Politics
Best Climate Anthem? Here’s Your Earth Day Playlist
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
Three years ago, I made the case that Taylor Swift should write a climate anthem because movements need their own music. It hasn’t happened yet. But if you dig a little deeper than the Billboard Hot 100, there are songwriters today who include environmental messages in their music and they follow in the footsteps of …
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CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Slump
The Trump regime is losing ground, creating new policy opportunities.
Trump’s term began with brutal attacks on environment and clean energy policies, but he now longer looks unstoppable. Dems are likely to make major gains in the mid-terms, consumers are deeply unhappy, and his Iran War drags on. These setbacks create openings to push back against his “energy dominance” agenda. Outside the U.S., his effort to expand fossil fuel use is failing. Domestically, there are now openings to blunt his attacks on clean tech and prepare the ground for new policies when he leaves office.
CONTINUE READINGClimate Issues in the 2026 Governor’s Race: Energy Transition
Seventh in a series of posts outlining key challenges and opportunities facing California’s next governor
California is pursuing some of the world’s most ambitious clean energy goals, including a legally mandated zero-emissions electricity sector and statewide GHG emissions neutrality by 2045. When it comes to the energy transition, the stakes for the incoming governor are high: a massive surge in electricity demand from electric vehicles, building electrification, and data centers …
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CONTINUE READINGBlow Your Mind on Space Pics to Save the World
NASA
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
Hope, optimism, humility and awe have been in short supply. This week, I felt all of these things not once but twice — first while sitting in the dark at the movies and again while watching the NASA livestream of Artemis II’s lunar flyby. There is nothing like space exploration to change your frame of …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Path to Abundance, Part VI
Abundance reforms at the federal level may have the most political success if they are low-salience, and elite driven
This is the sixth post in a series of six posts. The first post is here. The second post is here. The third post is here. The fourth post is here. The fifth post is here. As I discussed in my last blog post, the politics of abundance reform are difficult. Reform often requires short-term …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Path to Abundance, Part V
Abundance reforms will require consensus and trust, which are in short supply in American politics
This is the fifth post in a series of six posts. The first post is here. The second post is here. The third post is here. The fourth post is here. In my last post I noted some important political challenges to abundance reforms: It is unlikely that they will produce immediate political benefits, but …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Path to Abundance, Part IV
Abundance reforms may not produce immediate political benefits, and may see significant backlash
This is the fourth post in a series of six posts. The first post is here. The second post is here. The third post is here. As I discussed in my last blog post, abundance policy reforms will necessarily require tradeoffs, which leads us to politics. Will the political context allow for making decisions about …
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CONTINUE READINGDemocratic Governors and the A-word
The Drain is a weekly roundup of environmental and climate news from Legal Planet.
The governors and legislative leaders of several blue states on the East Coast are obsessed with the A-word: affordability. So much so that several of them are looking to pull money away from state programs that boost renewable energy and energy efficiency, as a shortcut to try to lower electricity costs. In Maryland, Rhode Island, …
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CONTINUE READINGLaunching OPERATION EPIC FURRY
It’s time to rename the Endangered Species Act.
Environmentalists need to do better. at marketing Consider the Endangered Species Act. That’s an accurate but uninspiring name. Where’s the pizzaz? Where’s the spark? And the acronym ESA is just lame.The aspects of the law that appeal most to the public are its protections of iconic creatures like polar bears and cute creatures like black-footed ferrets. Why not take a leaf from Trump’s book and rebrand? Make it big, bold, and appealing: EPIC FURRY. Sounds thrilling! It could stand for Endangered Prized Innocent Creatures Flourishing Under Real Regulatory Yodas. The title doesn’t mean anything, but has a nice Star Wars connection, which never hurt anyone’s marketing. And what regulator wouldn’t like to be compared with Yoda the Jedi Master?
CONTINUE READINGSurprise Support for Solar
Solar power is on the Trump Administration hit list, but it turns out to have support in unexpected places.
ere’s a social media post whose content won’t surprise you:
“Solar power is the energy of the future.
“Giant fusion reactor up there in the sky – we must rapidly expand solar to compete with China.”
And from a political ally, a poll that found three-quarters of Trump voters in five states agreed that solar should be used “to strengthen and increase” the U.S. energy supply.
Who were those solar supporters?
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