Region: National
Polticial Bias Versus Scientific Integrity: An Empirical Test
What the effort to pack the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board can teach us.
Many people distrust environmental science, though for different reasons. Progressives may discount science that they see as supporting business interests. Meanwhile, conservatives may think scientists come to “politically correct” conclusions in order to get grants. It’s reasonable to think that these things may sometimes happen. But how strong are these effects? Unwittingly, the Trump Administration …
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CONTINUE READINGTransit-Oriented Development Shouldn’t Be A Coronavirus Casualty
California still needs more housing close to transit.
In recent weeks, California has emerged as one center of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it continues to face challenges that existed long before the disease reached the state. Two serious ones: how California will meet its ever more stringent greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and how the state will manage to provide affordable housing for …
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CONTINUE READINGStill Not SAFE
The Trump administration moves ahead with plans to roll back Obama-era fuel economy standards.
After months of delay, the Trump administration has reportedly chosen this coming week—in the middle of a nationwide crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic—to finally release the second part of its two-part rollback of Obama-era automotive fuel economy standards. This isn’t the only environmental rollback action the administration is planning to take during the coming …
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CONTINUE READINGThe Environmental Pollution Agency Prioritizes Environmental Rollbacks While Dropping Environmental Enforcement
New Policy Allows Companies to Use Covid-19 As an Excuse to Pollute
The covid-19 epidemic is providing the Environmental Protection Agency with the perfect opportunity to demonstrate its priorities: full speed ahead with environmental roll backs, including greenhouse gas/fuel economy standards for cars, cutting back on the regulation of mercury from power plants, loosening regulations on coal ash from coal plants and more. Employees at EPA have …
CONTINUE READINGWhile You Were Sleeping: Coronavirus Apparently Won’t Stop Trump Environmental Rollbacks
EPA May Roll Back Car Standards Next Week
The New York Times is reporting that, despite the corona crisis and the shelter in place orders affecting people around the country, Andrew Wheeler is pressuring his EPA staff to release a finalized rule rolling back greenhouse gas emissions/fuel economy standards for cars. These EPA staff are for the most part working from home with …
CONTINUE READINGFederalism and the Pandemic
For statutory, practical, and constitutional reasons, states are on the front line.
The states have been out in front in dealing with the coronavirus. Apart from Trump’s tardy response to the crisis, there are reasons for this, involving limits on Trump’s authority, practicalities, and constitutional rulings. Statutory limits. As I discussed in a previous post, the President’s power to deal with an epidemic is mostly derived from …
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CONTINUE READINGAre Pandemics An Argument Against Cities?
COVID-19 spread shows governance matters more than density
With the COVID-19 virus shutting down cities and countries all over the world, anti-urban advocates are seizing the moment to argue that pandemics prove urban density is bad. For example, longtime sprawl booster Joel Kotkin argues that shelter-in-place orders and fear of contagion will push people to demand more lower-density homes, far from crowded and …
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CONTINUE READINGCourt Rejects Trump Administration’s Cap-and-Trade Lawsuit Against California
Federal Government’s Constitutional Challenge to California’s Linked GHG Reduction Plan Fails
Since President Trump took office in early 2017, the State of California has filed over 70 different lawsuits challenging the Trump Administration’s policy initiatives on multiple fronts, including the environment, immigration policy and health care. Over 40 of California’s lawsuits have targeted the Administration’s efforts to roll back longstanding federal environmental protection, natural resource management …
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CONTINUE READINGInequality and the Coronavirus
Everyone is at risk, but some more than others.
It’s a truism among disaster experts that people who were disadvantaged before a disaster are also the most vulnerable during the disaster. There are aspects of the coronavirus pandemic that fit this mold. Here are some of the disparities we can expect to see. Rural v. Urban. Much of our economic growth and job opportunity …
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CONTINUE READINGUncertainty in the Age of Coronavirus
There’s a lot we don’t know at this point. How should we deal with that?
Knowledge about the coronavirus is limited but growing. In the meantime, how should we cope with this uncertainty? I can’t give you psychological advice, but I can say something about how to think about this uncertainty. How to make decisions under uncertainty is something we know a lot about from the environmental sphere. Uncertainty is …
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