Year: 2009
Corps proposes to require individual permits for mountaintop removal mining
Last month, the Obama administration announced an interagency agreement to develop a coordinated policy on mountaintop removal mining. Now the Army Corps of Engineers has taken the first step toward implementing that promise. The Corps has been permitting mountaintop mining through Nationwide Permit 21, a process that provides little opportunity for public input and environmental …
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CONTINUE READINGOne step toward Klamath River dam removal, many more remain
The agreement to remove four dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California is one step closer to implementation. Yesterday Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski signed into law a bill that will provide up to $180 million from surcharges on electric rates toward the costs of decommissioning and removing the dams. The new law is …
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CONTINUE READINGCap and trade: it’s never worked, so let’s try it on a massive scale
Why exactly do people believe that cap-and-trade is going to be effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions? Let’s face it: cap and trade is a nice idea that simply doesn’t work in practice. The one success story that proponents have held up was the successful effort to control acid rain. However, that program involved a …
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CONTINUE READINGFor once, regulation precedes crisis
Often government doesn’t notice, or at least isn’t sufficiently motivated to respond to, the need for regulation until after something goes badly wrong (witness the financial market meltdown). But this week the National Marine Fisheries Service got ahead of the curve. On Monday, NMFS finalized a rule prohibiting all fishing for krill, the non-charismatic but …
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CONTINUE READINGThe U.S. Supreme Court; the Environment – It’s Not Too Late to Get Briefed
Recently, Berkeley Law’s environmental faculty presented a fast-paced, informative webcast on the numerous, key environmental law decisions handed down by the United Supreme Court in its just-concluded Term. The 90-minute webcast was sponsored and hosted by Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE). Berkeley Law professors Dan Farber, Holly Doremus, Eric Biber …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Sotomayor Hearing and the Climate Nuisance Case
The NY Times reports that one issue in the confirmation hearing may be a case involving climate change. The plaintiffs sued under the federal common law of nuisance for injunctive relief against public utilities for their carbon emissions. The case has now been pending before a panel including Judge Sotomayor for several years. It’s definitely …
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CONTINUE READINGOf judges and umpires
With the Senate about to begin hearings on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and major league baseball at the all-star break, thoughts turn naturally to the intersection of America’s Court and America’s pastime. That intersection, of course, lies at the question of whether the judge should play the same role in …
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CONTINUE READINGSetbacks for Coal
Two setbacks for coal this week: First, the Georgia Court of Appeals issued an order that will result in further delay of the Longleaf coal-fired power plant proposed for Early County, Georgia. Second, U.S. EPA notified the state of Kansas and Sunflower Electric Power Corp. that a new air quality permit will be required before …
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CONTINUE READINGBad News for Climate Reductions, Troubling Prospects for Copenhagen
President Obama’s failure at the G-8 summit to get the largest developing countries to agree to set goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 was only one piece of bad news this week for efforts to attack global warming. Although the House of Representatives narrowly passed the Waxman-Markey bill last week, prospects in the …
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CONTINUE READINGGreetings from New England – Home to Green Jobs, But No Polar Bears
Residents of Pittsfield, Massachusetts who stay close to home may not have seen a polar bear in – well – a long time, and the economy may be in a general slump. but the town fathers and mothers have seen a recent growth in green jobs. The Berkshire Eagle reports that The Center for Ecological …
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