Politics
Veto trouble
Trump’s veto of consensus legislation is trouble for future bipartisan permitting reform.
This week, President Trump vetoed two pieces of legislation, his first vetoes of his second term. There were two unusual points about these vetoes – even for this Administration. First, the bills in question were small, local matters. One bill involved a water project to benefit rural southeastern Colorado. The other bill expanded the scope …
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CONTINUE READINGSome Good News To Close Out This Year
Despite the Trump Administration’s attempts to bring the world into the dark ages, lots of light is blazing
I’m a pretty pessimistic guy. Finding the dark cloud behind the silver lining is something of a specialty for me. But maybe at the end of an atrocious year for environmental law and policy in the United States, we should look for the good news, and thanks to the good people at Canary Media, there …
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CONTINUE READINGCan Anyone Stop The Kennedy Center Abomination?
The answer may surprise you!!
A friend wrote to me on Friday, asking: isn’t Trump’s “renaming” of the Kennedy Center obviously illegal?” I couldn’t help responding: “what is this ‘illegal’ of which you speak?” Trump has broken so many laws with impunity, and been given a pass by a MAGAt Supreme Court and a supine Congress that such questions do …
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CONTINUE READINGOne Big Energy Idea for the Next Governor
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
If the candidates running to be California’s next governor want a prepackaged idea for how to reduce pollution while making energy more affordable in 2026, here’s one that has been hiding in plain sight. Make a modernization plan to direct money for electrification that is currently being diverted unnecessarily into aging gas infrastructure. But don’t …
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CONTINUE READINGEliminate the Imperial Irrigation District?
Not yet, but maybe soon: a new UCLA report shows how Big Ag water agencies are robbing the rest of the state blind
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has studied water in the West: In a new study, researchers analyzed wholesale prices charged by the federal government in California, Arizona and Nevada, and found that large agricultural water agencies pay only a fraction of what cities pay, if anything at all. They said these …
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CONTINUE READINGSCOTUSblog Falls Into the MAGA Orbit
It’s not there yet, but danger signs are appearing. Invest in real journalism to stop the bleeding.
Like most law nerds, I often check out SCOTUSblog when I want to see what the Corrupt Six are doing nowadays. But I had not caught one major change that we should all watch out for: it has become a part of the right-wing media ecosystem. A few months ago, it was purchased by The …
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CONTINUE READINGThe CAFE Rollback Is Audaciously, Aggressively Awful
The proposal even rolls back standards that the first Trump Administration set.
This morning I blogged about some wonky reactions to the Trump/NHTSA rollback of the CAFE standards. Now I want to step back and highlight just how truly bad the new set of standards is, based on incredibly aggressive legal interpretations. As my first post highlights, the standards are set for ten years despite statutory language …
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CONTINUE READINGSome Early Thoughts on the Dismantling of CAFE Standards
In short, the new standards are full of legal problems (and substantively awful).
It’s hard not to take personally this week’s overturning of the Biden Administration’s CAFE standards, and their replacement with standards that will, if finalized, reduce the projected average miles per gallon of the fleet from over 50 MPG to 34.5. The Biden standards were among my proudest accomplishments while serving at NHTSA (along with increasing …
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CONTINUE READINGIs Trump Running Out of Ideas?
The hectic pace of the first few months seems to have turned into a slow walk, if not a crawl.
The intimidating scale of Trump’s initial actions has now slipped into the routine of ordinary government, allowing the opposition to recover from its initial paralysis.
One downside of “shock and awe” is that you risk a perception of declining momentum later on. It’s like starting the fireworks show with the grand finale; after you’ve shot off all your big rockets, the rest of the show seems dull, and the audience may just wander away.
What’s The Matter With Progressive Billionaires?
Tom Steyer is a good man, but his new gubernatorial campaign ignores how to build real power
It seems like everyone and his brother-in-law is running for California Governor nowadays, and a week ago we got another one: progressive billionaire and climate champion Tom Steyer. One might think that this should be cause for celebration from environmentalists. Steyer is a good man. He has poured money into progressive causes and charities, as …
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