In our federal, constitutional system of government, the states are often lauded as “laboratories of experimentation” for public policy, including for public environmental law. Yet private actors are playing an increasingly important role as parallel regulators through the adoption of private environmental governance. Private environmental governance can functionally advance one of federalism’s core values: policy experimentalism. To the extent that private governance by business firms arouses skepticism for this experimental role because firms’ motives to achieve profit in a competitive environment differ from the incentives motivating public regulators, private universities offer an alternative institutional locus for experimentalism. Using Yale University’s recent adoption of a private carbon charge as a case study, this article argues that universities should play a greater role in private environmental governance experimentalism, and are worthy of more scholarly focus.

中文翻译：

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大学在私立环境治理实验主义中的作用

在我们的联邦宪法政府体系中，各州经常被誉为公共政策（包括公共环境法）的“实验实验室”。然而，通过采用私人环境治理，私人参与者作为平行监管者正在发挥越来越重要的作用。私人环境治理可以在功能上推进联邦主义的核心价值观之一：政策实验主义。由于企业在竞争环境中获得利润的动机不同于激励公共监管者的动机，因此商业公司的私人治理引起了对这种实验性角色的怀疑，私立大学为实验主义提供了另一种制度场所。以耶鲁大学最近采用的私人碳收费为例，