1AC

1AC
1AC---Plan Text
The United States federal government should implement substantial protection of
water resources in the United States through incorporation of state water standards
into National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permits at the point of permit
creation.
1AC---Circuit Splits
The advantage is Circuit Splits.
The 4th and 6th Circuit split over the CWA’s permit scope compromises water
protection. The plan is key to set a balanced precedent that equalizes enforcement
and ensures legal fairness.
Wesley E. Davis 19, J.D., Judicial Law Clerk, United States Courts, “The Sword and the Shield: Disunity
Over the Application of the Clean Water Act’s Permit Shield Provision,” 7 LSU J. of Energy L. & Resources
(2019), https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1168&context=jelr
This comprehensive congressional reform resulted in the Clean Water Act (CWA), which substantially reformed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948.6
The CWA, which Congress passed over a veto from President Nixon, altered the way America regulated water pollution.7 In the decades since its passage, the
substantially amended CWA has provided Americans with cleaner, safer water ;8 although Americans today
generally enjoy cleaner water across the country, the discharge of pollutants remains ever present and continues to
contaminate the waterways and waterbodies of America.9 The continuity of water pollution illuminates a hard
truth: Congress recognized the unrealistic expectation that no facility, industrial process, or person
would ever pollute a water source.10 As a result, the CWA provides for a wide range of guidelines,
procedures, and regulations for polluters to follow when discharging pollutants. 11
The CWA provides the federal government and the states with a pollution permitting system known as
the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System ( NPDES).12 The NPDES statutory regime—one of the many permitting
provisions of the CWA, and the statute focused on by this Case Note—addresses how facilities may lawfully obtain permits to
discharge pollutants from a point source into a waterbody. 13 The NPDES regime also contains a more ambiguous
section known as the “permit shield” provision, which provides NPDES permit holders protection from
civil and criminal liability if they comply with the specifications and regulations of their NPDES permits. 14
It is this balancing act of regulatory oversight and industry liability protection that comprises the
NPDES regulatory scheme today .
This Case Note addresses a federal circuit split between the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Fourth and Sixth
Circuits over the application of the CWA permit shield provision and argues for a broader interp retation of the
CWA permit shield that , on its face, provides greater protection to industry but allows permit issuing
authorities to regulate state water quality standards on a more particularized level . Part I illustrates the
relationship between the NPDES permitting process and the CWA permit shield protection provision and presents early case law and administrative decisions that
formed the basis of the judiciary’s interpretation of the permit shield provision’s application. Part II examines the circuit split between the Fourth and Sixth Circuits
and the resulting disunity over the applicability of the CWA permit shield defense with respect to NPDES permit holders when the permit sets out specific effluent
limitations and merely incorporates state water quality standards by reference. Part III discusses the issues and ambiguity resulting from the dueling Circuit
opinions. Part IV explains why the Fourth Circuit decision, subject to some limitations, promotes a more effective
model of cooperative federalism that honors the state role envisioned by the CWA without unfairly
discriminating against industry and business . Finally, Part V concludes by recognizing the benefits of a limited Fourth Circuit rationale.
The plan expands protections by codifying state standards as a condition of federal
NPDES permits. That ensures a tougher outer limit on discharges and clarifies a
regulatory ceiling that guides industry compliance throughout the duration of the
permit.
V. CREATING A SAFE HARBOR WITHIN STATE WATER QUALITY STANDARDS
In light of this ambiguity in an already complicated statute, the Supreme Court should adopt the Fourth Circuit’s
approach to state water quality standards in the Fola case , subject to a “safe harbor” limitation under
the CWA “permit shield ” provision. The CWA exists for one purpose—to protect the waters of America from
pollutants.171 The NPDES permit is the regulatory exception to the strict liability prohibition of
discharging pollutants from point sources into waterbodies. 172
The Fourth Circuit in Fola correctly noted that there is no limitation on a state incorporating its state
water quality standards as an independent permit provision into an NPDES general permit.173
Congressional intent, while unclear and even silent on many provisions of the CWA, is perfectly clear when it
comes to the application of NPDES—it should be primarily a state function to administer a permitting
system.174 Additionally, the Fourth Circuit in Fola correctly noted that to be eligible for the CWA permit
shield defense , a facility must comply with all elements of an NPDES permit ; and a cross-reference to
state water quality standards constitutes a separate, independent section of the permit that a facility
must follow to be in compliance .175
As previously discussed,176 33
U.S.C. § 1311(b)(1)(c) mandates that NPDES permits may not issue if the permit
issuing authority finds that the permit holder’s discharges would violate state and federal water quality
standards.177 If an NPDES permit issues, as in Fola, and the issuing agency does not proscribe any type of
numerical effluent limitation on a pollutant discharge that results in a state water quality violation, the
NPDES permit holder receives protection under the permit shield provision. 178
Facilities already have a limited “safe harbor” with respect to their numerical effluent discharge limits
under the interpretation of the permit shield provision; however, facilities may be exposed to liability if
an NPDES permit incorporates state water quality standards that subsequently change during the life
of the existing NPDES permit .179 A state permitting authority cannot change effluent limitations during
the course of an active NPDES permit and reasonably expect to bring an enforcement action. A “safe
harbor” should also apply to a state’s water quality standards incorporated into an NPDES general
permit. If a state incorporates these water quality standards in an NPDES permit, a facility should be
required to follow the standards in place at the time the permit was issued, and should not be
penalized in a subsequent enforcement action where the state water quality standards changed prior to
permit expiration.
Additionally, states should strive to include more than just boilerplate language, which can lead to ambiguity and uncertainty as standards evolve. States would be
better served to explicitly designate in permits the minimum requirements envisioned for adequately meeting state water quality standards. For example, in the
Fola decision, the language included in the West Virginia permit referencing state water quality standards contained vague and amorphous language.180 The
broader the language, the more potential for ambiguity, and the more likely confusion and uncertainty will occur downstream.
From an environmental perspective, the waters of the United States are often their own unique ecosystems. The waters of Bayou Lafourche in Louisiana are unlike
the waters of Lake Michigan; the waters of Chesapeake Bay have different needs than the waters of Puget Sound. Different state water quality standards have
different needs based on a multitude of geographic, demographic, and environmental factors. While the scope of the permit shield provision is narrower now than
at its inception, the spirit of the CWA is still very much alive through a narrow construction of the permit shield. States should actively incorporate their state water
quality standards into their general NPDES permits, subject to the permit issuing authority providing regulatory guidance to the regulated parties.
This narrowing of the CWA’s permit shield provision dents the scope of the permit shield , but it is far
from a fatal blow. The ability for a facility to obtain immunity from liability from suit under the CWA
outweighs , in many cases, the cost of compliance .181
CONCLUSION
The federal courts, permit issuing authorities, and industry stakeholders need a clear interpretation of
the ambiguous CWA “permit shield” provision’s application to state water quality standards that are
incorporated into an NPDES permit. State permitting authorities in cooperation with the EPA should
be allowed to incorporate state water quality standards as independent permit provisions that
provide clearly defined state water quality limits , which serve to provide an “outer limit” on the
allowable level of pollutants in a water source . Further, the permit shield should apply even when an
NDPES permit issuing authority decides not to set effluent numerical limitations on pollutant discharges,
and instead only relies on a facility’s disclosure of pollutants during the permit application process. This can
be accomplished by avoiding boilerplate language in permits and providing permit holding facilities the ability to anchor their
compliance expectations prior to and during the permit application process , rather than respond to
lawsuits or enforcement actions brought as a result of ambiguity and misunderstandings of statutory
requirements. Providing these additional steps for polluting facilities to follow, subject to a safe harbor provision, can uphold
standards within the CWA and provide industry facilities with guidance to the steps necessary for
compliance.
Clarity is necessary at the federal level. Lower courts and agencies remain ambiguous
and in conflict on the modifying effects of state effluent limitations on permit holders.
That ensures escalating lawsuits and pollution.
Andrew Isabell 15, graduated from the West Virginia University College of Law in 2015, served as an
Executive Article Selection and Symposium Editor for Volume 117 of the West Virginia Law Review and
as a Dean’s Fellow for Constitutional Law in the College of Law’s Academic Excellence Program, “The
Switch That Caused a Storm: Consolidating West Virginia's Surface Mining and Water Protection
Programs,” August 15, 2015, 118 W. Va. L. Rev. Online 11, https://wvlawreview.wvu.edu/west-virginia-
law-review-online/2015/08/15/the-switch-that-caused-a-storm-consolidating-west-virginia-s-surface-
mining-and-water-protection-programs
Another negative effect that came in the storm following the consolidation of these two regulatory programs was an inconsistency in
interpretation of the regulations governing the NPDES program . This section discusses that inconsistency using a
specific example: the permit as a shield defense 65 of the Clean Water Act.
The permit as a shield clause of the Clean Water Act protects a discharging entity from suit so long as the entity complies with its permit in its entirety.66 In other
words, if
a discharging entity follows all the rules in applying for an NPDES permit, and then complies with
that permit when it discharges pollutants, the entity cannot face a lawsuit for a discharge that turns out
to violate effluent limits.67 When the WVDNR made the switch discussed above and consolidated West Virginia’s SMCRA
and NPDES schemes,68 the promulgated rule included this permit shield language in the same way it is written in the federal Clean Water
Act.69 However, the final rule that was sent to the legislature and ultimately approved included a requirement that all discharges not
violate state ambient water quality standards. 70 Because this language was not in the original ly
promulgated rule, it did not receive public comment, and therefore was not technically passed
according to the WVAPA. 71
This language that was never given public comment has allowed environmental plaintiffs to sue
surface mining entities for violations of NPDES permits because their discharges do not comply with
water quality standards, despite the following: Neither the EPA 72 nor the West Virginia
Legislature 73 interprets this language to mean that water quality standards are the same as effluent
limitations . Similarly, the WVDEP followed the lead of the West Virginia State Legislature and
promulgated a rule confirming that it also did not interpret this language to mean that compliance
with water quality standards was required to use the permit shield defense .74 Even still, environmental
plaintiffs have successfully sued surface mining entities using this same language in federal court
because some federal courts have interpreted the language differently .
An example of this different interpretation is found in a decision issued when the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition sued Marfork Coal Company.75 The
environmental plaintiff sued Marfork Coal Company for discharging pollutants that violated state-promulgated water quality standards, 76 even though the
chemicals in the discharges were not subjected to effluent limitations in Marfork’s WVNPDES permit. 77 Because Marfork’s permit did not include effluent
limitations for these chemicals, it moved for summary judgment, arguing that it was not in violation of its permit and therefore could not be sued due to the permit
as a shield defense of the Clean Water Act.78
The federal district court, however, disagreed with Marfork and found that Marfork was not in compliance with its permit because it violated water quality
standards.79 The
court reasoned that permit holders are shielded from liability only if they are in compliance
with all parts of the permit, including compliance with water quality standards not specifically
embodied in effluent limitations .80 Because of the language that arose from the switch described
above, the Marfork court was able to find for the plaintiffs. Even though both the WVDEP and the EPA had interpreted the permit
shield clause to protect a discharger from liability as long as it complied with the conditions of its permit, and did not interpret water quality standards to be specific
effluent limitations, the switch allowed the federal district court to interpret the water quality standard language in an inconsistent manner.
This inconsistent interpretation —stemming from the switch— turns the entire NPDES system on its head . Even if
the discharging entity does what the agency tells it to do and follows the state’s interpretation of the
language, a federal court will likely interpret the language differently and hold the company responsible
for discharges that should be covered under the company’s license to pollute. Inconsistent
interpretations such as this diminish the power of the NPDES permit ; if a discharger knows it will
likely not be covered even while in compliance with the effluent limitations in its permit, that
discharger is more likely to throw caution to the wind and take whatever shortcuts will save it
money, knowing litigation will come irrespective of compliance .
1AC---Circuit Splits---Water Quality
Scenario 1 is Water Quality.
Effective permits are key to regulate discharges from animal agriculture. It wrecks
biodiversity, nutrient cycles, and soil health.
Michelle Pena-Ortiz 21, Blue Water Task Force Manager at The Surfrider Foundation, “Linking aquatic
biodiversity loss to animal product consumption: A review,”
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/industrial_animal_agriculture/pdfs/Pena-
Ortiz_Literature_Review.pdf, cy
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

indicated that at least 485,000 km of streams and more than 2 million
hectares of lakes in the US did not meet water quality standards in relation to pollution (EPA, 2000). Hence, the widespread
contribution of animal agriculture to aquatic ecosystem pollution has been a longstanding concern in the
US (Burkholder et al., 2007). Animal agriculture is responsible for releasing pollutants such as nutrients , excess
sediment , pharmaceuticals , and estrogenic compounds into nearby surface waters through pathways
such as surface runoff, overflow of manure lagoons, direct disturbance or defecation , and atmospheric deposition
(Burkholder et al., 2007; EPA, 2012; Hutchins et al., 2007; Kauffman et al., 1983; Mallin et al., 2015; Stone et al., 1995; West et al., 2011). It is important to note that
in the studies found for this review, sedimentation is primarily associated with pastured or grazing animals, whereas nutrient, pharmaceutical, and estrogenic
pollution are primarily associated with CAFOs. Since the 1950’s (chickens), and the 1970’s-1980’s (cows, pigs), most animals consumed in the US are raised in CAFOs
rather than pastures (Burkholder et al., 2007). Of the 20,000 CAFOs in the US, only 8,000 facilities have National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits , which help address water pollution by
regulating the amount and types of pollutants being discharged by point sources (EPA, 2012).
3.3.1. Nutrients Animal agriculture contributes large amounts of excretory nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P)
to aquatic ecosystems, primarily via overflow of waste lagoons , or runoff from recent applications of waste to crop
fields (Burkholder et al., 2007). Waste generated by CAFOs is typically hosed through slats in the floor of the
confinement building, where it is then drained and pumped into outdoor waste lagoons. From there, the waste
either remains in the lagoon or is sprayed onto nearby fields to absorb excess nutrients (Mallin et al., 2015). Most studies relating to livestock waste
and aquatic nutrient pollution focus on CAFOs; however, pastured animals contribute to increased nutrient concentrations via direct defecation in surface waters or
runoff from pastures (James et al., 2007), and aquaculture animals contribute via waste flows of metabolic and food waste (Loch et al., 1996). Based on estimates
from 2005, animal agriculture in the US produces 1.2 - 1.37 billion tons of manure per year , which is 3-20 times more solid waste than
human sanitary waste production (EPA, 2005). The contribution of N and P from livestock systems causes a significant increase in eutrophication of aquatic systems,
as well as increased ammonia levels that are toxic to aquatic species (Burkholder et al., 1997; Mallin, 2000; Mallin et al., 2015).
Myriad studies demonstrate the significant impact that nutrient pollution from CAFOs have on water
quality. In a study conducted in a North Carolina watershed with swine and poultry CAFOs, Mallin et al. (2015) found that nitrate concentrations were
consistently high throughout the watershed, reaching concentrations of >10mg N/L, and ammonium concentrations near swine waste spray-fields reaching up to 38
mg N/L. This study also found that phosphorous in animal waste was significantly correlated with high biochemical oxygen demand in samples (Mallin et al., 2015).
Similarly, Westerman et al. (1995) reported that surface runoff from spray-fields that received swine waste at recommended concentrations had 3-6 mg NO3/L,
while Stone et al. (1998) found 6-8 mg total inorganic N/L and 0.7-1.3 mg P/L in a stream bordering a spray-field. Therefore, nutrient losses from spray-fields
receiving recommended concentrations of waste can surpass nutrient levels (100-200 µg inorganic P or N/L) known to support noxious algae blooms (Mallin, 2000).
Sauer et al. (1999) measured nutrient runoff from test plots that contained chicken litter and found that, after
a rain event, these sites
transported 5.0%, 29.5%, and 21.9% of the total nitrogen, ammonia, and reactive phosphorous that was
applied. Additionally, studies conducted after a waste lagoon overflow or spill have demonstrated the substantial impacts these events have on aquatic
ecosystems (Burkholder et al., 1997; Mallin, 2000). In 1995, the New River in North Carolina received 25 million gallons of liquid
swine waste due to a waste lagoon rupture , which catalyzed algal blooms due to the nutrient load, and
resulted in the pollution of approximately 22 river miles (35.4 km) (Burkholder et al., 1997). That same year, Mallin et al. (1997) documented the effects of a swine
lagoon leak and a poultry lagoon breach that resulted in algal blooms in the Cape Fear River basin.
Only the plan can avert imminent biodiversity tipping points.

CWP 21, Center for Watershed Protection, "Making Nature Great Again: Integrating Biodiversity and
Nutrient Targets into Watershed Management," https://www.cwp.org/making-nature-great-again-
integrating-biodiversity-and-nutrient-targets-into-watershed-management/, cy
In the early history of pollution management, big

pipe dischargers, especially sewage treatment plants, were an obvious
primary target for control. The strong and settled regulatory foundation under the Clean Water Act and
the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program brought measurable
progress , but as the millennium approached, much work remained. The Clean Water Action Plan of the Clinton Administration hit center stage in
1998, with a timely if not overdue refocus on nutrients as a significant and growing cause of eutrophication impairments, especially in estuarine watersheds and
systems where I have worked for much of my career. Nonpoint
source/stormwater management was boosted by treating
MS4s (Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems) and certain Confined Animal Feeding Operations
(CAFOs) as regulated point sources requiring NPDES permits.
As I reflect on the
impact of these programs and the new initiatives emphasizing nonpoint source/stormwater
management, I would have to say that water quality improvements attributable to landscape management have been limited.
Without question, farming and development compromise functionality of natural landscapes that once sustained healthy ecosystems and the services they provide.
To my eye, the problem is fundamentally a binary trade-off between land-cover features that support natural functions and those that exclude them. Human
structures and functions don’t leave much operating room for Nature and the impact on the land is proportionately transferred to the water.
The relationship
between watershed condition and aquatic ecosystem health is scientifically supported by
decades of applied research documented in EPA’s Biocondition Gradient (BCG) Practitioner’s Guide[i].
The more degraded the landscape, the poorer the condition of the aquatic ecosystems from myriad
chemical, physical and biological pressures delivered from the watershed. A 50% natural land cover
tipping point proposed by E.O. Wilson[ii] necessary to sustain ecosystem functionality and biodiversity
is gaining traction as a global management goal ,[iii] a level that appears transferable to the local scale.[iv] This may also be a
changepoint critical to aquatic ecosystem health[v] provided that 10% of this natural land cover is distributed along sensitive
riparian and shoreline buffers.

Watershed condition also aligns land-cover-derived nutrient loads with aquatic biocondition. The less natural cover, the larger the nutrient load, a combined result
of the added burden of “new” nutrients human activities contribute, the ecosystem’s loss of functional capacity to treat and retain pollutants and increased delivery
efficiency from hardened landscapes.Benchmarking along the BCG provides an effective way to set site-specific loading
targets consistent with desired aquatic life use/biodiversity outcomes based on today’s accurate and
precise land cover data. In effect, this benchmarking serves as a target, a TMDL, and a watershed management plan all wrapped into one with Nature-
based solutions and outcomes for both biodiversity and nutrients.
Uniquely true for the Gulf.

Courtney Lavigne et al. 20, Ariana Telzerow, and Elias Young, Lavigne earned her doctorate at the
University of Connecticut, graduating at the top of her class and being inducted to Omicron Kappa
Upsilon national honor society, Ariana Telzerow is studying abroad this semester at the University of
Akureyri in Iceland, Young has a BA in Finance, General and project management, 11-16-2020, Gulf of
Mexico Hypoxia, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/163fa6a962704232bfb464bfa2fbf511, Royer
Nutrient pollution is when excess nitrogen or phosphorus enters the waters or air. Nitrogen specifically affects the salt waters, therefore interfering
with the Gulf of Mexico . Although there are natural nutrients in the environment starting off, too much, usually caused by human impacts, can cause
algae to grow at disproportionate amounts where the ecosystem cannot keep up. What then happens, is the algae covers all of the surface water not allowing any
sun to get to the organisms into the water and this lowers the oxygen that is needed for them to survive. This is known as hypoxia. When too much is present,
this leads to dead zones where no organism can live in the area ("The Issue | US EPA").
Impacts and sources of hypoxia
1) The sources of pollution

come from multiple areas; agriculture, stormwater runoff, and fossil fuels. A major source of
agricultural pollution comes from Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations ( CAFOs ). This is when animals are living, feeding and creating
waste in close conditions. The problem here lies with not being able to maintain all of the waste and using old industrial farming techniques that today are not
sustainable or proper conditions for animals to be in (“Concentrated Feeding Animal Operations”). These practices are still being used because it is efficient for large
sums of product to be produced. Manure not being applied properly to soil which is what causes the threat to the environment and humans. The manure consists of
substances that these animals are given for food to make them grow as quickly as they can without the proper nutrients they need. Manure enters the
waterways through a point source . This is where pollution can easily be traced back to the source of where the pollutant came from, for
example a pipe. This is so the farmers can sell as much as they can, as quickly as they can. This can affect our drinking water and our marine environment where we
get our seafood.
2) Storm and wastewater runoff are another huge source of nutrient pollution that gets into waterways
as well. Stormwater runoff happens when excessive rainwater or snow falls and the substrate cannot absorb the liquid into the ground. When this happens, the
liquid on the ground is collecting other pollutants from rooftops, parking lots, and lawns ("Sources And Solutions: Stormwater | US EPA"). This is considered a
nonpoint source because it is coming from many different areas. There are also wastewater systems that are used to direct the runoff into nearby streams and
these are known as Combined Sewage Overflows. This is another industrial system that is used which is harming the environment because there is no
separation of pollutants. This old system is still in use due to how expensive it is to replace these aged and underground systems.
3) Fossil fuels are non-renewable resources that are used for different types of energy forms like oil, coal and natural gas. Burning fossil fuels brings nitrogen oxides
into the atmosphere which can end up in waterways and create air pollution. Not only this, but acid rain occurs due to air pollution and ends up in the water or goes
through the runoff process (Weis, 21).
4) Another major impact of hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico is the impact that it has on the economy and fishmens lives. Thousands of
individuals make their living off of the fish that they are able to catch in the Gulf of Mexico but when hypoxia hits, they aren’t able to bring in as much. The
commercial fishing industry directly provided about 23,400 jobs per year in the five Gulf of Mexico States (AL, FL, LA, MS and TX) representing about 28 percent of
the total U.S. fishing jobs (Grant, 2018). The low oxygen levels are insufficient for supporting most marine life and
habitats in near-bottom waters and threaten the livelihood of many fisheries (Smith et al, 2017).
It spills over.
Holly Schwartz 17, policy associate for the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation; citing Dr. Reed
Noss, Ph.D. in wildlife ecology from the University of Florida, Elected Fellow of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, Provost's Distinguished Research Professor of Biology at the University
of Central Florida, May 2017, “We Live in a Global Biodiversity Hotspot,”
https://www.sccf.org/downloadable-files/58f6526a5730bfe513dc21bc.pdf, RMax
In early March, Florida Gulf Coast University hosted the rock stars of biodiversity research at a conference entitled Conserving Biodiversity: Challenges for Florida in
the Anthropocene. The Plenary Speaker was Dr. Reed Noss, the Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Central Florida and President of the
Florida Institute for Conservation Science.
We know we live in a special place but it really struck me when Professor Noss told the crowd that Southwest Florida was one of
global biodiversity hotspots . Biodiversity Hotspots highlight the ecological importance of a region
several
but they also signal threats to the plant and animal life there.
Dr. Noss, in conjunction with the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, studies and works to protect these high risk areas. According to Noss, to
be
recognized as a global biodiversity hotspot, a region must contain at least 1,500 endemic plant species found
nowhere else in the world and have experienced more than 70% habitat loss.
Biodiversity is important for an ecosystem to function effectively. Each small part that makes up the larger
whole plays a vital and important role in keeping that system healthy. We rely on that healthy ecosystem for our very
survival as it provides clean air and water, flood and climate control, and soil regeneration as well as food, medicines and raw materials.
Human population growth, increasing habitat destruction and the ability of scientists to better track the endemic (native) flora and fauna in an
ecosystem, have increased the number of biodiversity hot spots that meet the criteria for protection. A 2007 map (see Page 2) of 25
hotspots identified the northwestern U.S. and southern Florida as hot spots but by 2016, the entire North American Coastal Plain ,
stretching from Texas and Florida to New England, was added as meeting the criteria for a biodiversity hot spot . This
is larger than most previously identified hot spots but smaller than the Mediterranean Basin or the Horn of Africa hot spots.
“We are suffering the highest rate of habitat loss because we have the highest rate of human population
growth within the region” said Noss. That loss of habitat may come as no surprise as we were reminded recently of our explosive population growth
in a March 24, 2017 Fort Myers News-Press article that Lee County was the fifth fastest growing metro area in the U.S with a current population of 722,336. The
University of Florida predicts that our population will increase by 60% through 2040.
Biodiversity in the Gulf of Mexico was also featured recently at SCCF’s March Conservation Forum documentary film presentation The Deepwater Horizon,
Dispatches from the Gulf. The Gulf of Mexico has 15,419 listed species but the jury is still out on the lasting effects the 2010 Deep Water Horizon oil spill had on
many of those species.
The good news is that we enjoy the richness of the natural world in our own backyard and there is still something left to save. The critical
challenge is to
protect and conserve these habitats and their interconnectivity to prevent them from being marginalized or over-developed so
they continue to support the quality of life that attracts so many people here in the first place.
Development decisions that impact these precious resources are being made every day by local and state elected officials. Being informed, taking action by engaging
in local land use decisions, speaking up and voting are the most important steps we can each take in doing our part to protect the future of these special places.
Extinction.
Dr. Russell Mittermeier et al. 11, Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Harvard, President of
Conservation International, Chief Conservation Officer at Re:wild, named “Hero of the Planet” by TIME;
Dr. Will Turner, Senior Vice President and Senior Scientist at Conservation International, Ph.D. in Ecology
and Evolutionary Biology from University of Arizona; Frank Larsen, conservation scientist with
Conservation International; and Claude Gascon, Chief Scientist at National Fish and Wildlife Foundation,
8/13/2011, “Global Biodiversity Conservation: The Critical Role of Hotspots,” Biodiversity Hotspots, pp 3-
22, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20992-5_1, RMax
1.5 Securing Hotspots for the Future
Threats to hotspots are similar to, although generally more intense than, threats to biodiversity worldwide . Habitat
destruction, projected to remain the dominant threat to terrestrial biodiversity even in an era of climate change (Sala et al. 2000), is pervasive in
hotspots and driving extinctions in many (Brooks et al. 2002). The growing impacts of climate change will be felt
worldwide, as altered precipitation and temperature, rising oceans, and climate-driven habitat loss threaten a large fraction of species with extinction
(Thomas et al. 2004) and drive desperate human populations to further environmental degradation (Turner et al. 2010). Other threats are less
widespread, but felt severely in particular regions . Introduced predators have devastated island hotspots, where
species evolved in the absence of domestic cats and rats and other invasive predators (Steadman 1995). Introduced plants are having massive
impacts on hydrology and biodiversity in some hotspots, particularly those having Mediterranean-type vegetation (Groves and di Castri 1991).
Exploitation for protein (e.g., bushmeat), for medicine, and for the pet trade threatens species in all hotspots, particularly the Guinean forests of West Africa
(Bakarr et al. 2001), Madagascar, and hotspots in Southeast Asia (van Dijk et al. 2000). Chitridiomycosis, a fungal disease, is recognized as a proximate driver of
amphibian declines and extinctions worldwide (Stuart et al. 2004; Wake and Vredenburg 2008). It may prove to be the most destructive infectious disease in
recorded history, with a substantial effect on the hotspots, which harbor an astonishing 59% of all amphibians as endemics.
The establishment and effective management of protected areas (Bruner et al. 2001) must continue to be the
cornerstone of efforts to halt the loss of biodiversity, both in the hotspots and elsewhere . These areas may be in the
form of national parks or strict biological reserves or may come in a variety of other forms, depending on local context, including indigenous reserves, private
protected areas, and community conservation agreements of various kinds. An overlay of the hotspots with protected areas with defined boundaries from the
World Database on Protected Areas (IUCN and WCMC 2009) reveals that 12% of the original area of the 35 hotspots is under some form of protection, while 6% is
classified as IUCN category I–IV protected area (which provides a higher degree of protection in terms of constraints on human occupation or resource use). These
numbers are underestimates since boundaries for many protected areas have not been systematically compiled, and they certainly overestimate the land area that
is managed effectively. Yet the fraction of hotspots covered is less meaningful than the locations themselves. Efforts to conserve the hotspots
must focus on ensuring long-term persistence of the areas already protected and strategically add new protected areas in the highest
priority unprotected habitats that remain intact as indicated by systematic efforts to identify gaps in protected areas networks (e.g., Rodrigues et al. 2004).
Maintaining the resilience of hotspots in the face of climate change is another major challenge. Changing temperature and
precipitation patterns forces species to move according to movement in their preferred habitat conditions, yet these movements will often be both difficult for
species to undertake and complex for researchers to predict. Due to the nature of climatic gradients, the distances species must move are likely to be shorter in
mountainous terrain and longer in flatter regions (Loarie et al. 2009). On the other hand, mountains are more likely to have habitat discontinuities that make species
dispersal more difficult. Meanwhile, species’ tolerance to climate variability can be low (Tewksbury et al. 2008) and changing climates are likely to produce a
complex global mosaic of climates shifted in space, climates which disappear in the future, and entirely novel climates (Williams et al. 2007). To be successful, then,
conservation planning must begin to systematically plan actions in both space and time. Protecting the sites
where species currently exist
is essential, particularly the Key Biodiversity Areas where species are at greatest current risk (Eken et al. 2004).
The hotspots, in fact, harbor 81% of the global total 595 Alliance for Zero Extinction sites – locations harboring the sole
remaining populations of the most threatened species (Ricketts et al. 2005). If we lose these sites now, we will
not be granted another chance to save their species later. However, this is only the beginning. We must also protect
habitats 18 R.A. Mittermeier et al. where species will be in the future, as well as provide “stepping stones” to facilitate
movement to these new ranges. Biologists are increasing their ability to anticipate and plan for these needs (Hannah et al. 2007). To be successful,
conservation in a changing climate will require a very strong focus on ending further habitat destruction as quickly as possible.
1.6 Conclusion
Based initially on plant endemism, the hotspots have in the past two decades been confirmed as priority regions for the efficient
conservation of biodiversity more broadly . Collectively, they harbor more than half of all plant species and
43% of all terrestrial vertebrates as endemics, an even greater proportion of threatened species, and a substantial fraction of
higher-taxonomic diversity . More recent information has revealed that this phenomenal concentration of biodiversity into habitats covering a
combined 2.3% of the world’s land area coincides with disproportionate concentrations of ecosystem services in many of the regions where local communities
directly depend on the natural environment on a daily basis. While conservation in these areas is made difficult by ongoing threats, scarce information, and limited
local financial capacity, conservation here is not optional. Indeed, if we fail in the hotspots , we will lose nearly half of all terrestrial
species regardless of how successful we are everywhere else, not to mention an almost unthinkably large
contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and extensive human suffering resulting from loss of
ecosystem services upon which the human populations of the hotspots ultimately depend . Ongoing research reviewed here
and in the rest of this volume serves as a rallying cry for greatly augmented funding, research, and political action on behalf of hotspot conservation. The future
of life on Earth depends on it.
1AC---Circuit Splits---Industry
Scenario 2 is Industry.
Ambiguity ratchets divestment and business failure.

The federal circuit split between the Fourth and Sixth Circuits raises numerous questions about just
how far the permit shield defense extends with respect to NPDES general permits. 139 The Supreme
Court should clarify the ambiguous status of state water quality standards under the C lean W ater A ct
to provide facilities , state permitting authorities , and courts with proper guidance on the application
of the CWA permit shield defense when a state water quality standard exists as an incorporated part of
a NPDES general permit.
The outcome in Fola raises questions that plagued early provisions of the CWA prior to its substantive amendments.140
At one time, the CWA focused exclusively on maintaining water quality standards.141 But, regulators found it
nearly impossible to determine to what degree water quality standards fell below acceptable limits and
had been violated to determine the identity of the alleged violators. 142 Subsequent amendments to the CWA led
to fundamental changes with respect to federal regulation of water pollution, namely the creation of the
NPDES permitting system.143 Indeed, the CWA now seeks to improve the waters of America through a two-
prong approach intended to focus directly on limiting the discharge of pollutants into the water instead
of assessing violations of water quality standards ex post effluent discharges. 144 The first prong seeks to
ensure that point source discharges comply with initial effluent discharge limitations that reflect the
implementation of the best pollutant control technology available, regardless of the type of pollutant discharged.145 The second prong
commands a more particularized—and some would argue intrusive—inquiry that focuses on the type
of pollutant that is discharged .146 The application of the second prong, of course, is not without its complexity as it
involves decision making at both the federal and state level.
The Fourth Circuit’s decision in Fola highlights the underlying tension between effluent limitation
guidelines and state water quality standards. The pollutant discharge limits provided by NPDES permits
largely draw from the EPA’s technology-based and regulatory effluent limitation guidelines, but these
guidelines alone do not totally encompass the entire discharge limit imposed by state permit issuing
authorities.147 State water quality standards, which section 303 of the CWA requires every state adopt
and submit to the EPA for approval, also impact the formation of NPDES discharge limits. 148 The
regulated parties—always the NPDES permit holders— must maintain compliance with the EPA effluent limitation guidelines
or with discharge limitations issued by the state permitting authority, including the applicable state water quality standards, whichever
regulation is more stringent .149
While state water quality standards are federally required under the CWA and approved by the EPA, these standards
are established and mostly dependent on state-law mechanisms for promulgation and enforcement.150 That being the
case, state law is not the controlling force with respect to state water quality standards. The Supreme Court recognized
in Arkansas v. Oklahoma that “state water-quality standards— promulgated by States with substantial guidance from the EPA and approved by the
Agency—are part of the federal law of water pollution .”151 This decision falls squarely on the “federal”
side of the federal-state model of cooperative federalism that exists as the core the CWA .
If state water quality standards are part of a broader realm of federal law under the CWA, then it
is not likely that state water quality
standards would be preempted by federal law under the federal Constitution's Supremacy Clause, because both state
water quality standards and EPA federal water standards comprise two different “federal” regulations ,
thus eliminating any state-federal preemption tension.152 In the event of a conflict between the EPA’s water quality standards and a
state’s water quality standard, the EPA could invoke its power of review and veto under the CWA in order to
adjust the standards to resolve the conflict.153 Unfortunately, conflict resolutions are not always cut
and dry . Disputes over a state’s incorporation of state water quality standards and NPDES permits often fall on the
shoulders of federal courts , which engage in a highly complex analysis when deciding a conflict between two federal laws.154
While states have the primary responsibility of developing water quality standards within their respective jurisdictions,
these standards must be reviewed , updated , and approved every three years to comply with current
federal standards and EPA regulations.155 If a state’s water quality standards are inconsistent with a
federal water quality standard, the state must determine if a revision of its standards is feasible; if such
a revision is feasible, the state must revise its standards. 156
With this background in mind, it is important to understand a critical point not addressed by the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Fola with respect to the West Virginia
permitting authority and the permit at issue.157 As previously discussed,158 the
Fola court held that an NPDES permit holder could
not invoke the permit shield defense because its pollutant discharges violated state water quality
standards, despite the fact that the permit holder disclosed its pollutants during the permit application
phase and the West Virginia permit issuing authority’s decision not to impose specific effluent
limitations on the pollutant discharge at issue. Notably absent in the Fourth Circuit’s discussion was the
federal law that prohibits the issuance of an NPDES permit by a permit issuing authority unless the
permitting agency finds the discharge will satisfy the relevant state and federal water quality
standards.159
Fola effectively received an NPDES permit with the presumption that its pollutant discharges would
satisfy the narrative water quality standard incorporated by reference into its permit. It is important to
keep in mind that it was the West Virginia permit issuing authority that declined to issue any kind of
numeric limitation on Fola’s sulfate pollutant discharges. It is also worth mentioning that, after the Fourth Circuit’s
decision, the West Virginian legislature sought to revise its water quality standards, but this effort ended
when the EPA flagged these standards for review and delayed the revision process. 160 This tension is
further evident in the mandate that a NPDES permit holder must comply with the stricter of the
competing regulations—whether it be the effluent limitation or the water quality standard. 161 Under
Fola, the question becomes: must an NPDES permit holding facility comply with stricter, seemingly
unattainable water quality standards incorporated into its NPDES permit by reference simply because a
permit issuing authority failed to include effluent limitation guidelines necessary for a discharge to meet
the applicable state water quality standards? In light of Fola, the answer is unclear.
From the perspective of a facility or permit holder, the aforementioned circuit split raises numerous regulatory
and financial concerns.162 The Fourth Circuit’s holding in Fola should rightfully place facilities on notice that
the CWA “permit shield” defense may be narrowed or rendered unavailable in certain circumstances. 163
Particularly in Fola’s case, one might be sympathetic to the apparent “lose-lose” situation in which the permit holder found itself. One
potential solution would be for companies to shift away from general permits to individual permits. Indeed, it may be safer for a facility to seek coverage under an
individual permit, where the scope of the shield is heavily dependent on numerical, facility-specific effluent limitations and disclosures during the application
process.164 As previously stated, general permits still widely issue and often save administrative resources and time when a general permit applies to multiple
facilities of the same kind within a geographic area.165
However, in some cases, a facility’s discharge may not fit the mold of a general permit. If the general permit’s language does not cover the types of pollutant
discharges contemplated by the facility, it is necessary to obtain an individual permit to avoid unlawful discharges under the CWA.166 While a facility could switch
to an individual permit, a clarification of the permit shield’s applicability to general permits is still necessary.167 The Supreme Court could take one of many
approaches to solve this federal circuit split.
The Supreme Court could adopt the Fourth Circuit’s approach in Fola as the new “permit shield”
protection standard. Under Fola, a polluting facility could comply with the numerical limitations on
effluent discharges to the numerical limit, disclose all pollutants to the permitting agency, reasonably
rely on the EPA’s interpretation of the permit shield in Ketchikan and the Fourth Circuit’s two-part
reasonability test in Piney Run, and nevertheless be found liable under ICG Hazard if the facility violates
state water quality standards incorporated by reference into its general permit. 168
This type of “all or nothing” standard can lead to inequitable results, particularly because an NPDES
permit lasts five years, and state water quality standards are up for review every three years.169 It does not
take much imagination to recognize that if a state incorporates environmental water quality standards by reference
into an individual permit and subsequently revises those water quality standards to be more stringent, a
facility could be forced to comply with stricter standards during the life of the same issued permit. This
could potentially prevent facilities from attaining anchored expectations when applying for NPDES
permits and creates confusion on how precisely to comply with an issued permit. Indeed, a stricter standard could
cause affected companies to divest and relocate to a different state as a result.170
Permit uncertainty locks in slow growth.

Stephanie Rich 16, Attorney for the Environmental Protection Agency, J.D. from the University of
Richmond; 2016, "Troubled Water: An Examination of the NPDES Permit Shield," Pace Environmental
Law Review, Vol. 33, Issue 2, Article 3, https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1789&context=pelr, MBA AM
A. Arguments favoring a broad scope
The regulated community has highlighted the permit shield as a way of ensur ing certainty . In a number of
briefs, mining companies underscore the purpose of the permit shield as “giving permits finality.”141 This certainty, industry argues, reduces
unknown liability which in turn helps businesses grow . Having the shield cover fewer pollutants, these
defendants have argued, would leave businesses guessing as to what discharges may give rise to liability.
For instance, in Alaska Community Action on Toxics v. Aurora Energy Services, industry associations submitted an amicus brief arguing that Aurora’s NPDES permit
barred suit for air-borne coal dust released from the conveyor system.142 This argument was partially based on the policy that the
permit shield
“provides the finality that industry desperately needs to begin, conduct or expand business.” 143 If EPA was
aware of the incidental discharges of coal dust and the state authority specifically authorized the coal discharges under a MSGP permit, then how would Aurora
predict liability for the discharges? The companies urge that this
uncertainty “arising from the inability to rely upon” the whole
suit of permits necessary to operate poses significant new hurdles for “ moving forward with
investments to create and expand an enterprise.”144 Permit holders argue that this unpredictability would lead to
reduced investments in projects because investors would see more risk in a permit that does not
shield liability.145 Furthermore, banks may be more reluctant to extend credit to such projects or would
extend credit at higher interest rates.146 This loss of financing could result in a decrease in employment and slower
economic growth for communities.147
The defendants’ arguments in Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards v. A & G Coal Corp. (SAMS) also urged that the
narrowing of the permit
shield could give rise to unknown liability .148 Following SAMS, if a permittee learns of a pollutant that it “either knew or had any reason to
believe that the element would be present in its discharges” at the time that it submitted its permit application, the permittee must immediately report it in order
to avoid liability.149 Before SAMS, this only applied to those permittees who were making changes to their facilities.150 Also, as a result of SAMS, it is clear that a
permittee cannot rely on an authority’s awareness of a discharge or wastestreams of which a pollutant is a constituent element, unless the permit holder can show
that it adequately investigated and tested the specific chemical levels and disclosed these test results to the permitting agency.151
Along similar lines, industry raises the issue of “lack of notice” with the shrinking of the permit shield and how this narrow scope ultimately violates the fundamental
right to due process. This is first raised in Piney Run.152 The Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment states, in relevant part, “[n]o Person shall be . . . deprived
of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”153 Because a business may be deprived of its 146. The amicus brief contends that banks
may
respond to increased uncertainty by “rationing” credit , which, they argue, could lead to “ a complete loss
of access to the credit market for some project proponents” or could halt some projects altogether.
In Piney Run, an amicus brief in support of the defendants referred to the D.C. Circuit’s opinion in General Electric v. EPA in which the court found that fair notice is
not provided unless a regulated entity, acting in good faith, is able to identify with “ascertainable certainty” the standards with which the agency expects it to
conform.155 A regulation denies due process “if it is so vague and standardless that it leaves the public uncertain as to the conduct that prohibits” it.156 In Piney
Run, the defendants claimed that they were denied due process because there was no temperature limitation on any publically owned treatment facility in
Maryland and neither EPA nor the Maryland Department of the Environment had ever found the defendant permittees in violation of their permit for discharging
heat.157
Another issue that these

recent cases have raised is the burden of having to disclose many pollutants in order
to be covered by the permit shield. The CWA defines the term “pollutant” very broadly .158 In Piney Run, the
court wrote, “this definition is extremely broad, covering innumerable individual substances.”159 One amicus brief submitted by the industry groups in support of
the defendants in Piney Run writes that, as a practical matter, it would be impossible to disclose every pollutant in an
effluent.160 The brief highlights that this is the case partly because facilities cannot control all water that runs on and off of its site.161 Some of these
pollutants occur naturally, such as selenium.162 In fact, the brief argues, even if a facility discharged distilled water, there would still be some traces of pollutants
the facility could not control.163 The court in Atlantic States made a similar conclusion in noting that there is “no principled reason why water itself, which is
conceded to be a chemical, would not be considered a ‘pollutant’ under . . . the Act.”164
This unknown liability is an extremity that EPA tried to avoid in its creation of the NPDES permitting system. The government
quickly realized that asking industry to only comply with the parameters of a permit made facilities too
susceptible to litigation because “anybody seeking to harass a permittee need only analyze that permittee’s discharge until determining the presence
of a substance not identified in the permit.”165 Under the Refuse Act, the government aggressively filed suits against polluters by
constantly expanding what qualified as a pollutant and would bring suits based on “technical
violations” of the permit.166 EPA therefore rejected this approach under the Refuse Act permitting system.167 Despite this change in
policy, the recent court interpretations of the permit shield could arguably “expose permittees to
untold liability and largely vitiate the CWA’s permit shield protection for the majority of NPDES permit
holders.”168
EPA has also acknowledged this argument in its guidance policy, stating that it is impossible to identify and limit every chemical present in a discharge.169
Furthermore, the EAB noted in the Ketchikan decision that the “goals of the CWA may be more effectively achieved by focusing on the chief pollutants and
wastestreams established in effluent guidelines and disclosed by permittees in their permit applications.”170 From
an administrative
standpoint, it would therefore be infeasible to “contemplate” every pollutant that could possibly be
present in a discharge. In drafting a permit, the permit writer must conduct all of the steps mentioned above171 while thoroughly documenting his or
her decision-making process.172 If a permit writer must examine and draft limitations for hundreds of pollutants, this could create more room for error in a process
that is already considered to be quite tedious. It would be infeasible, even with unlimited resources, to set limitations for so many pollutants.
That undermines competitiveness via relocation and confidence.
Business Roundtable 12, an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with
over $6 trillion in annual revenues and more than 14 million employees; 2012, "Permitting Jobs and
Business Investment: Streamlining the Federal Permitting Process,"
https://s3.amazonaws.com/brt.org/archive/2012_04_23_BRT_Permitting_Jobs_and_Business_Investme
nt.pdf, MBA AM
II. The Economic Rationale for Regulatory and Permitting Reform
To succeed in the modern world, America needs to unleash the power of the private sector. Large, capital-intensive projects provide the jobs
that Americans need and produce the economic growth that allows the nation to compete and win in a world
characterized by intense competition . In short, “[p]rivate investment is essential for ensuring economic growth … . It increases the
productive capacity of an economy, drives job creation , brings innovation and new tech nologies, and
boosts income growth .”2
A nation’s ability to thrive and compete in today’s global economy is dictated by a complex and delicate interaction
of factors. Social, political and economic conditions, as well as the stability provided by strong institutional enforcement of property rights, create the basic
conditions necessary to support sustained economic growth and job creation. Likewise, the availability of low-cost inputs, such as land, facilities, equipment, labor,
energy and materials, can provide a nation with a significant competitive advantage. Still other factors, such as the availability of a modern infrastructure and a
highly specialized workforce, play an important role in enhancing business efficiency and economic growth.
Government regulations are unique in that they can have a pervasive impact on all of these factors. Regulations
that are in line with broad societal values over multiple election cycles clarify the “rules of the road” and provide
an environment of stability that inspire s business confidence and accelerates long-term investment. In
contrast, regulations that reflect parochial or short-sighted political interests , impose unproductive cost burdens on
businesses and consumers, and foster an environment of uncertainty serve to undermine confidence and delay investment.
Accordingly, the key distinction is not more versus less regulation but effective versus ineffective
regulation.
The potential impacts of regulation are more pronounced than ever in today’s hyper-competitive
global economy . The rise of global supply chains and unprecedented capital mobility have greatly expanded the geographic scope of investment
opportunities, allowing business to direct capital toward those jurisdictions that offer the most favorable conditions in terms of input costs and operational
efficiencies. In a globalized world, even

moderate regulatory impediments can be a decisive factor in a company’s
decision to invest in the U.S. economy.
Permitting regulations, in particular, can play an outsized role in a company’s decision about where to invest.
Permitting delays and red tape can make or break the microeconomics of investment projects . For example, a new
multibillion dollar power plant may be profitable over its 30-year productive lifetime if it receives permits in a timely manner. However, projected profits may be
greatly reduced or even eliminated altogether if there is undue delay. This basic permitting challenge holds true for a wide range of activities, including such projects
as the construction of chemical plants, solar or wind turbine manufacturing plants, and sites that provide wireless broadband capabilities. Given
the
substantial uncertainty surrounding permitting regulations and the importance that they play in the
profitability of capital-intensive projects, companies closely monitor permitting risks, carefully account for
potential delays in capital expenditure modeling and relocate investments to jurisdictions where the risks of permitting delays are lower.
If the United States is going to compete and win in today’s global economy, policymakers must simplify ,
streamline and accelerate the permitting process, particularly for large-scale capital investments. Continued delays and opaqueness in
permitting regulations will result in a shift in investments from the United States to other countries and an
associated loss of competitiveness , slower economic growth and lower job creation. Efforts to
streamline the permitting process have the potential to reverse this vicious cycle — unlocking new
investment, accelerating capital spending and spurring greater job creation at a time when it is needed most.
Sparks leadership turnover.

Michael Spence 16, A. Michael Spence, Professor of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York
University, 3-24-2016, "Economic decline is leading to political instability. What's the solution?," World
Economic Forum, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/03/economic-decline-is-leading-to-political-
instability-whats-the-solution
Over the last 35 years, Western democracies have seen a rapid rise in political instability , characterized
by frequent shifts in governing parties and their programs and philosophies, driven at least partly by
economic transformation and hardship . The question now is how to improve economic performance at a time when political instability is
impeding effective policymaking. In a recent article, one of us (David Brady) shows the correlation between rising political
instability and declining economic performance , pointing out that countries with below-average
economic performance have experienced the most electoral volatility . More specifically, such instability
corresponds with a decline in the share of industrial or manufacturing employment in advanced
countries. Though the extent of the decline varies somewhat across countries – it has been less sharp in Germany than in the United States, for example – the
pattern is fairly ubiquitous. Over the last 15 years, in particular, increasingly powerful digital technologies enabled the
automation and disintermediation of “routine” white- and blue-collar jobs. With advances in robotics ,
materials, 3D printing, and artificial intelligence, one can reasonably expect the scope of “routine” jobs that can be
automated to continue expanding . The rise of digital technologies also boosted companies’ ability to manage complex multi-source global
supply chains efficiently, and thus take advantage of global economic integration. As services became increasingly tradable, manufacturing declined steadily as a
share of employment, from 40% in 1960 to about 20% today. But, in
most advanced countries, the tradable sector did not
generate much employment, at least not enough to offset declines in manufacturing . In the United
States, for example, net employment generation in the third of the economy that produces tradable goods
and services was essentially zero over the last two decades . Partly driven by these trends, the share of
national income going to labor , which rose in the early post-war period, began falling in the 1970s.
While globalization and digital technologies have produced broad-based benefits, in the form of lower
costs for goods and an expanded array of services, they have also fueled job and income polarization ,
with a declining share of middle-income jobs and a rising share of lower- and higher-income jobs
splitting the income distribution. The magnitude of this polarization varies by country, owing to disparate social-security systems and policy
responses. Until 2008, when economic crisis roiled much of the world, the concerns associated with rising
inequality were at least partly masked by higher leverage, with government expenditures and wealth effects from rising asset prices
supporting household consumption and propping up growth and employment. When that growth pattern broke down, economic
and political conditions deteriorated rapidly . Most obvious, the drop in growth and employment has
amplified the adverse effects of job and income polarization. Beyond the obvious practical problems
this has raised, it has impinged on many citizens’ sense of identity . In the post-war industrial era, one could reasonably expect
to earn a decent living, support a family, and contribute in a visible way to the country’s overall prosperity. Being shunted into the non-tradable service sector, with
lower income and less job security, caused many to lose self-esteem, as well as fostering resentment toward the system that brought about the shift. (It did not help
matters that the same system bailed out the main driver of the economic crisis, the financial sector – a move that exposed a stark disparity between exigency and
fairness.) While
technology-driven economic transformation is not new, it has never occurred as rapidly or
on as large a scale as it has over the last 35 years, when it has been turbocharged by globalization . With their
experiences and fortunes changing fast, many citizens now believe that powerful forces are operating outside the control of existing governance structures,
insulated from policy intervention. And, to some extent, they are right. The result is a widespread loss of confidence in
government’s motivations, capabilities, and competence. This sentiment does not appear to be
mitigated much by a recognition of the complexity of the challenge of maintaining incentives and
dynamism while addressing rising inequality (which, at its most extreme, undermines equality of opportunity and intergenerational
mobility). As Brady points out, during the more stable period immediately following World War II, growth patterns were largely benign from a distributional
perspective, and political parties were largely organized around the interests of labor and capital, with an overlay of common interests created by the Cold War. As
outcomes have become increasingly unequal, there has been a fragmentation of interests across the electoral spectrum, leading to instability in electoral outcomes,
political paralysis, and frequent changes in policy frameworks and direction. This has several economic consequences. One is policy-
induced uncertainty , which, by most accounts, amounts to a major impediment to investment. Another is the distinct lack of
consensus on an agenda to restore growth, reduce unemployment, reestablish a pattern of inclusiveness, and retain the benefits of global
interconnectedness. On one level, it
is hard not to see this as a self-reinforcing destructive cycle . Political instability
reduces the likelihood of defining and implementing a reasonably comprehensive, coherent, and
sustained economic-policy agenda. The resulting persistence of low growth, high unemployment, and
rising inequality fuels continued political instability and fragmentation , which further undermines officials’ capacity to
implement effective economic policies.
Leadership turnover causes nuclear war.

Dr. Andrew Bertoli 18, PhD and International Relations Professor at IE University, Spain; Dr. Allan
Dafoe, PhD and International Relations Professor at UCLA; and Robert Trager, Political Science Professor
at UCLA; 5/9/2018, “Is There a War Party? Party Change, the Left–Right Divide, and International
Conflict,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 63(4), https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0022002718772352, pacc
Is the likelihood that a democracy will take military action against other countries largely influenced by which party controls the presidency? Many believe so
(Palmer, London, and Regan 2004; Arena and Palmer 2009; Clare 2010). In modern American politics, one party is consistently identified as more hawkish than the
other. Surveys have revealed that Republican voters consistently prefer more aggressive policies (Eundak 2006; Trager and
Vavreck 2011; Gries 2014). Moreover, many believe that Al Gore, had he been elected, would not have invaded Iraq like President George W. Bush did (Jervis 2003;
Lieberfeld 2005), and that the foreign policies of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump would be similarly opposed (Paletta 2016).
Nevertheless, it is very difficult to determine whether the party in control of the presidency really has an important impact on foreign policy due to the selection of
parties into particular domestic and international contexts. Put simply, which party controls the presidency is not random. For example, the victory of George W.
Bush in 2004 can be attributed to a number of domestic and international factors at the time, including the American public's heightened concerns over national
security following September 11. Similarly, Barack Obama's success in 2008 was influenced by problems at home and a decrease in public willingness to engage in
military adventurism. Therefore, an observational analysis would likely be biased by such selection processes . Thus, even
if countries behave differently when certain parties control the presidency, it would be very difficult to
know if that difference is explained by the parties or by the environments into which the parties are selected.
In principle, we could overcome this problem by running an experiment in which we randomly assigned countries to
be ruled by leaders from different parties . Such an ideal research design would avoid the confounding problem,
making it possible to test whether countries tend to be more or less aggressive when certain parties control the
presidency. Experiments are unmatched in their ability to identify causal effects, so this type of study could greatly improve our understanding of how electing
candidates from different parties influences foreign policy.
We approximate this ideal experiment by using a regression discontinuity (RD) design. Specifically, we look at close presidential
elections where a candidate from one party barely defeated a candidate from a different party. Such a design works if it is close
to random which party won in these cases, a premise which is plausible given the inherent randomness in large national elections. Thus, we use close elections to
get data that are similar to what would result from a real experiment. Such natural experimental designs are extremely rare in the study of war and thus warrant
attention in the exceptional instances when they do occur.
We run two main analyses. First, we look at whether countries tend to be more (or less) aggressive when presidential candidates from right-wing parties barely
defeat candidates from left-wing parties. This quasi-experimental comparison involves a small sample size (n = 29), but we still find noteworthy evidence that
electing right-wing candidates increases the likelihood that countries will initiate high-level military disputes against other states. Second, to increase our statistical
power, we examine cases where candidates from incumbent parties barely won or barely lost to candidates from challenger parties (n = 36). Specifically, we test
whether countries experienced a larger change in their propensity to engage in military disputes when the candidate from the challenger party barely won. Thus,
our key outcome of interest here is how much countries deviated from their prior levels of dispute involvement. We find statistically significant
evidence that electing candidates from challenger parties causes countries to experience a larger change in their propensity to engage in military conflict
with other states.
Upon further examination of the data, we find that the results from our second test are largely explained by a tendency for candidates from challenger parties to
initiate military disputes in their first year in office. Thus, these findings support the theory that major leadership transitions tend to increase the
chances of state aggression, either because new leaders lack the experience to manage international crises
effectively or because they need to prove their resolve by acting tough .
This article makes several important contributions to the study of international relations. First, there is a long-standing debate in political science over whether
leaders have an important independent impact on interstate conflict or whether their influence is largely constrained by strategic realities (Byman and Pollack 2001;
Mearsheimer and Walt 2003; Jones and Olken 2009; Chiozza and Goemans 2011; Saunders 2011; Horowitz, Stam, and Ellis 2015; Croco 2015). This study provides
quasi-experimental evidence that leaders do have a meaningful impact on foreign policy. Second, the results presented here suggest that domestic political ideology
can spill over into the international realm. One of the main explanations for the democratic peace is that democracies act in accordance with their domestic norms
when it comes to foreign policy (Morgan and Campbell 1991). The findings presented here support that hypothesis by showing that left-wing leaders do tend to
behave more dovishly in international affairs. Third, these results suggest that we should be alert to the potential for interstate conflict when
right-wing leaders are in office, as well as after elections where party control of the presidency changes hands.
This study is also notable because it is one of the first in the international relations literature to use a preanalysis plan . Prior to
looking at any of the results, we pre-registered the main tests that we planned to conduct in this article. Our motivation here was to
tie our hands , so that there could be no question of sifting through the data to find the statistical tests that produced
the most interesting or significant results. The temptation for scholars to run many tests and then report the ones that are most "interesting" can lead to
misleading findings. This danger has attracted a great deal of attention across scientific fields over the last decade, and it is seen by many as a major problem for
quantitative research (Nosek et al. 2015). The purpose of preanalysis plans is to help ensure that research remains credible.
The article proceeds as follows. We first discuss the theoretical bases for the claim that party control of the presidency influences conflict decisions and review the
existing empirical work on this subject. We then outline the research design in more detail. Next, we conduct design checks to verify that the research design is
appropriate. We then present the results for party ideology. After that, we test whether party turnover leads to changes in the likelihood of state aggression. We
then discuss the findings and conclude.
Leaders, Parties, and International Conflict
In recent years, much debate has arisen over whether leaders influence the chances of interstate conflict, and if so, how. A major question in this research program
is whether leaders from certain parties are more likely to behave aggressively in foreign affairs or whether the ideology of the leader is largely unrelated to state
behavior.
The theory that party control of the presidency influences the chances of interstate conflict can be derived from three premises. The first is that
conservatives and liberals hold different views about the legitimacy or efficacy of military force. This
assumption is backed by cross-national survey data showing that liberals tend to be more concerned with fairness, duties of care, and
preventing harm, while conservatives tend to favor the preservation of social orders, the purity of sanctified objects, and loyalty to in-groups (Graham, Haidt, and
Nosek 2009; Boer and Fischer 2013). Several studies have also found that these differences in moral foundations influence foreign policy attitudes
(Schwartz 1992; Kertzer et al. 2014; Kertzer and Rathbun 2015). In particular, liberals are more "prosocial" and seek compromise internationally, in
contrast to conservatives, who are more "proself” and therefore bargain more aggressively (Schwartz, Caprara, and Vecchione
2010).
The second assumption is that general differences in party attitudes appear at the elite level. There are two ways that these differences could affect the behavior of
political elites. First, the political leaders could sincerely hold beliefs and preferences similar to those of their constituents, leading them to have different foreign
policy strategies and goals. Alternatively, the leaders could have different beliefs and attitudes than their constituents, but nonetheless recognize that they must
carry out their supporters' agenda if they hope to stay in office.
Although it is difficult to know the extent to which leaders true foreign policy preferences reflect those of their constituents, several observational studies show that
changes in a leader's base correlate with changes in their approach to international affairs. First, Mattes, Leeds, and Carroll (2015) find that changes in the
supporting coalitions of leaders predict foreign policy change, measured by the policy positions taken by nations in the United Nations General Assembly. Rathbun
(2004) and Haas (2005) come to a similar conclusion looking at support for peace-enforcement missions, and Solingen (2009) finds that economic interests
and the ideologies of partisan coalitions influence nuclear weapons policy. Therefore, even when a leader
has different foreign policy beliefs and goals than the rest of the party, there may still be pressure to toe the party line .
The third assumption is that leaders from different parties can act on their divergent preferences. This means that international and domestic constraints on leaders
cannot be so powerful that they largely limit leaders to a single course of action. For example, some realists argue that there is little room for leaders to have an
independent impact on foreign policy because they all need to defend and advance the national interest (Mearsheimer 2001; Mearsheimer and Walt 2003).
Regarding domestic constraints, Trager and Vavreck (2011) find that right-wing and left-wing leaders can have incentives to hide their "types." Liberal leaders may
be forced to adopt more hawkish foreign policies because they fear that their moderation will sometimes be interpreted as weakness (Schultz 2005), whereas
conservative leaders may have incentives to adopt more moderate policies because the public would likely judge them unduly aggressive if they acted hawkishly.
Thus, leader preferences and political incentives could actually push in opposite directions.
Several previous studies have examined whether right-wing leaders tend to behave more aggressively in foreign policy than left-wing leaders. Using
logistic regression on panel data covering eighteen parliamentary democracies from 1949 to 1992, Palmer, London and Regan (2004) find that right-wing
governments are more likely to be involved in military disputes, while left-wing governments are more likely to see the disputes in which they are involved in
escalate. Their explanation is that right-wing parties favor using force more often, so their leaders will engage in military conflict more often. However, when left-
wing leaders engage in conflict, they will need to emerge victorious to justify their involvement, so they will be more likely to bargain tough and escalate if
necessary. These researchers find that a shift from left to right government increases the chances of dispute initiation by about 50 percent and that left-wing
governments are about twice as likely to escalate conditional on being in a dispute. Second, Arena and Palmer (2009) apply a probit model to panel data covering
twenty stable democracies from 1960 to 1996 and find that right-wing governments are more likely to initiate disputes. Their theory is based on the finding that
right-wing leaders are less likely to be removed from office for using force unwisely than left-wing leaders. This makes right-wing leaders more likely to start
international conflicts in the hopes of increasing their domestic support. Third, Clare (2010) applies logistic regression to twenty parliamentary democracies from
1950 to 1998 and finds that parliamentary democracies are about twice as likely to initiate disputes when they are controlled by right-wing parties.
The central limitation of these studies is that their conclusions rest on the results of regression analysis on cross-national panel
data. Such an approach is not guaranteed to eliminate bias from omitted variables. In fact, the results from this type of analysis can be badly
biased , even when researchers control for a wide range of important covariates (Clarke 2005). In some cases, controlling for
potential con-founders can even amplify bias (Pearl 2013). Thus, the results from these past studies should be interpreted as
a tentative first cut at answering this question rather than the final word on the subject.
The design-based approach that we employ in this article gets around the omitted variable bias problem because the
as-if random assignment of leaders to office should create balance across observable and unobservable
pretreatment characteristics. In many other scientific fields, the results of conventional observational analyses
have been overturned by design-based studies. For example, the validity of hormone replacement therapy and a variety of theories in
development economics, psychology, and elsewhere have been overturned when experimental and quasi-experimental approaches were brought to bear
(Women's Health Initiative 2002; Freedman 2009; Dunning 2012). Therefore, the tests that we present in this article provide an important step forward in our
understanding of the empirical relationship between party control of the presidency and interstate conflict.
Before moving on to our research design, though, we should first lay out the hypotheses that we want to test. As we detail in our preanalysis plan, we started this project with the belief that leaders do matter and that electing leaders from different parties does affect the likelihood of state aggression. Given this prior, we formulated two main hypotheses. The first is the party ideology hypothesis, which predicts that electing leaders from right-wing parties will increase the likelihood of state aggression. The second hypothesis is highly general and speaks directly to the
question of whether leaders matter in international relations. It posits that electing a leader from the incumbent party will lead to less change in international dispute behavior than electing a leader from a challenger party. We refer to this as the incumbent/challenger hypothesis.
Party Ideology Hypothesis: Electing presidential candidates from right-wing parties will make countries more aggressive than electing candidates from left-wing parties.
Incumbent/Challenger Hypothesis: Electing candidates from challenger parties will lead to a greater change in state aggression than electing candidates from incumbent parties (the absolute difference in aggression between presidential terms will be greater when there is party turnover).
One issue that is related to the incumbent/challenger hypothesis is that new leaders may be particularly likely to act aggressively early in their terms. There are several reasons why this might be the case. First, new leaders may lack the experience to manage international crises effectively, making it more likely that disagreements with other states will turn into military conflicts (Potter 2007). Second, new leaders may be more likely to want to show the international community that they are willing to use force abroad, which could strengthen their bargaining leverage in
future international negotiations (Wolford 2007; Dafoe 2012). Third, new leaders may want to send a signal to their domestic audiences that they are tough when it comes to foreign affairs, which could increase their popularity at home. This idea that leaders are more likely to get involved in military disputes when they first arrive in office has received support from cross-national logistic regression analysis on panel data (Gelpi and Grieco 2001) and a mixed-methods analysis that looks at American presidents (Potter 2007).
While most of the existing theory and research on leadership transitions has focused on cases where new leaders come to office, a similar logic might be applied to party control of the presidency, particularly when it comes to the reputational mechanisms. New leaders who are from the same party as the old one should be able to associate themselves with the previous leader's reputation, giving them less of a need to signal their resolve. On the other hand, when leaders from challenger parties come to power, there should be less certainty that the new leader will have an
approach to foreign policy that is similar to the old one's. In short, when party control of the presidency changes hands, it marks a more significant leadership transition (Mattes, Leeds, and Matsumura 2016). Thus, even if parties tend to behave pretty similarly across ideologies, we might still find that leaders from challenger parties might be much more aggressive early in their tenures.
Challenger Aggression Hypothesis: Electing candidates from challenger parties will lead to an increase in state aggression when the new leader takes office.
We did not preregister the challenger aggression hypothesis prior to looking at the results, but this was the only hypothesis we tested outside of those we preregis-tered. Thus, the findings do not reflect data mining. Nevertheless, some readers may wish to interpret the test of this particular hypothesis as exploratory.
Research Design
There are several different design-based approaches that could be used to investigate how leaders affect state behavior. One would be to look at all cases of leadership turnover and compare how countries behaved before and after the leadership change. This research design rests on the idea that countries are comparable before and after leadership transitions. This assumption may be plausible in some cases, but in others, it is clearly invalid. For example, the periods before and after normal electoral leader transitions are usually not comparable. Many countries elect
the leader and members of the legislature at the same time, making it difficult to determine the effect of leadership change by itself. Similarly, looking at cases when leaders were forcibly removed from office also has its limitations, since leaders are usually removed at times of extreme political tension. Likewise, leadership changes that are caused by assassinations are not likely to provide valid comparisons. The new leader will probably have to deal with a more complicated political situation in the aftermath of the assassination, making the beginning of their term much
different from the end of the previous leader's term.
Another potentially promising approach would be to focus on changes in leadership that resulted from the natural deaths of leaders. The timing of natural leader deaths should be fairly unrelated to the domestic and international environments. Moreover, the legislature will typically not change following the natural death of a leader, making it much easier to isolate the independent effect of leaders on foreign policy. However, the natural death approach is not well-suited for this particular study. The reason is that the new leader almost always comes from the same party
as the old leader. Thus, this exogenous change in leadership does not provide much leverage in determining how party control of the presidency affects interstate conflict. This research design could be useful in looking at other types of variation in leaders, such as age, military experience, and occupational background. However, it is not a promising design for this study.
The approach that we take instead is to use an RD design. RD involves comparing units that barely surpassed and barely fell short of an important cut point that influenced treatment assignment. For example, if there was a test where everyone who scored a fifty or higher got a scholarship, researchers could assess the effects of getting the scholarship by comparing the students who scored fifty and fifty-one to the students who scored forty-eight and forty-nine. So long as there is no sorting at the cut point, as could happen if the graders had opportunity and motive to
nudge some test takers above the cut point, it should be close to random which of these students won the scholarship, since they were all on the verge of getting it (Lee 2008).
Close elections provide an excellent opportunity to use RD analysis. Given the inherent randomness in the electoral process, whether candidates barely win or barely lose in close elections is plausibly as-if random (Eggers et al. 2015).1 Political scientists have used RD to study questions like how winning an election influences a party's likelihood of winning the next election (Lee 2008) and how winning an election affects a candidate's wealth later in life (Eggers and Hainmueller 2009). Scholars have also used RD to test how economic and political outcomes differ when
Republican candidates for mayor barely defeat or barely lose to Democratic candidates (Pettersson-Lidbom 2008; Gerber and Hopkins 2011; Beland 2015; de Benedictis-Kessner and Warshaw 2016).
In this article, we look at close presidential elections. To our knowledge, this study is the first to apply RD specifically to presidential elections. For our analysis, we followed the procedures that were outlined in our preanalysis plan (which is available at the end of the Online Appendix). We will briefly summarize these procedures in the remainder of this section.
Our Statistical Approach
There are two general ways to analyze an RD. The first, known as the continuity approach, involves plotting two smoothing functions on either side of the cut point and estimating the difference at the cut point (Voeten 2014). This method should be used when the score, or "forcing variable," is continuous. The second method is the local-randomization approach, appropriate when the forcing variable is discrete (Lee and Card 2008; Cattaneo, Frandsen, and Titiunik 2015; Bertoli 2017). It involves drawing a window around the cut point and treating the units within that
window like they were in a randomized experiment.
Since the forcing variable in this study is vote share in a presidential election, which is essentially continuous, we would normally use the continuity approach. However, we discovered in our preanalysis plan that the continuity approach had a type 1 error rate (false-positive rate) of 12 percent for this study, which we believe is due to our small sample size. Since the type 1 error rate should be 5 percent by design, we chose not to use this method, since it was overly likely to give us significant results. Instead, we used the local-randomization approach, which we found had a
type 1 error rate of about 4 percent.
Defining Close Elections
We considered elections to be close if the top two candidates were within 2 percent of the cut point (48 percent to 52 percent range). Data on close races were available in the data set constructed by Bertoli, Dafoe, and Trager (2018). This data set includes every democratic election between 1815 and 2010, where democracies are defined as countries with Polity IV Institutionalized Democracy scores above five. The data set provides information on the top two candidates including their names, parties, and vote shares in the election. If there were more than two
candidates running in an election, we focused only on the votes for the top two candidates, rescaling their vote shares accordingly. In cases where there were runoffs, we used their vote shares from the runoff rather than the initial election. We also excluded close elections in nondemocracies because we were concerned about fraud in these cases. Given the possibility of fraud, we did not feel confident in assuming that the outcomes of these elections were as-if random.
One complication that arose is that the United States elects presidents through the electoral college. This system makes it possible for candidates to lose the popular vote but still win the election if they defeat their rival in the electoral college. To deal with this issue, we counted the electoral college vote rather than the popular vote when looking at the United States. This decision is consistent with other similar studies (Bertoli, Dafoe, and Trager 2018). For every other country, we used the popular vote.
Measuring Party Ideology
To identify parties as left or right-wing, we evaluated the parties against each other according to their positions at the time of the election on social questions associated with liberalism and conservatism. Parties were judged further to the right when they expressed support for "traditional values," national, religious, racial, or ethnic in-groups, or the benefits of authority and traditional sources of authority such as a monarchy. Parties were judged further to the left when they expressed inclusive sentiments, a duty of care for vulnerable groups, and support for democratic
principles. Secondarily, we evaluated parties as left or right on economic policy preferences. Advocacy for wealthier interests placed a candidate further to the right, and advocacy for the less well-off is associated with the left. These two social and economic dimensions are highly correlated, with the principal exceptions coming from communist and postcommunist countries. In these cases, the primary social dimension determined the left-right coding. When parties could not be easily classified as left or right according to these metrics, we excluded the election from the
ideology test.
Main Analyses
We looked at two different types of close elections. The first were close elections between right-wing and left-wing parties, where it was essentially random whether the presidency was controlled by a leader with a right-wing or left-wing ideology. In total, we have twenty-nine close elections between right-wing and left-wing parties. The second set of close elections that we analyzed was narrow races between an incumbent and challenger party. In these cases, it was as-if random whether the country experienced party continuity or change in the executive branch. We
have thirty-six of these close elections in our data set. For this group of cases, we were particularly interested in testing whether a change in party control of the presidency increased the likelihood of a change in state aggression.
Although our sample sizes are not large, the power tests that we ran at the beginning of this project indicated that we had a good chance of picking up a medium-sized or large effect. For the test of left- versus right-wing parties, we determined we would correctly detect (at a = .05) a medium-sized effect (0.5 standard deviation [SD]) 30 percent of the time, a large effect (0.8 SD) 54 percent of the time, and a very large effect (1.2 SD) 82 percent of the time. In the incumbency power analysis, we found that we would detect a medium-sized effect 55 percent of the time, a
large effect 93 percent of the time, and a very large effect over 99 percent of the time. Also, if the effects were small or nonexistent, the power tests indicated that we would be able to establish confidence intervals that were precise enough to rule out very large (+1.2 SD) positive and negative effects.2
Moreover, although the results turn out to be significant at conventional levels, we encourage readers to avoid interpreting p values as either significant (p < .05) or not while reading this article and to bear the bias-variance trade-off in research design in mind. Almost all quantitative research in international relations lacks any claim to strong causal identification, being based on observational data and linear adjustment of largely ad hoc covariate sets. By contrast, the design presented here has a strong claim to causal identification and unbiasedness, providing a crucial
complement to the vast majority of the literature which does not. Thus, since p values provide a continuous measure of how inconsistent the evidence is with the null hypothesis, a higher p value in an unbiased design may actually reflect more evidence against the null than a lower p value in a biased one. Small p values (e.g., p < .2), even if not significant at conventional standards, also provide important evidence in these contexts.
In addition to our two main tests, we examined whether candidates from challenger parties are more likely to initiate military disputes at the beginning of their terms than candidates from incumbent parties, which would be consistent with the theory that major leadership transitions make state aggression more likely. Our motivation for running this test came from reading Wolford (2007), Dafoe (2012), and Wu and Wolford (2016). These articles advance a compelling theory and intriguing empirical evidence that new leaders have reputational incentives to act tough
when they first come to office. We find strong evidence consistent with this hypothesis.
Outcomes
We measured aggression using the number of militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) that a country initiates. These disputes are cases where countries explicitly threatened, displayed, or used force against other states (Ghosn, Palmer, and Bremer 2004). Specifically, we look at the number of these disputes that a state initiated starting from when the leader took office and ending at the date that the winner of the next election was scheduled to start. In cases where leaders were replaced part of the way through their term, we used the day that they left office instead. Since
the length of time that candidates held office varied, we divided the total number of disputes by the duration of the time period. Thus, the unit of measurement is military disputes initiated per year in office.
We use slightly different versions of the outcome variables for our different tests. For the ideology test, we use military disputes initiated per year, as described in the previous paragraph. For the main incumbency test, we use the absolute change in military disputes initiated per year from the previous term. We use this variable because we are interested in evaluating whether there was a larger absolute change in military aggression when the challenger party barely won. Thus, the measure is:
Absolute change in military aggression =|MIDs/year during winner's term
—MIDs/year during previous term|
In other words, we are testing whether challenger parties gaining control of the presidency makes countries with high levels of prior aggression more likely to experience a decrease in dispute initiation and countries with low levels of prior aggression more likely to experience an increase in dispute initiation. We conduct a one-sided test for this analysis, since we expect that the absolute change will be larger for countries where the challenger party barely wins. Lastly, for the exploratory test about whether challenger candidates tend to be more aggressive when they first
take office, we look at the number of disputes that each country initiated in the first year of the new presidential term.
Across these tests, our main outcomes are (1) military disputes initiated and (2) high-level military disputes initiated. High-level disputes are cases where countries used force against other states or entered into international wars.3 Following the preanalysis plan, we examine high-level disputes, which constitute actual uses of force, separately because the factors that drive posturing may be different from those that drive actual violence. As secondary outcomes, we look at (3) all disputes that countries engaged in and (4) all high-level disputes that countries engaged in.
These cases include disputes that countries did not start but participated in nonetheless.
Estimation
We employ two estimation strategies. Our primary statistical analysis involves t tests. This is a simple approach, recommended for its parsimony and robustness, which is appropriate given the assumption that close elections were as-if random (Dunning 2012). As a secondary test, we plot the outcome as a function of the electoral result and estimate how the expected value of the outcome changes at the cut point using local linear regression, as is often done for RD designs. An advantage with using this approach is that it makes it possible to visualize how outcomes change
at the cut point.
Design Checks
Our research design rests on one main assumption, necessary for internally valid estimates: the outcomes of the close elections considered in this study are as-if random. For example, the design would be invalid if any candidates could precisely manipulate their vote shares around the cut point, such as by counting the votes and adding just enough to win. This assumption should be valid for democracies provided that elections are fair (Eggers et al. 2015).
A second "representativeness" assumption facilitates generalizing from our results, and this is that the democracy years experiencing close elections are not dissimilar to democracy years in which elections are not close. If this assumption is reasonable, then we can generalize from our results to all democracy years. However, if the countries that had close elections are not representative of other democracies, then the causal estimates that we find may not reflect broader patterns in international relations.
We can test the as-if randomness assumption in two ways. First, we can check that the samples are balanced on important pretreatment characteristics. Figure 1 plots the balance using two-sided t tests. The graph on the left shows that countries where right-wing parties barely won were very similar to countries where left-wing parties barely won, and the graph on the right shows that countries where incumbent parties barely won were similar to countries where challenger parties barely won. In Figure 1, we look at twenty-four covariates, and not a single one is
significantly imbalanced. Thus, the data are consistent with the assumption that who won these close elections was as-if random.
[Figure One Omitted]
[Figure Two Omitted]
Second, we can test whether there is balance in the number of cases on either side of the cut point. Figure 2 shows how close right-wing and incumbent parties were to winning the presidency. For the twenty-nine close elections between right-wing and left-wing parties, there were sixteen cases where the right-wing party won and thirteen cases where the left-wing party won (p = .71). Similarly, for the thirty-six close elections between incumbent and challenger parties, there were seventeen cases where the incumbent party won and nineteen cases where the challenger
party won (p = .87). Thus, there is no evidence of sorting in either sample.
[Figure Three Omitted]
We can also evaluate the external validity assumption by comparing the two samples to the broader population of all democracies since 1815. Figure 3 uses box-plots to compare our samples to the broader population with respect to covariates related to military power. The comparisons show that our samples are very similar to the broader population of democracies from 1815 to 2010. Thus, at least with respect to these covariates, there is little reason to believe that either of our samples consist of an idiosyncratic group of countries that would behave differently than
most other democracies. Rather, the representativeness of our samples indicates that our results should be indicative of broader trends in international relations.
In sum, the outcomes of the close elections appear to be random, and the countries where the close elections happened are fairly representative of all other democracies. Therefore, the design appears to have worked very well. In the next two sections, we will look at how electing presidential candidates from different parties affects state aggression using this new empirical approach.
Results for Party Ideology
Our results indicate that right-wing parties tend to be more aggressive than left-wing parties. Table 1 shows the aggression
levels of the countries that had close elections between right-wing and left-wing candidates. On average, the countries where right-wing parties barely won
started .06 more disputes per year than countries where left-wing parties barely won. Similarly, they engaged in .10 more high-level disputes per year than
countries where left-wing parties barely won. Given that the average duration of a presidential term for these countries is 4 years and 169 days, this adds up to .32
more disputes initiated and .43 more high-level disputes initiated over an average presidential term.
Figure 4 plots the estimates for the two main outcome variables along with the two other indicators of aggression. The confidence intervals are based
on two-tailed t tests. They suggest that electing right-wing parties does increase state aggression , particularly when it comes to
high-level disputes. Of course, all of these confidence intervals cover zero, so we cannot rule out zero effect with 95 percent confidence based on this analysis alone.
The estimate most different from zero is of high-level disputes initiated (p = .25). For disputes initiated, the results appear to be more consistent with no effect (p
= .64), as do the results for the supplemental tests of all disputes and all high-level disputes.
[Table One Omitted]
[Figure Four Omitted]
However, if we look at the specific disputes in more detail, the evidence that electing right-wing leaders increases state aggression
grows stronger. While all the high-level disputes that the right-wing leaders engaged in involved unequivocal
uses of force , the only high-level dispute that any of the left-wing leaders initiated is questionable and should probably be excluded. This dispute was
between Costa Rica and Nicaragua in 1995, and it did not involve any military action by either country. Costa Rican police crossed the Nicaraguan border in pursuit
of suspects and were arrested. Two days later, the Costa Rican police force retaliated by arresting two Nicaraguan police officers who had crossed the border "to get
a drink of water." The two sides made a prisoner swap on the following day. If this case is dropped, then electing right-wing parties appears to lead countries to
initiate . 12 more high-level disputes per year (p = .162).4
Moreover, the only reason that these results are not significant is because the United States (2001) is an outlier, which inflates the standard errors. We can address
this issue by modifying the outcome to a simple indicator variable for whether countries initiated any high-level disputes (no = 0,
yes = 1), which makes our test insensitive to outliers . The estimates then suggest that electing right-wing parties increases the chances that
countries will initiate high-level military disputes by 25 percent (p = .041). Therefore, even though the initial tests were not statistically significant, they become
more conclusive after we address some minor issues with the data.
Given the number of democracies in the world today, there may be enough close elections to get much more precise estimates a decade or two from now or maybe
even after the next expansion of the MID data set. This design is definitely worth returning to in the near future. However, for the present, we will turn to a second
test in the next section on more data that yields increased statistical power. This test provides further evidence that which party controls the presidency does affect
the likelihood of state aggression.
Results for Incumbent versus Challenger Parties
The second test that we run compares cases where challenger parties barely defeated incumbent parties to cases where they barely lost to incumbent parties. In
these cases, it was as-if random whether the incumbent or challenger party won. Thus, we can test how much military aggression changes when the party that
controls the executive branch changes. The outcomes that we use for this test are the absolute changes in the military indicators between the term when the
incumbent or challenger party barely won and the previous term. For this analysis, we use one-sided tests that assume that there will tend to be a larger change in
military aggression when the challenger party barely wins.
Table 2 shows the absolute change in aggression levels for the countries that had close elections between candidates from incumbent and challenger parties.
When the candidates from challenger parties barely won, the absolute change in disputes initiated per year was .031 greater than when candidates
from incumbent parties barely won (p = .30; 26 percent increase from baseline). For high-level disputes, the difference is even more notable. The absolute change in
high-level disputes initiated per year was .074 greater than when candidates from incumbent parties barely won (p = .046, 133
percent increase from baseline). The average length of the presidential terms for these data was 4.42 years, so this adds up to a difference
of .33 high-level disputes initiated per presidential term. Figure 5 plots the confidence intervals for the aggression indicators.
This estimated effect is substantively large relative to other determinants of conflict that international relations scholars
have analyzed. For example, past studies have found that revolutions increase the likelihood that countries will initiate military disputes by about 74 percent (Colgan
2010), arms transfers by about 60 percent (Krause 2004), and neutrality pacts with potential conflict joiners by about 57 percent (Leeds 2003). The effect of
challenger parties winning appears to be in the ballpark of these estimates, although it is hard to nail down this effect very precisely because of the relatively small
sample size.
Figure 6 illustrates the effect for high-level disputes across a greater range of margins of victory. As countries move from incumbent party victories (the points on
the left) to challenger party victories (the points on the right), there is a large shift in the absolute change in high-level disputes initiated. Countries where the
challenger party barely won experienced a much larger change than countries where the incumbent party barely won. Although this method of estimating the
treatment effect was not the primary method that we discussed in our preanalysis plan, the results for this approach are fairly conclusive .
Spikes commodity prices, causes trade wars, and global conflict.

Daniel Wagner 16, Risk Cooperative risk solutions managing director, 11-11-16, “Trump and the
Coming Death of Multilateralism”, https://intpolicydigest.org/2016/11/11/trump-coming-death-
multilateralism/
Another likely net result is the rise – even further – of a tendency toward economic nationalism and the
propensity for protectionism . As national budgets become further strained, jobs become more scarce, and growth
rates continue to decline around the world, governments that are already pre-dispositioned to protect their
own interests and adopt policies designed to shelter domestic industries will do so more liberally . They will
not take into consideration that the erection of trade barriers and imposition of non-investor friendly investment policies is contrary to economic growth in the
long-term – for everyone. If the U.S. no longer leads the way in adopting and practicing free trade and investment policies, governments around the world will have
even less incentive to do so. We could see tit-for-tat trade wars that collectively drive the global economy into
the ground . In a report released last month, the WTO noted that between mid-October of 2015 and May of 2016, G20 economies had
introduced new protectionist measures at the fastest pace seen since the Great Recession, rolling out
the equivalent of five each week. That trend has coincided with a slowdown in global trade that is already in its
fifth year, which has contributed greatly to an increase in protectionist political rhetoric around the world.
The last thing the world needs now is an American president and Congress leading us all straight into an economic abyss. America has vacillated throughout its
history between periods of interventionism and isolationism, with varying degrees of depth – all with some impact for other countries around the world. Never
before, however, has a political force emanating from America been intent on dismantling the very multilateral international order it helped to create. Mr. Trump’s
version of the coming American isolationism has truly frightening potential consequences, immersing the U.S. into a cocoon of self-interest and propelling the world
into competing economic and political landscapes where a common set of rules no longer apply and countries are only in it for themselves. Consider the
consequences of a world in which alliances depend not on a common set of values, but on perceived short-term interests, and in which every American ally must
question U.S. motives and intentions. Envision a world where, as a result of trade wars , the price of natural
resources and food could skyrocket at any given time because of spot shortages , resulting in riots and
increased global political and economic instability . These are some of the potential outcomes of a
collapse of multilateralism in a world reduced , in a very Trumpian way, to a series of business transactions
where the winner is supposed to take all . We’ve been there before — in the 1930s. Better buckle up.
America lashes out. Cross out defense that doesn’t assume polarization.
Matthew Baum 19, Marvin Kalb Professor of Global Communications at Harvard University, and Philip
Potter, Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, April 2019, “Media, Public Opinion,
and Foreign Policy in the Age of Social Media,” The Journal of Politics, 82(2),
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/702233, Stras
An erosion of the public’s capacity to impose democratic constraint has a similar impact on the audience cost arguments and, more broadly, on
our understandings of democratic credibility and conflict reciprocation. International relations scholars generally agree that leaders usually feel
some pressure to actually carry out the threats and promises that they make in the international system. This might be because they care about
their reputation with other leaders, but the usual argument is that democracies are more likely than autocracies to follow through on threats
because they have domestic audiences who will hold them to account if they fail to do so (Fearon 1994; Schultz 2001). Polarization undermines
that linkage, thereby potentially undermining the democratic advantage in foreign crisis negotiations and, ultimately, making war more likely.
The tribal element of polarized politics means that followers are unlikely to hold their leader to
account. Opposition, in turn, is unlikely to give the president any credit regardless of the policy . Thus, while
traditional versions of audience cost theory assumed that in democracies domestic audiences would judge a vacillating leader harshly, such
accountability is less likely to emerge in a polarized environment .3 In this respect, polarization thus causes
democratic leaders to more closely resemble their autocratic counterparts .
As we have noted, even in the information environment that preceded cable, satellite, and the Internet, the public had a low baseline of
attentiveness. But voters were able to use heuristics to help them determine both when to engage with foreign policy issues and what to think
about them when they did (Popkin 1991; Sniderman et al. 1991). This was accomplished primarily through reliance on partisan elites (Iyengar
and Kinder 1987; Krosnick and Kinder 1990). However, opposition and disaffected copartisans have no meaningful
access to the public in a polarized and fragmented media ecosystem . Elite whistle-blowing will only
inhibit leaders when there is a credible threat that the public will hear the whistle being blown , but the audience cost
mechanism relies on precisely this hand-tying process. If it breaks down there is no reason for democratically elected leaders to fear
punishment for backing down on their threats and commitments and therefore no boost to their credibility when they make commitments.
The polarized and fragmental information environment also has corrosive effects on the rally-round-
the-flag phenomenon , at least with regard to how it has been widely understood to date. Since approval rallies for presidents
following uses of force abroad were traditionally located primarily among opposition partisans, partisan tribalism seems likely to result in
smaller and less frequent rallies. For instance, when President Obama drew a “red line” with Syria over President Assad’s use of chemical
weapons against civilians, he faced widespread criticism from Republicans in Congress and low marks from the public over his handling of the
crisis. At the same time, public support for intervening in Syria remained low, arguably complicating Obama’s efforts to credibly communicate
America’s resolve to Assad.
That said, while we may observe smaller and less frequent spikes in presidential approval ratings as a consequence of heightened polarization,
a different sort of rally effect may become more common . That is, the intensity of support for and
opposition to the president might spike among his supporters or opponents in the immediate aftermath of a
crisis event . A case in point is President Trump’s recent sounding of the alarm over a Central American migrant caravan during the run-up
to the 2018 midterm election. Notwithstanding the assertions of many pundits, there is little evidence that President Trump succeeded in
increasing overall support for Republicans by characterizing the migrant caravan as an invasion. Trump first tweeted about the caravan on
October 18, 2018. According to data on fivethirtyeight.com, Democrats led Republicans by 8.4 percentage points in the generic ballot during
October 1–18. The Democratic lead from October 19 through election day was 8.3 points, or basically unchanged. Indeed, one postelection
analysis (Winston Group 2018) concluded that late-deciding voters broke toward the Democrats by 12 points and cited the emphasis on the
migrant caravan, which crowded out good news on the economy, as a key causal factor. However, among Republicans, concern over illegal
immigration measurably increased with Trump’s caravan-related tweets. It is entirely possible, albeit uncertain, that Republican turnout in
some states consequently rose, thereby improving the performance of Republican candidates in close elections, such as the Senate race in
Florida and the gubernatorial race in Georgia. Since Democrats were already at historic levels of intensity leading up to the election, such a
spike could have produced a net benefit for Republican candidates. The implication is that prior concerns about “diversionary”
conflict were overblown because the types of conflicts that a leader might initiate for such a purpose were precisely those
most likely to collapse the elasticity of reality ( mak ing the risk greater than the potential reward ). However, in a highly
polarized environment where the electoral battle is more about mobilizing supporters than convincing the undecided there may
be much more incentive for leaders to engage in this potentially destructive behavior .
It undermines multilateralism. Extinction.

Rachel Ansley 17, editorial assistant at the Atlantic Council, citing Werner Hoyer, president of the
European Investment Bank, 4-24-2017, "Making the Case for Multilateralism," Atlantic Council,
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/making-the-case-for-multilateralism
While the surge of populism throughout Europe—in response to terrorism and economic stagnation —means that
“ renationalization is visible ,” particularly in France during an election year, Hoyer insisted that when “the cooperative approach and the
multilateral approach is being put into question in an irresponsible way … it is important to explain again the values of
international cooperation.” In France, Emmanuel Macron of the En Marche! movement and Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front party won the first and
second spots, respectively, in the first round of the presidential elections on April 23. They will face each other in a runoff election on May 7. Le Pen has called for a
French departure from the European Union (EU), and stricter border controls. Her calls for harsh security measures intensified after a policeman was shot dead in
Paris on April 20, an attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). In contrast, Macron is an outspoken advocate of the EU, and the benefits of
international cooperation. With
each new administration and change of government in Europe, “we have a
certain temptation to cut the branch on which we are sitting ,” Hoyer said, referring to multilateralism. However, “we live
in a global system ,” said Robert Zoellick, former president of the World Bank and a member of the Atlantic Council’s International Advisory Board,
adding, “no matter how powerful a country you are, it helps to have friends , too.” Hoyer and Zoellick spoke at an event, hosted
by the Atlantic Council’s Global Business and Economics program as part of its EuroGrowth Initiative, to discuss the role multilateral institutions can play in
promoting international prosperity and security. Frederick Kempe, president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council, moderated the discussion. In his
introductory remarks, Kempe described the
myriad challenges facing the international community—the increasing threat of
terror attacks , the rise of populism , economic stagnation , and potentially protectionist trade policies. “All
of this demands collaborative, rapid, and global responses ,” said Kempe. “That’s where multilateral
institutions come in.” Hoyer described how the EIB was founded as an institution to serve all members of the European Union, but also aid
development projects around the world. At the EIB, he said, “we believe in multilateralism and cooperating structures because the European Union’s success is built
on that.” Kempe said: “multilateralism is the gears , the workings , the ending of so much of what goes on in the
world.” However, he said, “while arguably more important than ever, it’s purpose is called into question .” In the
midst of discussion surrounding the French elections, labelled by Le Pen as a “referendum on globalization,” and the questions raised by US President
Donald Trump regarding the value of international cooperation, the future of multilateral institutions is at a crossroads ,
according to Kempe. “I think it’s fine for people to debate that,” said Zoellick. However, using the rhetoric of Trump as an example, Zoellick said that he
“starts from a very mistaken perspective that it’s a zero-sum game ; that if you’re serving the international system, you’re not
serving the United States.” Trump has criticized international institutions such as NATO and the EU, as well as multilateral trade deals, questioning the value-added
benefits for the United States, and “pitting nationalism against internationalism,” Zoellick said. “The danger here is that it’s a totally mistaken
economic line,” he said, warning that “it’ll lead to mistaken approaches because you are trying to solve the wrong
problem.” “It also means you’re missing the next-tier issues ,” Zoellick added, referring to China as an emerging player on the world
stage. “There’s opportunities for China to gain, but if we’re trying to block our markets, that won’t happen ,”
he said, insisting that both the United States and Europe must focus on cooperative, rather than mutually
destructive, approaches to the global system. “The tricky thing with international agreements is that you are easily accused of selling your national
sovereignty,” said Hoyer. He insisted that leaders must find a way to convince their people that nations are stronger in groups of countries that have organized their
sovereignties together. “By
simply walking away from a group of cooperating people, you don’t get stronger, you
get more lonely,” he said. “We face monumental challenges , and only together can we surmount them ,”
Hoyer earlier wrote in a blog post for the New Atlanticist. “Though there’s no denying that currently Europe has many problems, it is still collectively convinced of
the need to reach out beyond its borders to other continents, to other peoples.” Hoyer expressed the hope that US President Donald Trump’s visit to Europe will be
“an opportunity for our political leaders to be convincing enough about the benefits of multilateralism.” Trump will be in Brussels for the NATO Summit on May 25.
Zoellick described the benefits of international institutions, particularly financial institutions such as the World Bank, and the value-added services
they can provide in an integrated global system. He said that the World Bank, of which he is a former president, serves as a nucleus of
information for global development projects , can leverage funds to have a demonstrable impact on such projects, and can use
capital in an innovative fashion. “People tend to think about [multilateralism] in the way that people thought about development institutions when they were
founded,” Zoellick said, adding “we’re so far beyond that.” Working through multilateral institutions, “you also shape ideas ,” with the aim of creating
new dynamics that go beyond the institutions, he said. According to Zoellick, the key to appreciating multilateral institutions is “trying to understand that
these banks and institutions can play a policy and catalytic role , rather than just a funding role.” He pointed to the challenges of
climate change and cyber security as areas where the EIB and World Bank can play a significant role in mitigating
global threats. “This is where the international system has to continue to evolve; we’re not done with
these issues ,” he said.
Russia makes moves towards multilateral governance inevitable. The only question is
effective economic participation---dampens conflicts.
Dennis J. Snower 3/23/22, President of the Global Solutions Initiative, is a fellow and Program
Director at The New Institute, a professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, a professorial
research fellow at INET Oxford, a senior research fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government at
Oxford University, a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, and President Emeritus of the Kiel
Institute for the World Economy, “Rebuilding the Foundation for Peaceful Progress,”
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/globalization-multilateralism-after-russia-ukraine-war-
by-dennis-j-snower-2022-03
Russia’s war in Ukraine has upended what one might call the world’s “peaceful progress regime.” It was a
regime with three ingredients: globalization , which generates material prosperity worldwide; global collective action to
address the negative effects of economic growth , not least rising inequality and climate change; and, perhaps most fundamentally, the
absence of war .
These components were mutually reinforcing. According to the conventional wisdom, globalization – along with the existence of nuclear
weapons and the deterrent effect of mutual assured destruction – made war increasingly untenable, and global collective action made globalization socially and
environmentally acceptable.
This regime has now been fatally undermined by Russia n President Vladimir Putin’s determination to redraw borders by force and
reintroduce the threat of nuclear war. Moreover, many countries today have massive cyberwarfare capabilities that enable them to damage each other’s critical
infrastructure – from electricity and water supplies to health and emergency services. An international arms race is inevitable .
The West’s response to Russia’s invasion has included freezing the Russian central bank’s assets, barring
Russian banks from the SWIFT international financial messaging system, revoking Russia’s “most-favored
nation” trade status, banning exports of technology to Russia, and much more. Together, these
measures are likely to change the global financial landscape and the future of globalization. And in the longer
run, they will induce Russia, China, and affiliated countries to develop alternative systems.
The war, and the pandemic before it, has also exposed the fragility of global supply chains . In the
future, governments around the world will seek supply-chain resilience through greater diversification
of sources and greater self-sufficiency . As more countries pursue incompatible political goals, the world economy will become more
balkanized.
There will also be a major push for energy security. This will involve major economic disruptions, as it
implies accelerating the transition to renewable energy sources in some energy-importing countries and
promoting nuclear energy in others. Likewise, the quest for food security – currently threatened by the
Ukraine war’s impact on supplies of grain and fertilizer – could lead to damaging beggar-thy-neighbor
policies.
With the peace dividend vanishing and globalization partly reversing, the world has come to a
crossroads. On one hand, there is what may be called the Great Unraveling: deglobalization, the collapse of global collective action, resurgent nationalism,
environmental collapse, and the danger of large-scale wars, including one in which nuclear weapons are deployed. On the other hand, the current
political crisis might mobilize a transnational collective spirit that could be harnessed for a new form
of peaceful progress .
Is the “other hand” possible? At the drop of a hat, the Ukraine invasion has induced governments, with widespread popular approval, to set aside their narrow self-
interests for the sake of collective action. The UN General Assembly Resolution condemning Russia’s invasion was supported by 141 countries. The challenge
now is to mobilize this spirit in the interests of global problem-solving.
Countries must rise to this challenge at the G20, the G7, the United Nations, and other international forums. There simply is no alternative if
we are going to address crises such as pandemics and climate change , along with the many other
threats waiting in the wings: biodiversity loss , financial instability , antimicrobial resistance , water
and food insecurity , digital disruption and manipulation , and so forth.
Building a new, benign world order requires reconfiguring the three pillars of peaceful progress , starting
with new initiatives to maintain the international anti-war norm. Though we have entered an age of heightened geopolitical
tensions, the sudden revival of nuclear , chemical , and biological warfare risks should be enough to
convince all parties that threat containment is vital to their own interests. The Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear
Weapons needs to be strengthened and broadened. Conventions banning chemical and biological weapons need to be made all-encompassing and verifiable. The
Geneva Conventions establishing the rules of war need to be extended to cyberwarfare.
Moreover, the rules governing economic globalization

need reform. Currently, global value chains are built largely for the sake of profit maximization.
Though efforts to boost supply-chain resilience are already underway, there is little indication that they will make trade more
environmentally or socially sustainable . To account for the social and environmental implications of trade (both within and across global
value chains), businesses and governments should be required to report on their social and environmental impact, and trade rules should be reformed on the basis
of these metrics.
Finally, we need a new multilateralism that highlights the complementarity between national and global
objectives , so that we can seize on win-win (positive-sum) opportunities in the economic, social, and
environmental domains. The resulting multilateral agreements should spread the gains from multilateral coordination so that all participating
countries benefit.
Recognizing that such multilateral agreements will be particularly difficult to achieve in this period of conflict, leaders can start by assembling
“coalitions of the willing.” A good example is Germany’s G7 proposal for a “global climate club” to accelerate the implementation of the Paris
climate agreement.
The dangers of pursuing national self-interest in the face of global problems should be obvious. To avert the Great Unraveling, we must rebuild the
foundation for peace and sustainable prosperity in a beautiful but fragile world.
1AC---Circuit Splits---Environmental Law
Scenario 3 is Environmental Law.
The plan patches a hole that the 6th Circuit created. Its ruling on the applicability of
state limitations allows hypertextualism to fester.
Hannah Clements 19, J.D. and certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, Lewis & Clark
Law School, 2020, “HYPERTEXTUALISM AND THE CLEAN WATER ACT: REJECTING RIGID
INTERPRETATIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL STATUTES,” Environmental Law , Vol. 49, No. 4 (2019), pp.
1107-1137, https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/26909691.pdf
Many environmental statutes are adopted with broad aspirational purposes , and the CWA is no
exception.253 But the Sixth Circuit’s interpretation of the CWA erodes the fundamental purpose of the
CWA — to protect the Nation’s waters —and ignores a primary mechanism of achieving that purpose—
the NPDES program —which is achieved through regulating pollution at the point source. While the Sixth Circuit
does mention this purpose of the CWA (as well as its cooperative federalism goals), it does not adequately consider it as part of its statutory analysis.254 A
hypertextualist approach to environmental statutes does not work because it fails to give proper weight to the
environmental goals Congress was trying to achieve. Furthermore, by failing to adequately consider the CWA’s broad
purpose the courts are, again, retaining more power for the judiciary by ignoring Congress’s wishes for
the sake of a narrow interpretation.255
D. Disregarding Practical Consequences
Reading the CWA to exclude point source discharges through hydrologically connected groundwater
allows facilities to do indirectly what they cannot do directly. It effectively creates a giant regulatory
loophole . If the Supreme Court takes the Sixth Circuit approach to interpreting the CWA, the logical
conclusion is that polluters will be able to escape CWA liability “by moving [their] drainage pipes a few
feet from the riverbank.”256 The result of such a loophole would be catastrophic in terms of the CWA’s regulatory thrust and would be illogical on
Congress’s behalf. Congress “does not . . . hide elephants in [statutory] mouseholes.”257
And more broadly, not including discharges through groundwater as part of the NPDES regulatory scheme
will result in more degradation to surface waters. This in turn will implicate other provisions of the CWA
that transcend the NPDES program, and apply to both point and non-point sources of pollution. Of
particular relevance are the programs that address degraded waters. Section 303 of the CWA allows states to
set water quality standards to protect the uses of a water source and to prevent degradation .258 If
water quality standards are not met for a body of water, the Total Maximum Daily Load Program (TMDL)
may kick in and place specific numeric limits on discharges of pollution. Specifically, the CWA requires
states to establish TMDLs for pollutants “at a level necessary to implement the applicable water quality
standards.”259 If more polluters are able to discharge pollutants indirectly without regulatory oversight,
waters will likely become more degraded, necessitating retroactive regulation through water quality
standards and the TMDL program.
E. Failing to Acknowledge Known Science
A hypertextualist approach to interpreting the CWA also ignores the scientific realities of the hydrologic system.
Environmental statutes often address complex scientific and ecological interactions, and were passed by Congress with that knowledge.260 It is illogical to construe
such a statute in a way that turns a blind eye to the scientific realities behind its adoption. In this case, Congress
explicitly intended to protect
surface waters by regulating point source pollution through the NPDES program . And the science is clear
that groundwater is intimately connected to surface waters. A hypertextualist approach to the issue of CWA jurisdiction over
groundwater is thus at odds with Congress’s explicit intent to protect the Nation’s waters by targeting point source pollution.
VII. CONCLUSION
The health of the Nation’s surface waters cannot be properly protected without adequate protection of
groundwater. While the CWA has the potential to regulate pollution into groundwater, there is
disagreement on if and how it can do so. Even the most conservative theory for regulating groundwater
under the CWA—the hydrological connection theory—was shut down by the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth
Circuit’s interpretation of the CWA in Kentucky Utilities Co. is an example of how a rigid, hypertextual
interpretative approach can lead to absurd results that thwart the purpose of the CWA. The
implications of such an approach extend beyond the CWA, and are dangerous for environmental law
as a whole . Rather than relying solely on textualist principles to the point of absurdity, courts should instead read environmental
statutes with consideration of the practical implications and broad statutory purpose. Otherwise, there
is risk of more decisions that create giant regulatory loopholes with disastrous implications for the
environment.
Reversing precedent now is key. Court makeup accelerates issues within

environmental law.
Stephen M. Johnson 22, Professor of Law, Mercer University Law School. B.S., J.D. Villanova
University, LL.M. George Washington University School of Law, “Whither the Lofty Goals of the
Environmental Laws?: Can Statutory Directives Restore Purposivism When We Are All Textualists Now?”
49 Pepp. L. Rev. 285, https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=2601&context=plr
The trends in federal courts toward textualism and consideration of costs in interpreting ambiguous
provisions of regulatory statutes are likely to continue or accelerate in light of the unprecedented number
of judges that were appointed by President Trump .165 In four years, former President Trump filled almost 30% of the positions on the
federal appellate and trial courts and three of the nine seats on the Supreme Court.166 The President coordinated his nominations with the
Federalist Society, and most of the judges appointed during his tenure were members of the Society, which advocates for
textualist interpretation of statutes and limited government regulation .167
The trends toward textualism and consideration of costs are at odds with the strong public support for
environmental protection and environmental regulation. 168 According to several recent polls, most
Americans believe that stricter environmental laws and regulations are worth their cost 169 and that
EPA’s powers should be preserved or expanded. 170
Or it erodes the legal foundations and enforcement.

Stephen M. Johnson 22, Professor of Law, Mercer University Law School. B.S., J.D. Villanova
University, LL.M. George Washington University School of Law, “Whither the Lofty Goals of the
Environmental Laws?: Can Statutory Directives Restore Purposivism When We Are All Textualists Now?”
49 Pepp. L. Rev. 285, https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=2601&context=plr
At the same time that courts are deferring less to agencies under Chevron and are aggressively reviewing
statutes using textualism instead of purposivism , they continue to defer to agencies when agencies
underenforce statutory requirements .189 Since EPA and other agencies interpreting the federal
environmental laws frequently interpret them against their health and environmental protection
purposes to provide for exemptions or other relief to regulated entities, the trend toward deferring to
underenforcement makes it more likely that the federal environmental laws will not be applied and
interpreted to carry out those primary purposes. 190
Professor Daniel Walters recently highlighted the asymmetrical approach taken by federal courts when reviewing statutory interpretation by regulatory
agencies.191 Walters points out that overregulation
by an agency, which he refers to as a “Type I error,” and
underregulation by an agency, which he refers to as a “Type II error,”192 are “two sides of the same coin”
and are both errors in statutory interp retation.193 Until recently, he argues, courts treated Type I errors and Type
II errors similarly, deferring to agencies in both scenarios.194 For Type I errors, courts relied on Chevron to uphold agency overregulation by applying a
deferential standard of review to the agencies’ statutory interpretation.195 For Type II errors, in addition to relying on Chevron, 196 courts relied on cases like
Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance197 and Heckler v. Chaney198 to defer to Type II errors by finding challenges to such errors largely unreviewable.199
Walters observes that, as noted above, over

time federal courts have begun applying Chevron deference less
frequently and that courts are according agencies less deference when reviewing actions that are
challenged as overregulation .200 At the same time, though, he points out that courts have continued to
apply Norton, Heckler, and related precedent to limit challenges to agency actions that result in
underenforcement of statutes .201
Walters forcefully argues that the

asymmetrical treatment of Type I errors is not justified under the Administrative
Procedure Act (APA)202 or based on the challenges that are leveled against overregulation by agencies. 203 He
also cogently warns that the asymmetrical treatment of Type I errors and Type II errors can delegitimize
administrative law and sow scorn for the administrative process .204 Ultimately, he argues that symmetry in
the treatment of both types of errors is required and that deference in both situations is preferred.205
The agency trend to underenforce regulatory statutes that Professor Walters examined is part of a larger problem that
was identified by Professor Walters, along with Professors Cary Coglianese and Gabriel Scheffler.206 In a recent article, they called attention to the increasing
use of agency “unrules,” which encompass individual waivers, exemptions, and variances, as well as industry-
wide carveouts and exemptions, including “grandfathering” existing industry members out of new
regulatory requirements.207 Professor Coglianese and his associates note that the APA and regulatory statutes frequently
authorize agencies to adopt such unrules without following many of the procedures that agencies usually follow when
imposing burdens on regulated entities.208 Frequently, the unrules are adopted in a manner that prevents members of the
public from discovering that the unrules relieve specific groups from the otherwise applicable
regulatory requirements .209 Professor Coglianese and his associates also criticize the practice of courts imposing barriers to review of unrules and
applying a less demanding standard of judicial review to unrules.210 Accordingly, they warn that agency proliferation of unrules
“undermine[s] important health and safety protections [in laws], enable[s] regulatory capture, and
threaten[s] the rule of law.” 211 To address these concerns, they recommend that agencies should be required to follow additional procedures
when adopting unrules in order to make the effect of the agencies’ deregulatory actions more transparent and to allow the public to play a greater role in the
agencies’ decisionmaking processes.212
Despite these calls for reform, federal courts continue to limit judicial review of agency unrules and Type II
errors and to accord agencies deference if they review those actions. 213 That trend, like the trend away
from Chevron deference and the trend away from purposivism , increases the likelihood that the
federal environmental laws will not be interpreted and administered to achieve their health and
environmental purposes unless measures are taken to counter those trends. 214
That ensures failure of future climate crises management. Includes refugee policies.
Kathryn E. Kovacs 19, Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School, “Climate Change is the Most Important
Issue in Administrative Law,” June 19, 2019, https://www.yalejreg.com/nc/climate-change-is-the-most-
important-issue-in-administrative-law-by-kathryn-e-kovacs/
Our climate
is changing, and humans are contributing to that development. On those points there can no longer be any reasonable debate.
The extent of the problem and what to do about it , however, are ripe for discussion. Indeed, those questions
are the most pressing questions of our day and perhaps the most pressing questions in the history of humankind.
But are they questions of administrative law? Should those of us who teach administrative law relegate these questions to environmental law class and not discuss
them in our classes as well? Should we leave discussions about combating climate change to the environmental law professors? To the contrary, climate
change is the most important question in administrative law.
By any metric, climate change is a question of administrative law . For one thing, the Supreme Court’s opinions regarding
climate change, Massachusetts v. EPA and Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, appear in most administrative law casebooks. If you need more convincing, here are a
few other points to consider.
First, agencies cause or contribute to g reen h ouse g as emissions . Not only do agencies operate
facilities that emit greenhouse gases , but agencies also authorize private parties to take actions that emit
greenhouse gases. Agencies establish motor vehicle emissions standards . They lease federal lands for mining
fossil fuels . They regulate (or fail to regulate) greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector . How agencies address
these effects is a question of administrative law.
Second, we have gotten ourselves into this climate predicament in large part because of administrative law
failures. In our administrative law classes, we discuss how Congress has abdicated its position as the lead policy maker in the U.S.
government. We discuss how presidents have taken on that role through unilateral orders. We discuss the policy
flip-flopping between presidential administrations. Climate change is an excellent example of all of
these phenomena.
Third, addressing climate change will necessarily involve government agencies at all levels of government.
Congress eventually may address climate change through legislation, but implementing climate change
policy will require agencies . Perhaps EPA will change clean air standards . The IRS might implement a carbon
tax . The Department of Homeland Security may assist climate refugees . And the list goes on. In all likelihood, nearly every
agency of the U.S. government will affect and will be affected by climate change.
The potential consequences of failing to address climate change are dire. We administrative law teachers should familiarize ourselves with this issue and discuss the
administrative law implications with our students. There is no issue of more consequence for future generations. We may be gone, or hope that we are gone, by the
time things get out of hand. But our students will be here. We must equip them to deal with this question.
We should not worry that we are not experts in climate change. We teach cases about all sorts of things that we know very little about, because administrative law
crosses many subject matters. We teach Vermont Yankee although few of us are experts in nuclear science. The basics of climate change are no more difficult for an
administrative law professor to learn than nuclear power generation. Thousands of scientists from around the world review and synthesize all of the peer-reviewed
science on the subject for the reports of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Even an administrative law professor can understand the
Summary for Policymakers.
In the 1975 edition of the Columbia Law Review, Ernest Gellhorn and Glen Robinson “emphasized the
interrelationship of procedural
administrative law and substantive administrative policy ” and “suggest[ed] a way of thinking about the
subject—a perspective unconfined by the traditional, and to us somewhat artificial, conventions which
have circumscribed it.” We do ourselves, our students, and our discipline a disservice by seeing administrative law with blinders on. Administrative law
teachers should be part of the discussion about how to address climate change. We have necessary expertize and helpful insights
about how to structure the legal responses to climate change . We owe it to the future not to sit this
one out.
Refugee numbers will increase. Successful agency programs are key.

Steve Herman 21, formerly White House Bureau Chief, is now VOA's Chief National Correspondent, 7-
14-2021, "US Urged to Offer Refuge to Those Fleeing Climate Catastrophes ," VOA,
https://www.voanews.com/a/usa_us-urged-offer-refuge-those-fleeing-climate-catastrophes/
6208230.html, kavm
The United States should accommodate millions of refugees who will be forced to flee disasters and
other effects of a changing climate , according to a task force report released Wednesday.
The study, under the auspices of Refugees International, which advocates for displaced people around the word, argues that the United States , as the
traditional biggest carbon emitter, “has a special responsibility to lead on issues of climate change, migration and
displacement .”
As many as 200 million people worldwide annually will likely need humanitarian assistance due to a changing climate by the year 2050, according to the
International Organization of Migration, which is part of the United Nations System.
The Ecological Threat Register, produced by the Australia-based Institute of Economics and Peace, projects up to 1.2 billion people around the
world could be displaced by the middle of this century.
“From Haiti and Honduras to Bangladesh, Burkina Faso and thousands of communities in both the Global South and Global North, those at risk need policy solutions
today, as both slow- and sudden-onset disasters are becoming more frequent and intense and leading to protracted displacement around the world,” says the task
force, which is composed of prominent former U.S. government and United Nations officials, leaders of non-governmental organizations and climate specialists.
“Those displaced by disaster are receiving inadequate support on a range of critical issues such as
durable shelter, planned relocation and alternative livelihoods ,” the report says.
“The task force believes that the Biden

administration should acknowledge the reality of climate-related migration
and offer new forms of protection and support for those displaced by climate change ,” said Kayly Ober, senior
advocate and program manager for the Climate Displacement Program at Refugees International.
The task force is recommending the U.S. government recognize “that those forced to migrate due to climate change are in many cases likely to face particular risks
of return that would amount to persecution” under the 1951 multinational treaty defining who is a refugee.
U.S. Democratic Senator Edward Markey is pushing legislation that would offer protections to people fleeing climate change-related events who do not fit the
narrow definition of “refugees” under international law.
In an ex ecutive o rder in February, U.S. President Joe Biden instructed National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to examine how to identify
and resettle people who will be displaced by climate change.
“We are actively working on a report on climate change and its impact on migration, including forced migration, internal displacement and
planned relocation, for the president and expect a final version, or summary thereof, will be made public by the fall,” a senior administration official told
VOA.
Opposition to resettlement proposal
There is certain to be pushback from conservative lawmakers and groups opposing liberal immigration reform.
America’s immigration system “is already strained to the breaking point ” with more than 1.3 million pending asylum
cases, and “inviting untold millions more to seek refugee status, or arrive here and claim asylum, based on assertions of harm as a result of climate change would
cause the system to collapse entirely,” predicted Ira Mehlman, media director at the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Climate change “cannot be addressed by advocacy group-driven attempts to engage in mass resettlement of people in the United States,” added Mehlman, who
contends the task force’s proposal “ironically would further hinder our ability to address the root causes of climate change. Large-scale, migration-driven population
growth would make it nearly impossible for the United States to meet goals set for reductions in CO2 and other harmful emissions.”
The founder of another organization seeking stricter limitations on immigration to the United States also expresses concern.
“Of all forms of migration, refugee resettlement has tended to have the most direct negative effect on the ability of lower-skilled Americans — disproportionately
minorities — to obtain jobs and on depressing the wages of those who retain their jobs,” said Roy Beck, founder of NumbersUSA, which advocates for limited
immigration.
Priority should be given to those from adjacent countries or the same region, but the task force suggests America “would be a destination for
the whole world , making the lack of numerical caps in the proposal especially problematic,” added Beck.
The NumbersUSA leader also is concerned about the ramifications of Temporary Protection Status for those
whose displacement is caused by
disasters exacerbated by the effects of climate , as the task force proposes.
“Thiswould continue the corruption of the program’s purpose, which already is threatened with losing
the support of the American people for the very real and manageable need for the U.S. to provide
respite for as many calamities as possible, but only if the respite is truly temporary ,” said Beck.
Biden previously announced the United States intends to double, by 2024, its annual public climate finance for developing countries and triple public finance for
climate adaptation, compared to what the country was providing during the second half of former President Barack Obama’s administration (who was in office from
2009 to early 2017).
The 2022 fiscal year request by Biden of $2.5 billion for international climate programs “is very significant but still less than the amounts for which climate experts
had advocated,” according to the task force, which wants the U.S. to increase the foreign aid budget to reduce the risks of climate-related disasters and for
international programs dealing with climate adaptation.
According to the report, there is globally a $2.5 trillion gap in resilience infrastructure.
Advocates such as Ober at Refugees International, are optimistic that the Biden administration will help close that gap, saying, “it has already shown a good faith
effort to really dig into these issues, and in fact, is the first administration of its kind to really set a high bar for addressing climate change and migration issues.”
Mismanagement collapses burgeoning megacities.

Miles DePaul 12, MA in international policy from Wilfrid Laurier University; 2012 "Climate Change,
Migration, and Megacities: Addressing the Dual Stresses of Mass Urbanization and Climate
Vulnerability," Paterson Review of International Affairs,
https://www.shram.org/uploadFiles/20131017061024.pdf, MBA AM
The Dual Stresses of Climate Change on Cities
Large cities are experiencing both mass urbanization and increasing vulnerability to climate change impacts, dual
stresses that are unique to the 21st century. These stresses are putting pressure on the abilities of cities, primarily megacities in
developing and emerging market countries, to provide basic services and support for their populations . Accelerated population
growth in cities means that local governments must deal with residence overflow, diminished sanitation, high transit demand, and other social and welfare
pressures. At the same time, cities are increasingly vulnerable to climate impacts such as floods and heat waves, which can exacerbate these varying pressures.
Ranger et al. (2011, 140) argue that “many of the world’s cities are hotspots of risk from extreme weather events and levels of risks in
many cities are likely to grow due to a combination of population growth and development and rising intensities of extreme weather events.” If the
dual stresses, which cities will continue to experience, are not fully acknowledged and properly
addressed, all levels of government and international governance structures will put populations and basic physical and social
infrastructure at undue risk . As mass urbanization continues, climate refugees will be leaving one
vulnerable zone for another.

By comparing the contemporary reality that more people live in cities than rural areas to the fact that only 13 per cent of the world’s population lived in cities during
the early 20th century, it is evident that mass

urbanization will impose societal , economic , and cultural pressures on
urban centres, since there is currently less space and fewer resources to be shared or distributed (Bhagat
and Mohanty 2009, 6). Pressures include new burdens on transit infrastructure, increased competition for jobs, and reduced provision of social services. Instances
of xenophobia may increase because some people might make a connection between migration and deteriorating conditions. Furthermore, over
900
million people—more than 70 per cent of urban populations in developing countries—currently live in slum-like conditions, with
this number expected to increase to two billion over the next 30 years (Little and Cocklin 2009, 77). Slum-like conditions are
characterized by “low incomes, poor housing and provision of basic services, and no effective regulation of pollution or ecosystem degradation” (Campbell-Lendrum
and Corvalan 2007, 111). While some studies suggest that urbanization can be a “positive force in overall poverty reduction” (Ravallion, Chen, and Sangraula 2007,
5), this is only possible if urbanization is met with robust social and physical urban infrastructure. Masud Rana (2011, 243) suggests that “urbanization and rapid
urban change may be a negative sign of development provided the urban problems arise due to
improper management and unplanned growth .” Given the poor infrastructure conditions in a number of impoverished regions, like
Bangladesh, climate-induced migration will likely lead to unplanned growth in megacities and management
of this growth will probably be inadequate . If natural disasters, land degradation, or conflict result in
sudden mass movements of people, megacities may experience the “ urbanization of poverty ,” which
would send shocks through societies and the global economy as prospects for equitable economic growth deteriorate. While it would be wrong
to generalize that these claims apply to all of the world’s 26 megacities, the policy issues at hand could certainly become salient in
megacities like São Paolo, New York City, and London, where mass urbanization and climate change are already
major concerns for local governments.
As cities begin to grapple with the prospects of increased urbanization, they are becoming increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. As Adamo
(2010, 162) points out, “a large proportion of urban expansion is taking place in areas exposed to environmental hazards, [for example] low lying plains, coastal
zones, stepped slopes and drylands.” Notably, while coastal zones represent only 2 per cent of total land in the world, they are inhabited by 14 per cent of the
world’s overall population and 23 per cent of its urban population (ibid.). Inherent vulnerabilities like proximity to coasts and low river deltas are exacerbated by lax
building codes, poor sanitation and waste policies, and the lack of resilience systems such as dams and dykes (de Sherbinin, Schiller, and Pulsipher 2007, 45–47). De
Sherbinin, Schiller, and Pulsipher (ibid., 41) best explain this mix of stress and vulnerability: different pressures across scales come together in various sequences to
create unique “stress bundles” that affect local systems. Significant consequences can result when stresses emanating from
the environment coalesce with those arising from society. The concurrence of stresses synergistically
enlarges the vulnerability of a system and risks then emerge from multiple sources and at different scales.
The dual stresses of mass urbanization and increasing vulnerability to climate impacts create stress
bundles. To illustrate the consequences of these dual stresses for megacities, the next section will examine two complementary cases. One is a case of
international migration from Bangladesh to India and the other is a case of intranational migration from rural regions in southern India to Mumbai.
Extinction.
Kim Stanley Robinson 18, award-winning author, Muir Environmental Fellow at the John Muir College,
PhD from UC San Diego; 3/20/2018, "Empty half the Earth of its humans. It's the only way to save the
planet," https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/20/save-the-planet-half-earth-kim-stanley-
robinson, MBA AM
Discussing cities is like talking about the knots in a net: they’re crucial, but they’re only one part of the larger story of the net and what it’s supposed to do. It makes
little sense to talk about knots in isolation when it’s the net that matters.
Cities are part of the system we’ve invented to keep people alive on Earth. People tend to like cities, and have been congregating in them ever
since the invention of agriculture, 10,000 or so years ago. That’s why we call it civilisation. This origin story underlines how agriculture made cities possible, by
providing enough food to feed a settled crowd on a regular basis. Cities can’t work without farms, nor without watersheds that provide their water. So as central as
cities are to modern civilisation, they are only one aspect of a system.
There are nearly eight billion humans alive on the planet now, and that’s a big number: more than twice as
many as were alive 50 years ago. It’s an accidental experiment with enormous stakes, as it isn’t clear that the Earth’s
biosphere can supply that many people’s needs – or absorb that many wastes and poisons – on a
renewable and sustainable basis over the long haul. We’ll only find out by trying it.
Right now we are not succeeding . The Global Footprint Network estimates that we use up our annual supply of renewable resources by August
every year, after which we are cutting into non-renewable supplies – in effect stealing from future generations. Eating the seed corn, they used to call it. At the same
time we’re pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate that is changing the climate in dangerous ways and will certainly damage agriculture.
This situation can’t endure for long – years, perhaps, but not decades. The future is radically unknowable: it could hold anything
from an age of peaceful prosperity to a horrific mass-extinction event. The sheer breadth of possibility is disorienting and even stunning. But one
thing can be said for sure: what can’t happen won’t happen. Since the current situation is unsustainable, things are certain to change.
It wouldn't have to be imposed – it's happening anyway
Cities emerge from the confusion of possibilities as beacons of hope. By definition they house a lot of people on small patches of land, which makes them
hugely better than suburbia. In ecological terms , suburbs are disastrous, while cities can perhaps work.
The tendency of people to move to cities, either out of desire or perceived necessity, creates a great opportunity . If we
managed urbanisation properly , we could nearly remove ourselves from a considerable percentage of the the planet’s surface. That would
be good for many of the threatened species we share this planet with, which in turn would be good for us, because
we are completely enmeshed in Earth’s web of life.
Here I’m referring to the plan EO Wilson has named Half Earth. His book of the same title is provocative in all the best ways, and I think it has been under-discussed
because the central idea seems so extreme. But since people are leaving the land anyway and streaming into cities, the Half Earth concept can
help us to orient that process, and dodge the sixth great mass extinction event that we are now starting, and which will hammer humans
too.
The idea is right there in the name: leave about half the Earth’s surface mostly free of humans, so wild plants and animals can live there unimpeded as they did for
so long before humans arrived. Same with the oceans, by the way; about a third of our food comes from the sea, so the seas have to be healthy too.
At a time when there are far more people alive than ever before, this plan might sound strange, even impossible. But it isn’t. With
people already leaving
countrysides all over the world to move to the cities, big regions are emptier of humans than they were a century ago, and
getting emptier still. Many villages now have populations of under a thousand, and continue to shrink as most of the young people leave. If these places were
redefined (and repriced) as becoming usefully empty, there would be caretaker work for some, gamekeeper work for others, and the rest could go to the cities and
get into the main swing of things.
So emptying half the Earth of its humans wouldn’t have to be imposed: it ’s happening anyway . It would
be more a matter of managing how we made the move, and what kind of arrangement we left behind. One important factor here
would be to avoid extremes and absolutes of definition and practice, and any sense of idealistic purity. We are mongrel creatures on a mongrel planet, and we have
to be flexible to survive. So these emptied landscapes should not be called wilderness. Wilderness is a good idea in certain contexts, but these emptied lands would
be working landscapes, commons perhaps, where pasturage and agriculture might still have a place. All those people in cities still need to eat, and food production
requires land. Even if we start growing food in vats, the feedstocks for those vats will come from the land.
These mostly depopulated landscapes would be given over to new kinds of agriculture and pasturage, kinds that include habitat corridors where our fellow
creatures can get around without being stopped by fences or killed by trains.
This vision is one possible format for our survival on this planet . They will have to be green cities, sure. We will have to have decarbonised
transport and energy production, white roofs, gardens in every empty lot, full-capture recycling, and all the rest of the technologies of sustainability we are already
developing. That includes technologies we call law and justice – the system software, so to speak. Yes, justice: robust women’s rights stabilise families and
population. Income adequacy and progressive taxation keep the poorest and richest from damaging the biosphere in the ways that extreme poverty or wealth do.
Peace, justice, equality and the rule of law are all necessary survival strategies.
Meanwhile, cities will always rely on landscapes much vaster than their own footprints. Agriculture will have to be made carbon neutral; indeed, it will be important
to create some carbon-negative flows, drawing carbon out of the atmosphere and fixing it into the land, either permanently or temporarily; we can’t afford to be
too picky about that now, because we will be safest if we can get the CO2 level in the atmosphere back down to 350 parts per million. All these working landscapes
should exist alongside that so-called empty land (though really it’s only almost empty – empty of people – most of the time). Those areas will be working for us in
their own way, as part of the health-giving context of any sustainable civilisation. And all the land has to be surrounded by oceans that, similarly, are left partly
unfished
All this can be done. All this needs to be done if we are to make it through the emergency centuries we face and create
a civilised permaculture, something we can pass along to the future generations as a good home. There is no alternative way ; there is no planet B.
We have only this planet, and have to fit our species into the energy flows of its biosphere. That’s our project now. That’s the
meaning of life, in case you were looking for a meaning.

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Only the plan can avert imminent biodiversity tipping points.

In the early history of pollution management, big

riparian and shoreline buffers.

Uniquely true for the Gulf.

1) The sources of pollution

Ambiguity ratchets divestment and business failure.

Permit uncertainty locks in slow growth.

Another issue that these

efficiencies. In a globalized world, even

Sparks leadership turnover.

Leadership turnover causes nuclear war.

Leaders, Parties, and International Conflict

Our Statistical Approach

Defining Close Elections

Measuring Party Ideology

Absolute change in military aggression =|MIDs/year during winner's term

—MIDs/year during previous term|

[Figure One Omitted]

[Figure Two Omitted]

[Figure Three Omitted]

Results for Party Ideology

[Table One Omitted]

[Figure Four Omitted]

Results for Incumbent versus Challenger Parties

Spikes commodity prices, causes trade wars, and global conflict.

It undermines multilateralism. Extinction.

Moreover, the rules governing economic globalization

Reversing precedent now is key. Court makeup accelerates issues within

Or it erodes the legal foundations and enforcement.

Walters observes that, as noted above, over

Walters forcefully argues that the

change is the most important question in administrative law.

Refugee numbers will increase. Successful agency programs are key.

“The task force believes that the Biden

Opposition to resettlement proposal

Mismanagement collapses burgeoning megacities.

vulnerable zone for another.

the early 20th century, it is evident that mass

It wouldn't have to be imposed – it's happening anyway

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