorporate a green objective in the Industry Cluster Initiative. 2. Target business services to address critical needs in green sectors. 3. Create an Energy Office in Texas’ environmental protection agency. These recommendations incorporate green objectives as enhancement strategies into existing programs. Instituting a green objective economic development will an important direction for Texas to maintain its competitive advantage on the global market in recruiting green businesses.Item Open Access Improving Access to Healthy Food in Durham’s Food Deserts: A Policy Analysis(2014-04-25) Tucker, DylanThe USDA categorizes food deserts as low-income census tracts with poor access to fresh produce. This lack of access to healthy food has been linked to public health problems such as obesity, diabetes, strokes, and cardiovascular diseases, leading to higher disease rates, health bills, and mortality rates within food deserts. Today in Durham, over 43,200 residents live in food deserts; this is 16.2% of the county population, and 16,800 more people than in 2012. To address the growing food desert problem in Durham, this report will develop a set of policies detailing how the city government along with private businesses can improve food access. The policies considered will target ways to improve access, specifically to locally sourced produce, in order to promote local agriculture and businesses as well. Furthermore, the policies will focus on short-term access and only those that do not overlap with federal food desert policy. Four policies will be analyzed: (1) the status quo, (2) added benefits to Electronic Benefit Transfer (food stamps) and Women, Infants, and Children benefits for shopping at local markets, (3) establishing new farmers’ markets in food deserts, and (4) establishing mobile markets operating in food deserts. They were developed based on case studies of other municipal actions to improve food access, and interviews with local stakeholders to apply them to Durham. Each policy will be analyzed based on its expected costs and benefits, its political feasibility and actors required for implementation, equity concerns, and the policy’s improvability and adaptability.Item Open Access Institutional Innovation: Market Change and Policy Choice in Cooperative Fishery Governance(2017) Clark, Elizabeth CSustainable management of marine natural resources, and the social-ecological systems in which they are embedded, presents one of the most significant challenges in contemporary environmental policy. Despite improvement in the ecological sustainability and economic performance of fisheries in the United States, these trends are not universal and management remains highly contentious. With fisheries moving towards more collaborative and participatory policy processes, understanding how social and economic relations among stakeholders may influence institutional change is critical to supporting democratic and effective resource management. This dissertation builds on research from common-pool resource theory and political economy to explore the incentives and processes of self-governance in fisheries embedded in global commercial supply chains and state management institutions. It contributes to our understanding of participatory policy-making by addressing the research questions: Why and how do resource users self-govern through the policy process? How are policy preferences and negotiations shaped by market structures and social relations of production?
These questions are investigated empirically by tracing market and policy changes over time in a commercial, small-scale, U.S. fishery. This dissertation examines origins and evolution of regulations, cooperative management institutions, and commercialization processes in the California sea urchin fishery, where harvesters and processors have seen major shifts in market geography and structure, and have initiated self-governance through the state’s policy process. Using a multi-level governance framework and institutional analysis tools, this dissertation draws on document archives, interviews and participant observation of policy and commercial production processes to construct a detailed policy history. It incorporates micro- and macro-level trade data and employs global value chain analyses to examine shifting seafood market geographies over time, and uniquely synthesizes the parallel economic and political timelines to explore dynamic interactions between them, focusing on how markets and other social and ecological factors shaped motivations in crafting policy.
Overall, this research reveals a diverse set of values and incentives at the heart of policy choice and change in the fishery. Cooperative management can be a tool to meet the costs of regulating (time, money, information and political leverage), evolving as participants learn and build social capital through the collective action experience, and adjust collective goals in response social and ecological change. States can empower effective producer collective action through particularly forms of institutional support, such as oversight to hold leaders accountable to members. Findings also reveal complex dynamic linkages between markets, harvesting strategies, and policy choice. Regulations are crafted to match market conditions, equitably distribute costs among divers, processors, and the state, and achieve other social objectives such as intergenerational access and individual freedom. They are also adjusted in response to changing markets, outcomes of previous regulations, and state policy agendas. Together, these findings can inform ongoing efforts to move towards participatory and cooperative fisheries management, particularly in the U.S. and similar contexts, by revealing the specific ways that commercial seafood markets shape, and are shaped by, the policy process and regulatory outcomes.
Item Open Access Leapfrogging to a Green Building Code in Bolivia: A Policy Analysis(2016-04-27) Legge, Darren; Stanton, Darius II; Tran, TheoIn Bolivia, building codes are a nascent development. This presents an opportunity to learn from the international community, possibly even “leapfrogging” directly to a code that incorporates environmentally sustainable features. On behalf of our client, Partners of the Americas, this report assesses the opportunity for Bolivian municipalities to adopt commercial building codes similar to those developed by the International Code Council. Specifically, we analyze the International Building Code (IBC) and the International Green Construction Code (IgCC) for use in Bolivia’s three principal cities: La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. We analyze the policies’ effectiveness in achieving building safety and environmental health improvements, as well as their potential economic costs and benefits. We also evaluate the feasibility of policy adoption and implementation.Item Open Access Physical and Program Options for the Inland Migration of Louisiana's Coastal Wetlands in Response to Relative Sea Level Rise(2012-04-27) Perron, Douglas; Beck, Heidi; Bihler, Alicia; Kemm, Melissa; Pardo, SamLouisiana contains over a third of the coastal wetlands in the contiguous US, but has seen a drastic reduction in total wetland area in the last century. This loss is especially troubling for coastal Louisiana where wetlands play a vital role in protecting and supporting the state’s economy and culture. Under natural conditions, coastal wetlands will move upland with rising sea level or sinking land. However, engineered structures and shore armoring, such as levees, seawalls, and bulkheads, impede this process. Advanced planning for wetland migration is needed to keep communities and infrastructure out of harm’s way from encroaching open water and to mitigate future wetland loss. This project investigates the potential for wetland migration in Louisiana through 1) the mapping and analysis of coastal wetland migration and 2) an examination of policy alternatives relevant to wetland migration. Wetland loss and migration was analyzed in Lafourche, St. Mary, and Vermilion parishes using the Sea Level Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM). Moderate and less optimistic values of subsidence rates were modeled with constant global sea level rise projections to identify the impacts of dike and levee protection on wetland loss and the upland migration of coastal wetlands. The percent of wetland loss offset by wetland migration was calculated for each parish in an effort to aid in management decisions. It was found that wetland migration into dry land areas did not occur in any of the three parishes unless dike and levee protection of undeveloped dry lands was removed. The intensity of subsidence and the distribution of dry land greatly impact the overall benefits of allowing coastal wetlands to migrate into dry lands. This observation was exemplified in Lafourche Parish, which has a limited distribution of dry land and was modeled using higher subsidence rates than those found in both St. Mary and Vermilion parishes. Not only was the net loss of wetlands greater when dike and levee protection was removed in Lafourche Parish, but the total amount of wetland gain by means of wetland migration was incapable of offsetting a significant amount wetland loss. The policy analysis was developed with respect to the criteria and framework of Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast and for use in an exploratory model. Considering the results of the geospatial analysis within this report, a model was developed to assist in management decisions regarding the migration of coastal wetlands across Louisiana’s geophysically and socio-economically variable coastline. The model was constructed using five main criteria to assess six different policy alternatives. Policy criteria included wetland migration, flood risk, equity, adaptability, and political feasibility, and the policy alternatives assessed were rolling easements, density restrictions, transferable development rights, conservation easements, defeasible estates and voluntary acquisition. Specific recommendations were made with the goal of developing an equitable and efficient wetland migration policy capable of complementing and improving current coastal management plans.Item Open Access Policy Options for Financing Drinking Water Infrastructure in the United States(2013-04-25) Pepping, Troy J.Aging drinking water infrastructure in the United States is due to be replaced, with cost estimates ranging from $335 billion to more than $1 trillion over the next twenty years. Most of the financial capital will likely come from drinking water utility revenues, but there may be a role for the federal government to support infrastructure projects. Currently, the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund serves this purpose through state grants. This paper examines the current program using a regression analysis to determine which factors dictate a successful reduction in the needs of states for drinking water infrastructure. Results indicate that government funding is useful, but needs are influenced by many other demographic variables as well. A policy analysis, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative measures, compares the status quo option with two other federal policy alternatives: expanding the current program and adopting a proposed Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act that would provide Treasury-backed loans directly to water utilities. Based on the policy analysis, the WIFIA proposal is the most favorable approach for the federal government. However, utility revenue will still play a large role, so water bills will assuredly increase over the coming years. The recommendation from this paper is a mix of adopting WIFIA along with other measures to soften the blow of higher water bills across the U.S., as well as further research that could examine specific case studies at the utility level.Item Open Access Uncertainty in the Forecast of Net Load Ramp in CAISO Region(2015-04-23) Yang, PeizhiIn electricity systems, demand and supply must be in balance. The term net load refers to the portion of system demand that must be provided by non-renewable resources, equivalent to system demand minus the generation from variable energy resources such as solar and wind. The ramp rate of net load refers to its rate of change. The ramp rate of a power generator refers to the rate at which it can change its generation level. As more intermittent renewable resources are integrated into a system, the ramp rate of net load increases, and with that, the need for flexible generators with higher ramping capability (i.e. the ability to quickly ramp their power output up and down as needed). As more intermittent renewable resources are integrated into a system, the ramp rate of net load increases, and with that, the need for flexible generators with ramping capability. This Masters Project takes data on the forecast and realizations of load and renewable generation in the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) region from 05/01/2014 to 10/31/2014, and examines the statistical properties of the forecast errors of these quantities and the resulting ramp in net load. It focuses on addressing questions regarding the effects of increased penetration of renewables on market and system operations practices: 1) what is the pattern of forecast error of ramp in net load for different daily time periods? 2) Since net load is equal to system demand minus renewable generation, the forecast uncertainty of the two components contributes to the forecast uncertainty of ramp in net load. What is the element that has larger influence on the forecast error of ramp in net load? 3) A common assumptions about forecast error in system operation is that it follows a normal probability distribution. Is this assumption still valid under current renewable penetration levels? Does this assumption still hold when instead of looking at the forecast error during the day, the analysis is conducted independently for different daily time periods? 4) What are the implications of the findings of this study about the probability distribution of forecast error in net load to the procurement targets for reserves and ramp capability? Results show that a) the forecast error of ramp in the system’s net load is greatly affected by the forecast errors on generation from PV Solar, especially during twilight hours in the morning and evening, b) the data observed does not allow rejecting the hypothesis that forecast errors of ramp follow a normal probability distribution function. If the data used is representative of CAISO conditions, this suggests that at current penetrations of wind and solar energy, dispatching the system to provision ramping capability equal to 2 standard deviations above the mean of the forecast error of ramp in net load, would results in a system that is able to meet its ramping needs 95% of the time.Item Open Access Watershed Management in the Federal Government(2011-04-25) Vuxton, EmilyWatersheds in the United States are very valuable. Their waters support a wide range of purposes, including irrigation, fisheries, industrial operations, recreational pursuits, aquatic habitat, and drinking water. Efficient and effective watershed management must consider all of these purposes and plan accordingly. Watershed management is conducted by many entities, with one of the largest and most important partners being the federal government. Although many federal agencies conduct watershed management, they often act out of concert with one another, even across the same watersheds. This lack of coordination leads to duplications of efforts as well as gaps in services offered. Among federal agencies, the U.S. Forest Service, in particular, has major responsibilities for protecting water resources because of its position as owner of many of the nation’s headwaters. This paper highlights duplications and gaps which occur across the federal government in watershed management, and offers policy recommendations on how to streamline efforts. It details the history of the U.S. Forest Service in watershed management. It argues how a paradigm shift in resource management within the U.S. Forest Service has negatively affected morale in a manner which hinders successful watershed management. A history of forest planning is provided. Finally, there is an analysis of the 2011 Planning Rule with predictions on how implementation of the rule will affect watershed management. Results indicate that greater coordination of water quality monitoring data collection efforts would be accomplished with the establishment of a central clearinghouse, as well as the designation of a single agency responsible for coordinating efforts. More data are necessary to properly assess and address water quantity concerns in the United States. The U.S. Forest Service has struggled, and will continue to struggle with watershed management due to its many priorities as well as a lack of general employee morale in the agency. The 2011 Planning Rule, although flexible and adaptable, grants unprecedented levels of discretion to officials. It remains to be seen what effect this will have on watershed management in the U.S. Forest Service.