ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ROLL CALL VOTING IN THE U.S. CONGRESS IN 1975 AND 1979

This article argues that the energy and environmental policy areas in Congress are no longer considered components of the government management dimension. The two policy areas have separated from the government management dimension constructed by Clausen and are now distinct and autonomous Congressional policy areas. The models of roll call voting for energy and environment issues are very different. Energy is tied more closely to technical considerations while environmental issues are more emotional and more closely tied to quality of life concerns.     

Courtroom Applications of Virtual Environments, Immersive Virtual Environments, and Collaborative Virtual Environments

This article examines the possibilities and implications of employing virtual environments (VEs), immersive virtual environments (IVEs), and collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) in the courtroom. We argue that the immersive and interactive reality created by these tools adds significant value as a simulation of experience to enhance courtroom practice. The obvious boundaries between real and virtual enhance the attractiveness of these tools as technologies of rhetorical persuasion that can be used to demonstrate subjective perspective, strengthen or impeach the credibility of witnesses, and provide the trier of fact with a better understanding of each side's perception of the facts at issue. The article introduces the concepts of VEs, IVEs, and CVEs, describes the manners in which these technologies have been applied to settings other than the courts system, and review the relevant psychological and legal literature. It discusses specific applications of the technology to the court system and suggests how it could improve upon current procedures. Finally, it discusses some of the limitations and problems, and suggests legal reforms necessary to the adoption of these technologies, specifically rules of procedure that provide for all parties to be able to access, manipulate and inspect any virtual environment, the trier of fact to be able to interact with, rather than just accept the lawyer's rendition, and rules that provide for the parties to introduce at trial an inventory of all digital assets contained in the virtual environment, making those that are stipulated to and those that are in controversy.     

SCALE ECONOMIES AND IRON LAWS: MERGERS AND DEMERGERS IN WHITEHALL 1971–1984

Between 1971 and 1984 there were ten cases of merger or demerger in British central government departments, ranging in importance from the massive DTI demerger into four distinct departments (1973) to the absorption by the Lord Chancellor's Department of the Office of the Public Trustee (1982). By analysis of changes in aggregate indices of 'top staff', 'middle staff', ratio of administrative grades to total staff, salary costs relative to total budget, budget relative to total Government budget, and staff relative to total Civil Service staff, some common hypotheses about the rationale and effects of such bureau-shuffling are explored. It is found that, if anything, like attracts unlike (in terms of these indices); that change in scale creates neither economies nor diseconomies; that reorganization does not inevitably produce cost escalation (the 'Iron Law of Prodigality'); but that the 'Iron Law of Inertia' (reorganization in practice has little observable effect on bureaucratic structure and working) is supported by the observed results.     

POLICY MAKING AND THE DEMONSTRATION EFFECT: PRIVATIZATION IN A DEPRIVED REGION

The aims of public policies are not always clearly articulated by ministers. Further the aims that are stated may not reflect all – or indeed the most important – aims. In some cases declared policy aims bear little relationship to the real intentions of ministers in undertaking an initiative. In other cases policy decisions are intended as symbolic statements, demonstrating government attitudes on a range of issues beyond the specific matter under consideration. These ideas are explored in the context of the privatizations of Harland and Wolff and Shorts, two major industrial government-owned companies in Northern Ireland. The article concludes that government sought to use the privatizations as a symbolic statement, namely to demonstrate that the heavy dependence on the public sector within Northern Ireland had to be reduced.     

Managing Future Liability At Petroleum Impacted Sites Through Proactive Strategic Environmental Baselining

An important consideration of any commercial and industrial property acquisition or divestiture—whether it is a single gasoline station or a suite of oil refineries—is the extant environmental conditions of the property(s) at the time of the transaction. Property sellers and prospective buyers each consider and negotiate how any existing or future liability associated with extant environmental conditions will be handled. In spite of this forethought and the agreed contract terms, future litigation over unanticipated environmental contamination remains a real possibility. Often precipitating future litigation are disagreements surrounding whether “newly realized” contamination is old (pre-sale) or new (post-sale). As a result, environmental forensic investigations are often faced with the issue of “age-dating” this newly discovered contamination in order to determine whether it was released pre- or post-sale. Age-dating contamination can be an inherently difficult task to perform and technically defend. Technical arguments between experts can be short-circuited if there was an irrefutable understanding of the nature of extant contamination that had existed at the time of the sale. Conventional environmental due diligence investigations (Phase I and II site assessments) fall short of providing this understanding. In this paper, we discuss Strategic environmental baselining (SEB), a cost-effective and pro-active form of environmental due diligence that incorporates a key component of environmental forensics, that is, advanced chemical fingerprinting using modified EPA Methods that are tailored for hydrocarbon fingerprinting. Sufficient sampling and advanced chemical fingerprinting performed at the time of a transaction (or, at least, properly archived samples analyzed in the future as needed) provides the evidence that eliminates the need to “age-date” contamination at some future date. Advanced chemical fingerprinting data also provides detailed characteristics of the extant contamination and thereby, helps distinguish “old” from “new” contamination, regardless of alteration of the chemicals of concern by weathering. Armed with this information both buyers and/or sellers can protect themselves in the event of any future claim(s).     

Identifying Manufactured Gas Plant Tar in the Environment Using Chemical Fingerprinting

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that 3,000 to 5,000 manufactured gas plants (MGPs) were constructed in the United States (EPA, 2000). Companies located their MGPs near urban waterways due to the close proximity to cheap condensing liquid (water), improved site drainage, and easy access to delivery channels. However, these site selection criteria were shared by other industries, many of which generated PAHs or handled tar. Contemporary environmental forensic investigations must draw upon a detailed understanding of the relationship between MGP history and tar chemistry in order to differentiate between different types of MGP-derived tars and non-MGP impacts. This article describes the history of MGP operations in the U. S. and how chemical fingerprinting can aid in unraveling liability associated with MGP legacy sites.