Month: November 2009

California Air Resources Board releases draft cap-and-trade plan

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) today released the preliminary draft cap-and-trade regulation. CARB staff would like to have comments by January 11th of next year. A new proposal based on the comments will then be issued in Spring 2010. Some quick key points: 1) The proposal limits a covered entity’s use of offsets to …

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War Tax=Carbon Tax

Congressman David Obey yesterday called for a war tax to pay for troops in Afghanistan. While the idea of a war tax makes all the sense in the world (if health care can’t add to the deficit, why should our wars?), Obey’s proposed tax on upper-income earners is aimed at the wrong source. Instead of …

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The Challenge of Regulating the Ordinary

The title is a play on a great paper of Holly’s about the converse challenge of saving the ordinary.  Whether the ordinary is good or bad, however, it tends to escape our interest and attention because it’s so darn . . . ordinary. Case in point: nitrogen pollution.   We emit a lot of nitrogen oxides …

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Polar Bears. Wolves. Sea Turtles.

Polar Bears.  Wolves.  Sea turtles. Did I mention polar bears, wolves, and sea turtles? The most popular posts on our blogs feature those subjects, along with fetching pictures.  Some people dismissively refer to such creatures as charismatic megafauna, as if there were something wrong with people being attracted to some of nature’s coolest denizens.  But …

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A Lot of Hot Air

One of the arguments that pro-“cap and traders” like to make against a carbon tax is that the outcome of a tax is too uncertain.  Like Goldilocks, you may end up with a tax that is too weak or too strong.  If it’s too weak, the desired environmental emissions targets may not be met; too …

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China’s Problems, Our Problems

President Obama’s trip to China (noted here yesterday by Dan Farber) refocused world attention on China’s mushrooming contributions to global warming. Many have declared that China has eclipsed the United States as the number one emitter of greenhouse gases, and it is evident that its emissions grow by the day. Perhaps the most devastating examples …

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Can You Teach an Old Corps New Tricks?

Five years of Katrina, the Corps may be trying to mend its ways — but is it succeeding?

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Remembering Tom Graff

Last week, California and the nation lost a true giant of water law and policy, Tom Graff, who founded the California office of the Environmental Defense Fund in 1971 and had a hand in every key water battle or negotiation (as well as many other environmental developments) since then. EDF’s memorial page is here; it …

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The multiple values of nature

Two interesting storylines came together last week about what nature does for people. The first has to do with economic value, the second with non-economic value. On the economic side, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, a project of the United Nations Environment Programme, the European Union, and several European nations, released a report for …

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