Month: June 2012

Out With the Old, In With the New

A recent GAO report pulls together a lot of information about electricity generators, which shows how much of our air pollution problems are due to aging plants: Older electricity generating units—those that began operating in or before 1978—provided 45 percent of electricity from fossil fuel units in 2010 but produced a disproportionate share of emissions, …

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A Brief Survey for U.S. Environmental Law Professors

At the AALS midyear meeting, as part of the Workshop on Torts, Environment, and Disaster, Bruce R. Huber, John Copeland Nagle, Jessica Owley, Melissa Powers, Kalyani Robbins, Hari Osofsky and I will be co-presenting and co-moderating a session on “Generations of Environmental Law.” To help focus that discussion, we have prepared a brief survey for …

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Who Took the “Think” Out of Think Tanks?

The American Enterprise Institute is an interesting organization, often shrilly ideological but also scholarly from time to time.  I was curious to find out what kind of research they were doing on climate change. I did find some interesting policy papers on their webpage on the topic of climate policy. But here’s the surprising part: …

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Ninth Circuit corrects itself on gold mining and the ESA

Cross-posted at CPRBlog. The en banc 9th Circuit issued its opinion Friday in Karuk Tribe v. US Forest Service. This opinion brings a welcome reversal of a panel opinion from last April which had ruled in a split decision that the Forest Service did not have to consult with the wildlife agencies before authorizing suction …

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Environmental Protection and Conservative Values

Tom Friedman had an interesting column yeserday about conservatism and the environment.  As he points out, the current wave of anti-environmentalism is out of line with Republican traditions: “Teddy Roosevelt bequeathed us national parks, Richard Nixon the Clean Air Act and the Environmental Protection Agency, Ronald Reagan the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer …

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Rent-seeking and property rights in environmental law

Jonathan Adler is guest-posting over at the Atlantic on conservative approaches to environmental law.  In general, I can only support someone who is valiantly trying to make arguments about why conservatives should support efforts to address climate change, and developing climate change policies that are consistent with conservative and libertarian principles.  But I want to …

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