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The weekend before Christmas 2018, the United States government began its longest shutdown in history, which extended well into the new year. The crisis was the result of the ongoing legal controversies surrounding migratory rights and U.S. immigration policy, and following the shutdown, President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border. The executive branch has a constitutional responsibility to enforce all U.S. laws. However, while the Trump administration has focused pointedly on executive branch enforcement of immigration and migratory laws at the southern border, it has made no effort to enforce an international treaty and three long-standing U.S. statutes protecting migratory birds. More than one thousand species of birds are legally protected by U.S. law, making it a criminal felony, punishable by up to two years jail time and fines of up to one-quarter million dollars, for killing even a single migratory bird. Despite these harsh penalties, hundreds of thousands of these statutorily protected birds are killed by wind power turbines in the U.S. each year. Wind power, however, is an indispensable tool to address global climate change for a multitude of reasons. For instance, wind power is an essential technology to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and to meet the goals the U.S. previously pledged as part of the international Paris Agreement of 2016. Wind power does not emit either carbon-dioxide (“CO2”) or methane into the atmosphere, nor does it contribute to climate change. Further, wind power has been the leading source among all new electric power technologies installed in the U.S. for the past decade, and wind power is now cost-competitive with most other means of power generation. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has also identified sixteen critical infrastructure sectors in the United States, each of which depends fundamentally on a stable power supply, a requirement that can be bolstered, if not achieved, by wind. Creating legal and economic implications for the power sector, the Trump administration announced its unilateral executive policy not to enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (“MBTA”), a century-old statute that implements an eponymous treaty protecting migratory birds. The cessation of legal enforcement of the MBTA will decrease the costs of wind facilities, as the MBTA makes the killing of a single bird on any day a felony crime. There is now a yin and yang for wind power. Civil law is populated with important state and federal economic and legal incentives for wind power generation and infrastructure transition. Yet, federal investment tax incentives are currently being phased out and the newest tax regime is not nearly as supportive. In a parallel legal realm, criminal law creates an elevated risk for the decidedly modest number of wind turbines that kill an estimated one-quarter million protected birds annually in the U.S. There is a temporal mismatch between these federal criminal statutes, a transitory policy which does not enforce those laws, and civil law incentives for the industry. However, this criminal risk for wind facilities is not static; it changes with different occupants of the executive branch which enforces federal criminal law. There is an added dimension when the technology involved is not a mere substitute commodity, but is critical to mitigate global climate change. This confluence of competing factors requires reconciliation by legislative change, regulatory clarification, or judicial determination. This Article navigates several layers of this emerging technology- species conflict and its counterposed statutory objectives to chart a new direction in U.S. law., Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, Vol. 44 No. 2 (2019): Volume 44.2

The article reviews the experiences of programs to promote renewable energy in Southeast Asian countries and proposes some learned lessons that can be useful in the context of COP 20 to promote renewable energy.The article analyzes the rates and mechanisms of promotion used in countries such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam, that are led by the World Bank. These mechanisms are used as a legal basis that proposes successful tested alternatives and its usefulness is that renewable energies can be implemented within the current legal structure of international environmental law.In conclusion, it is the correct timing for the COP 20 to secure funds and international legal mechanisms that promote sustainable energy infrastructure. El presente artículo revisa las experiencias de programas de promoción de energías renovables en países del sudeste asiático a fin de proponer algunas lecciones aprendidas que puedan ser útiles en el contexto de la Vigésima Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 20) para la promoción de las energías renovables. Asimismo, revisa las tarifas y mecanismos de promoción utilizados en India, Indonesia y Vietnam, impulsados por el Banco Mundial, como una base para proponer alternativas legales ya probadas. Su utilidad es que las energías renovables pueden ser implementadas dentro de la estructura legal actual del Derecho Ambiental Internacional, la COP 20 es el momento de asegurar fondos y mecanismos jurídicos internacionales que promueven una infraestructura energética sostenible.

The article reviews the experiences of programs to promote renewable energy in Southeast Asian countries and proposes some learned lessons that can be useful in the context of COP 20 to promote renewable energy.The article analyzes the rates and mechanisms of promotion used in countries such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam, that are led by the World Bank. These mechanisms are used as a legal basis that proposes successful tested alternatives and its usefulness is that renewable energies can be implemented within the current legal structure of international environmental law.In conclusion, it is the correct timing for the COP 20 to secure funds and international legal mechanisms that promote sustainable energy infrastructure. El presente artículo revisa las experiencias de programas de promoción de energías renovables en países del sudeste asiático a fin de proponer algunas lecciones aprendidas que puedan ser útiles en el contexto de la Vigésima Conferencia de las Partes de la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático (COP 20) para la promoción de las energías renovables. Asimismo, revisa las tarifas y mecanismos de promoción utilizados en India, Indonesia y Vietnam, impulsados por el Banco Mundial, como una base para proponer alternativas legales ya probadas. Su utilidad es que las energías renovables pueden ser implementadas dentro de la estructura legal actual del Derecho Ambiental Internacional, la COP 20 es el momento de asegurar fondos y mecanismos jurídicos internacionales que promueven una infraestructura energética sostenible.

"Fire and ice will forge the future of the world. The constitutional battle in the United States vis-??-vis global warming will determine the future of fire and ice. The electric sector of the economy holds the key; a fundamental transition to renewable energy is necessary to create a sustainable economy and abate global warming. As of 2009, ten U.S. states are vigorously moving toward implementing a feed-in tariff regulatory mechanism similar to those adopted previously by eighteen of the European Kyoto Protocol countries to shift to renewable power technologies. However, these feed-in tariffs could be found to violate the U.S. Constitution and plunge policy over an immovable legal cliff. This article outlines how twenty-seven U.S. states and five European Kyoto Protocol countries employ the constitutionally defensible alternative policy of renewable portfolio standards. Effectively reducing mounting annual carbon emissions is a profound global challenge. This article compares and contrasts the legality of the two primary means that states use to promote alternative renewable energy technologies so as to minimize carbon emissions: feed-in tariffs and renewable portfolio standards. These methods are analyzed against the Supremacy Clause requirements of the Constitution to determine which could violate existing U.S. law, dooming renewable energy and carbon control efforts. This analysis examines the policy options, their implementation, and what will and will not pass legal challenges. For a global push against global warming, the ends must not legally be confused with the means. The common goals of reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases cannot be implemented with the same tools under the separate legal systems of the United States and Europe. Getting legal policy right is imperative so that the transition to sustainable development proceeds smoothly and expeditiously and is not stalled in a protracted constitutional challenge."