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The energy system in the United States is undergoing its most profound transformation in decades. It resulted not from any conscious policy or advance planning, but rather from the emergence of new technologies—hydraulic fracturing coupled with horizontal drilling—that have dramatically increased the supply and lowered the price of natural gas. This cheap gas is squeezing out all competing forms of electricity—coal, nuclear, and renewable. Companies are investing billions of dollars in natural gas drilling, processing, piping, and combustion infrastructure, and therefore setting the energy course for decades to come. Whether this is very good news, very bad news, or something in between for the climate isn’t clear yet, mostly because natural gas is primarily methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and we don’t know yet how much leaks out, and whether any leakage can be controlled through the right technologies and regulations. The answers will determine whether the apparent climate advantages of natural gas over coal are real or illusory. Deciding on the future of natural gas, rather than just letting it happen, is one of the most urgent environmental policy questions facing this country.

Right now, I am watching two cases with particular interest. [One is] Fisher v. University of Texas, which challenges the constitutionality of the University of Texas' consideration of race and ethnicity in its admissions process. Some of us thought the issue of affirmative action in higher education was resolved for a while: The Supreme Court in the 2003 University of Michigan affirmative action case (Grutter v. Michigan) upheld consideration of race and ethnicity as a factor to promote diversity in higher education. But in Fisher, the Court might revisit this core holding of Grutter.

I am also interested in the challenge to Proposition 8 in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the constitutional challenge to the California proposition limiting gay men and lesbians from marrying. The case is interesting from a civil liberties perspective, but my interest as a legislation scholar is particularly related to the constitutionality of ballot propositions. The Supreme Court has a special line of cases on the question of whether state ballot measures that discriminate against particular groups violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Because these clauses were adopted by the voters (and not by a legislature or executive), the Court's Equal Protection analysis will likely have to contend with the difficulty of showing that voters were motivated by discriminatory intent. Specifically, I am interested in whether the Supreme Court will sustain and refine its precedent in Romer v. Evans (striking down a Colorado state referendum that discriminated against gays and lesbians).

The Bo Xilai case has widely been viewed in China as a victory for those pushing for further legal reforms—because Bo's personal leadership model in Chongqing emphasized populism at the expense of legal process. Yet the case also reveals a central characteristic of the legal system: It is largely irrelevant when it comes to the most sensitive cases in China.

What will happen if we go off the fiscal cliff? The answer is familiar to many: Tax rates will go up, tax holidays will expire, large cuts in military spending will take place, and social programs will lose some (and, perhaps, more than some) funding. And what if we avert the cliff and regain our balance? This time, the answer may be less familiar: Taxes will rise, military spending will be reduced, and social programs will be downsized. There are important differences between these two scenarios, however. If we go off the cliff, the spending cuts and the tax increases will take place by operation of the law that is already on the books. No new legislation will be required; no bipartisanship will be necessary; no wrenching decisions will need to be made. Relatedly, winners and losers in this scenario are well-known already. If we are to avoid the cliff, however, Congress and the president must join in making some of the most painful and far-reaching economic choices of our times. We cannot continue to run trillion-dollar deficits much longer, or we will become another Greece (with no EU to bail us out). Sooner rather than later, we will need massive spending cuts and major revenue increases to avert a fiscal catastrophe that would make the current fiscal cliff look like child’s play. The crucial question, then, is how the burden of higher taxes and lower social spending will be distributed, not whether higher taxes and smaller social programs are coming. We may avoid the fiscal cliff, but the fiscal pain is unavoidable.

It was recently reported that the Obama administration has been working to develop a “drone-warfare rulebook”—explicit guidelines for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones. Many are concerned about the secrecy that surrounds these activities. Some have suggested that the disclosure of the codification effort was intended to preserve this larger secrecy, by signaling to critics that going forward the use of drones will be rule-governed. I believe these suggestions mistake the dynamic relationship between the institutionalization of policy and the production of transparency. If this rulebook gets created, its general contents will come out. Possibly an internal skeptic will leak; far more likely, top administration officials will, at some point, make a considered decision to reveal the key standards and procedures. Which, in my view, would be a good thing, not only for democracy and the rule of law, but also for the government’s long-term national security interests.