Month: February 2010

The Ironic History of Cap-and-Trade

The phrase “cap-and-trade” is relatively new, but the idea of marketable pollution allowances goes back several decades.  Conventional pollution laws impose direct mandates on polluters, telling each polluter precisely what level of pollution control is required.  For a variety of reasons, economists have always disapproved of this approach.  They prefer pollution taxes (a/k/a effluent charges) …

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Big Headline News: Los Angeles Resident Voluntarily Takes the Bus

You can read all about the fact that a 26 year old white girl in Los Angeles actually chooses to ride the bus  here.

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Earth’s Climate: The Owner’s Manual

If you want an authoritative source on climate science, of course you could go to the IPCC Reports.  That assumes, of course, that you’re willing to plow through hundreds and hundreds of pages of detailed information.  Now, there’s a good alternative.  The Climate Crisis is a clear, accessible introduction to everything we know about the …

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Conference Webcast – The Environment and the Constitution

*Webcast is archived for later viewing, if you didn’t catch the live event. On February 26, 2010.  9:00 a.m. –  5:30 p.m.webcast of (EST), you can attend the Environmental Protection in the Balance: Citizens, Courts, and the Constitution at Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC. Today, the most important environmental law and policy disputes are …

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GM Kills the Hummer

Yippee!! The environmental benefits of this move are clear, but it will also make the roads safer. Next up, SUVs?  We can hope.

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Property Rules, Liability Rules, Patents, and Climate Change

I suggested a few weeks ago that India and the United States might try foster climate cooperation by having India agree to use climate-friendly technology and the United States asgree not to pursue any legal actions under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property treaty. But of course there is a catch: at some point inventors …

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Jody Freeman Leaving White House Post

Harvard Law School’s website has this announcement that Jody Freeman will return to the law school next month after serving just over a year as counselor to Energy Czar Carol Browner:  http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/02/24_freeman.to.return.html

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(Vermont) Yankee Go Home!

You may recall the Supreme Court’s decision in the Vermont Yankee case.  It was a major administrartive law decision.  Prior to Vermont Yankee, the D.C. Circuit and some other courts had been experimenting with an approach to judicial review which focused on helping to improve agency procedures, rather than reviewing the substance of the agency’s …

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UCLA Clinic persuades federal Administrative Law Judge to vacate approval of new coal mining permit on Indian land in Arizona

I have some exciting news I can’t resist sharing: UCLA’s Frank G. Wells Environmental Law Clinic won a major administrative case last month, which is now final now that the time for appeal has run. All twelve of our clinic students spent a significant chunk of this fall working on it, along with me and …

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Is EPA backtracking on Clean Air Act greenhouse gas regulation?

UPDATE: Cara discusses in this post some further developments that make the EPA’s plans more concrete, and concludes that the EPA is backtracking significantly from its proposed rule by delaying the timetable and by regulating fewer facilities. **** Last fall, our Environmental Protection Agency appeared to be on the verge of moving very quickly to …

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