Effects of the Blue Canyon Wind Farm on Avian Populations in Southwest Oklahoma

The environmental effects of renewable energy development present one of the most significant problems to local planners. Wind power promises to significantly increase the production of energy from renewable sources, but substantial growth in this area may also pose significant potential threats to bird populations. Recent research on this point is ambiguous, and provides little to guide planners. This study analyzes the effects of one case, the Blue Canyon Wind Farm in Southwest Oklahoma, on local avian populations using GIS-analyzed data from the Audubon Society Christmas Bird Counts and Fish and Wildlife Service Breeding Bird Surveys. This study finds that there are no statistically significant threats from such facilities to regional avian populations. The data suggests the further hypotheses that the effects of wind farms are primarily localized, and that in some circumstances wind farms may actually improve habitat by excluding humans and grazing animals from most of the environment. Key concerns for wind power planning should thus be the adequacy of facility, design careful attention to habitat, and the potential for partnership with rather than conflict between conservation organizations and power companies in the planning process.

Environmental Justice in Transportation Planning

One of the major concerns in urban planning since the 1990s has been environmental justice. This exercise is designed to teach students how to evaluate the environmental justice implications of planning projects. Students must propose a freight transportation corridors for the City of Lawton, Oklahoma chosen from among three possibilities. Using ArcGIS-developed maps of the routes and affected populations, the students must consider the effects of the corridor proposals on the community with reference to cost, pollution, and hazardous materials risk. Students evaluate distributive effects with respect to both disadvantaged groups and property rights.

Congressional Oversight of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Implementation of the Endangered Species Act

Understanding the effective implementation of public policy demands understanding how legislatures exercise oversight over the agencies responsible for that implementation. This lecture uses the implementation of the Endangered Species Act by the Fish and Wildlife Service to show that oversight takes place through much more subtle techniques than is commonly understood. These techniques include bureaucratic anticipation in response to public statements, the development of administrative procedures bias toward those outcomes preferred by Congress, and the use of "fire alarm" hearings in response to specific concerns from constituents.

The Sanctity of Life, Moral Responsibility, and Human Therapeutic Cloning

This paper shows that the sanctity of life argument does not resolve the moral dilemma of human therapeutic cloning, because it gives unequal weight to the lives of the embryos that would be destroyed and of those with diseases who could be saved by therapeutic cloning. The bulk of the paper is devoted to demonstrating the moral equivalence of action and inaction, a claim that I demonstrate by proposing a game theoretic interpretation of the moral nature of agency. As a consequence of this equivalence, one cannot simply decide not to intervene and let the consequences be as they may: the decision not to allow cloning is a decision to allow people to die needlessly and must be justified by more than the claim that agency is not involved in these deaths. The option of sanctifying life is thus not available, as in either case our actions have resulted in deaths that we could have prevented. We must choose who will live and who will die. I argue in the final section of the paper that we can make this difficult choice on the basis of a modified version of the distinction between biological and biographical life, prioritizing the biographical over the biological, and the biological over the metaphysical. This priority demands that research into therapeutic cloning go forward.

The Illiberal Culture of E-democracy

Many cities and states are moving toward "electronic democracy," motivated both by the desire to enhance communication and service provision as well as to reduce the costs of administering elections. Analyzing several municipal implementations of e-democracy systems, this study finds that aspects of the Internet make this more difficult than may be apparent. Commodification of the Internet, the emphasis on direct democracy, and the capacity for monitoring make the Internet a tenuous venue for democratic governance. In implementing e-democracy, cities and states must be sure to develop systems that do not merely mimic commercial systems. Ensuring public access, creating processes that are deliberative rather than simply aggregative, and maintaining effective privacy practices are key to effective e-democracy.