Professor Murthy's Water Justice Article Selected for Prestigious 2025 Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review

01.14.25—Professor Sharmila Murthy’s article, “Disrupting Utility Law for Water Justice,” published in the Stanford Law Review in 2024, has been selected for inclusion in the 17th edition of the prestigious Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR). A joint publication of the Environmental Law Institute’s (ELI) Environmental Law Reporter and Vanderbilt University Law School, ELPAR identifies the year’s best academic articles that present legal and policy solutions to pressing environmental problems. Murthy’s article posits that the increasing unaffordability of household water — which threatens basic water access for millions of Americans — requires a re-examination of the key tenets of water utility law. Utilities often interpret these principles as prohibiting any form of cross subsidization, which prevents them from using water revenue to fund affordability programs, even when it may make financial sense. The article examines several jurisdictions to demonstrate how states or local governments could modify their utility laws to overcome legal barriers to affordability. Building on these case studies, the article concludes with a suggested policy reform: developing a model state law through the Uniform Law Commission.
“I am thrilled for this article to be recognized because it highlights the critical need to address water affordability, an important environmental justice and public health issue facing our country,” said Murthy, who holds a joint appointment with the School of Law and the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs within the College of Social Sciences and Humanities. “As a next step, I look forward to the opportunity to work with scholars, advocates, utilities, industry groups, nonprofit organizations, and state and local governments to build a case for developing a model law on water affordability through the Uniform Law Commission.”
In conjunction with the publication, ELI and Vanderbilt co-sponsor an annual conference at which the authors of the articles and article commenters present their ideas and views to an audience that includes business, government (federal, state and local), think tank and nonprofit representatives. The 2025 conference will be held on March 28 in Washington, DC.
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