Year: 2009
News Flash: White House Approves Endangerment Finding
ClimateWire (subscription required) reports; U.S. EPA’s proposed endangerment finding cleared the White House review process yesterday, paving the way for an official announcement detailing the threats posed by global warming to both public health and welfare. President Obama’s EPA inherited the global warming review following an April 2007 Supreme Court decision that ordered the Bush …
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CONTINUE READINGThe (Environmental) Wealth of Nations
Costa Rica is taking seriously the idea that national wealth does not solely consist of physical or financial assets but also of environmental goods and natural resources. As Thomas Friedman explained in yesterday’s column: “More than any nation I’ve ever visited, Costa Rica is insisting that economic growth and environmentalism work together. It has created …
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CONTINUE READINGIs April the New May?
This beautiful spring day seems an appropriate occasion to think about the changing of the seasons. That’s coming earlier and earlier these days. From RealClimate: Did you know that in 1965 the U.S. Department of Agriculture planted a particular variety of lilac in more than seventy locations around the U.S. Northeast, to detect the onset …
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CONTINUE READINGNEPA and terrorism
To what extent does the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have to consider the threat of terrorist attack in the environmental analysis it undertakes for nuclear power plant licensing decisions? A March 31 decision from the Third Circuit, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection v. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, creates a circuit split on that question. In the …
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CONTINUE READINGChina and Climate Change
In a recent lecture at Berkeley, Orville Schell discussed the attitudes of Chinese leaders toward climate change. One significant factor is the increased understanding of how vulnerable China’s water supply is to climatic changes on the Tibetan Plateau, which is a key source of water for 2 billion Asians. The speech includes some remarkable photos …
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CONTINUE READINGCustomer Impacts From Waxman’s Cap & Trade? Let’s Not Exaggerate
In Wednesday’s New York Times, Felicia Barringer reports on pocketbook concerns related to the Waxman-Markey carbon cap and trade proposal as expressed by parishioners at St. Louis’ Greater Mount Carmel Baptist Church. The article contains the following statement, attributed to a representative from the local electric utility: “Jaime Haro, Ameren UE’s director of asset management …
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CONTINUE READINGRx for the oceans
The Joint Ocean Commission Initiative, the merger of the Pew Oceans Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, has issued a new report titled Changing Oceans, Changing World. It lays out an agenda for short-term actions for Congress and the Obama administration. The report’s key recommendations will be familiar to those who follow ocean …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat’s new on the Delta?
Quite a bit, and most of the news is bad. American Rivers has declared the Sacramento-San Joaquin the most endangered river in the United States. The longfin smelt has been listed as threatened by the state, but it is not going to be federally listed, at least not yet. Commercial salmon fishing off the California …
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CONTINUE READINGCleaning Up the Bush EPA’s Dry Cleaning Rule
The Washington Post reported that EPA “is reconsidering whether to compel dry cleaners to phase out a cancer-causing chemical used in tens of thousands of operations nationwide.” In 2006, the Bush Administration issued an air toxics rule for professional dry cleaners using perchloroethylene in which it tightened technology requirements, but refused to phase out use …
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CONTINUE READINGFree Allowances! Get Your Free Allowances!
From WashPo, The Obama administration might agree to postpone auctioning off 100 percent of emissions allowances under a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas pollution, White House science adviser John P. Holdren said today, a move that would please electricity providers and manufacturers but could anger environmentalists. Why would this “anger environmentalists’? I certainly see …
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