Did interest groups influence the Supreme Court’s interpretation of federal economic regulatory authority under the Commerce Clause leading up to the Supreme Court’s 1937 reversal? Recent scholarship has begun a renewed study of this tumultuous era seeking alternative explanations for the Court’s behavior beyond the conventional explanations concerning Roosevelt’s court packing plan. I build on this literature by extending the discussion to the influence that interest groups may have had on the Court. I propose that interest groups served as a supporting and influential audience for the Supreme Court as the justices’ institutional legitimacy became threatened by both the political pressure and legal changes that the Court faced during this era. To test these theoretical assumptions, I compiled a dataset of Supreme Court cases using the U.S. Supreme Court Library Official Reports Database ranging from the beginning of the 1920 Supreme Court term through the end of the 1937 term. Cases were included if 1) the case had one or more filed amicus briefs; and 2) the questions and arguments in the case were based on the Commerce Clause or legislation that relies wholly or in part on the Commerce Clause. Applying a basic logit model, I find support for the assumption that amicus briefs influenced the Court by providing the justices with a supporting audience. To further test the influence of amicus briefs, I compare the arguments and information provided exclusively by amicus briefs in this group of cases to the Supreme Court majority’s opinions to test for similar content. Amicus briefs are considered influential if the Court included information exclusively from an amicus in their majority opinion. I find that in the largest number of cases, amici influenced the Court majority’s opinions in favor of their preferred litigant when they provide unique arguments and information. Consequently, I find moderate support for the influence of interest groups on the Court both externally by providing a supporting audience and internally by providing the Court with supporting information.

While reading a news article about the upcoming presidential election one day, I noticed a trend. The vast majority of political articles discuss what the federal government should do, but almost never cover what it could do. In elementary school, American children are taught that the Constitution, a 4,543-word document, is the place from which all federal power is derived; but the Constitution says nothing about the regulation of travel, narcotics, or the vast majority of other areas that affect the way we live our daily lives, so where does that power come from? After some preliminary research, I discovered that a great deal of it comes from how the Supreme Court has interpreted two Constitutional Clauses in particular (The Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Commerce Clause) and decided to dig deeper. This thesis is a product of that research. Through a historical overview of Supreme Court jurisprudence on these two clauses, this thesis will reveal that, one case at a time, federal power has gradually expanded through the centuries and shows no sign of slowing, the effect of which is the degradation and potential devolution of American federalism, the backbone upon which this country was founded.

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Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) require electricity providers to supply a minimum fixed percentage or total quantity of customer load from designated renewable energy resources by a given date. These policies have become increasingly prevalent in the past decade as state governments seek to increase the use of renewable energy sources. As a policy tool, RPS provide a cost-effective, market-based approach for meeting targets which promote greater use of renewable energy in both regulated and deregulated markets. To facilitate the obtainment of Renewable Portfolio Standards, most states allow the trading of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). RECs represent the environmental attributes of renewable energy generation which are decoupled from the generated power. These credits are created along with the generation of renewable energy, decoupled from energy generation, tracked by regional systems, and eventually purchased by retail suppliers to fulfill their RPS obligations. As of April 2010, RPS have been passed into law in 29 states and Washington D.C. and an additional 6 states have non-mandatory renewable portfolio goals however the U.S. government has yet to enact a Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard. Although the final requirements and details of a Federal RPS are undecided, federal standards would be unlikely to preempt or override state programs which are already in place. A key concern regarding the passage of a federal RPS is that a national REC market would result in a shift of wealth from states with few renewable energy resources and limited resource potential to regions richer in renewable resources. Because of the implications that a federal renewable portfolio standard would have on the economy, the environment, and the equitable treatment of all the states, many issues and concerns must be resolved before federal standards will be passed into law. A theoretical case study for an electric utility generation planning decision that includes obligations to meet Renewable Portfolio Standard is presented here. A framework is provided that allows decision makers and strategic planning teams to: assess their business situation, identify objectives of generation planning, determine the relative weights of the objectives, recognize tradeoffs, and create an efficient portfolio using Portfolio Theory. The case study follows the business situation for Austin Energy as it seeks to meet Texas State RPS and mandates set by Austin City Council and prepares for potential National RPS legislation. / text

This diploma thesis aims to analyze the issue of one of the most significant congressional powers found in Article I., Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce has been instrumental to the federal government's legislative efforts in many areas of law. This constitutional provision enabled the Congress to react to the changing conditions and new problems the country has been facing, especially in the area of working conditions, civil rights, criminal justice or even environmental law and many others. The expansion of power of the federal government, however, was not always greeted with enthusiasm, especially in the first three decades of the 20th century, before the Supreme Court began to read the commerce power much more broadly, to the point that it ceased to be a factual limitation of its powers. This trend was meant to be stopped by the New Federalism movement and the five new conservative justices who issued rulings that limited the scope of the Commerce Clause. However, this group of justices proved to be very inconsistent in its own approach toward this constitutional provision and eventually fell apart, which rendered Rehnquist's attempted constitutional revolution with respect to state's rights partly a failure. As the new Court membership under...

La thèse analyse la promotion de l'électricité produite à partir de sources renouvelables par la régulation économique. Elle combine la recherche existante en économie, sciences politiques et droit. Les principaux apports scientifiques nouveaux par rapport à la recherche existante sont les suivants : - L'échec des efforts de la Commission européenne d'harmoniser les systèmes de soutien au niveau de l'UE s'explique par une alliance (de prime abord improbable) des OGN "vertes" et des producteurs d'électricité verte, soucieux de protéger le système des prix garantis par l'État, ainsi que des États membres, soucieux du respect du principe de subsidiarité. - Contrairement à l'avis dominant en sciences économique, des prix minima garantis, arrêté au niveau de 'UE, constituent la politique règlementaire la plus efficient. - La première analyse compréhensive de la pratique décisionnelle de la Commission européenne eu matière d'aide d'État et la jurisprudence de la Court depuis 1990 montre que, contrairement à l'avis dominant dans la recherche juridique, les systèmes de soutien de la plupart des États membres constituent des aides d'État, car l'arrêt PreussenElektra a un champ d'application beaucoup plus restreint que généralement admis. - Les règles de l'OMC, du Traité sur la Charte de l'Énergie, du droit des aides d'État et du marché intérieur interagissent d'une manière qui n'a pas encore été pleinement compris par la littérature juridique. - Des parallélismes surprenants au débat juridique en Europe existent dans le débat juridique aux États-Unis. Cependant, il n'ont pas été mis en exergue par les juristes. Ainsi, la "dormant commerce clause" soumet les régimes de soutien au États-Unis à des contraintes similaires que les règles du marché intérieur; et le contrôle fédéral de la régulation des prix sous le Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) ressemble au contrôle des aides d'État. / The thesis analyses the promotion of electricity from renewable energy sources by regulatory policies, bringing together the existing research in economics, political science and law. The main new findings compared to the existing research are: The failure of the Commission's attempts to harmonize support schemes al the EU level is due to an (at first sight: unlikely) alliance of green NGO and renewable electricity producers, concerned about protecting fixed purchase prices, and Member States, concerned about subsidiarity; Contrary to the dominating view in the economic literature, fixed purchase prices, set at the EU level, are the most efficient regulatory option; The first comprehensive analysis of the Commission's decision practice and the Court's case law on support schemes under EU State aid rules since 1990 shows that, contrary to the dominating view in legal writing, the support schemes of most Member States do constitute State aid, because PreussenElektra has a much narrower scope than generally thought. WTO rules, the Energy Charter Treaty, and EU State aid and internal market rules interact in ways which have thus far not been analyzed in detail in the legal literature. Surprising parallelisms exist in the legal debate in the US and in the EU, which have thus far been widely overlooked by legal scholars: the "dormant commerce clause" puts very similar constraints on State support schemes as internal market rules; and federal control on price regulation under the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) in the US acts similarly to State aid control in the EU.

財政援助をコントロールする仕組みは、国によって様々であり、立法的な統制、行政的な統制又は司法的な統制等があるが、本稿では、特に、裁判所による財政支出の統制に焦点を当て、アメリカ合衆国、スペイン及びメキシコ合衆国について検討する。本稿においては、主として、アメリカ合衆国、スペイン及びメキシコ合衆国の裁判所が、私企業に対する財政支出をどのような場合において違憲又は違法とするのか、又はどのような場合において合憲又は適法とするのかということを検討し、これらの国々の裁判所がその結論に到達するために、どのような要件又は判断基準に基づいて、財政支出を統制するのかということについて考察する。 / The mechanisms for controlling fiscal assistance vary from one country to another. Legislative, executive and judicial controls can be mentioned as broad examples of these mechanisms. This research will focus on the judicial control of fiscal expenditure in the United States of America, Spain and Mexico. It primarily examines in which cases financial expenditure on the private sector is declared unconstitutional or illegal and in which situations it is declared constitutional or legal by the American, Spanish and Mexican judiciary. It will also focus on an investigation of the legal requirements for fiscal stimulus, as well as in the judging criteria developed and used by the court of those countries to reach to those conclusions. / 博士(法学) / Doctor of Laws / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University