Dark Waters in Dark Times
Citizen Petition Presses EPA To Call Chemicals in Environmental Docudrama "Hazardous Waste"
This holiday season, A-list actors drew moviegoers to a film with a distinctly un-Hollywood plot line: A company dumps thousands of pounds of toxic, long-lived chemicals (PFAS, or per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances) into unlined pits that drain into a farming community’s drinking water. Local residents fall ill, some terminally. A heroic attorney (Mark Ruffalo) represents them pro bono for years at great personal cost (neglected spouse Anne Hathaway). When ...
CONTINUE READINGThe Real Lesson From Madrid’s Failed Climate Conference? Spain’s Success On Urban Quality of Life & Carbon Emissions
Southern European nation excels at walkability, reduced emissions & resident happiness
Tea in Madrid's Plaza de San Ildefonso The UN climate conference in Madrid last month may have ended poorly, but conference attendees had a big success story right in front of them in the host country. Spain’s success achieving efficient – and enjoyable – land use and transportation outcomes is a model other countries and states should emulate to address climate change. Spanish cities and towns feature many remarkable urban spaces, not unlike those found ...
CONTINUE READINGMisunderstanding the Law of Causation
Trump's NEPA proposal flunks Torts as well as Environmental Science 101.
Last week's NEPA proposal bars agencies from considering many of the harms their actions will produce, such as climate change. These restrictions profoundly misunderstand the nature of environmental problems and are based on the flimsiest of legal foundations. Specifically, the proposal tells agencies they do not need to consider environmental “effects if they are remote in time, geographically remote, or the product of a lengthy causal chain.” The proposal also...
CONTINUE READINGPride Goeth Before a Fall
Trump thinks he can tell courts how to interpret NEPA. He's wrong.
White House has just released its proposed revisions to the rules about environmental impact statements. The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) simply does not have the kind of power that it is trying to arrogate to itself. The proposal is marked by hubris about the government's ability to control how the courts apply the law. That hubris is evident in the proposal's effort to tell courts when lawsuits can be brought and what kind of remedies th...
CONTINUE READINGAndy and Dave Shoot the Breeze
An inside look at the Trump Administration.
[Open with a shot of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt at his desk with his phone to his ear. Ring tone in the background. Split screen after EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler picks up.] Bernhardt: Hey Andy, how ya doin’? How’s life in the Inferior Department? Wheeler: Not so bad, Davey boy, not so bad. B: You in the clear on the Ukraine stuff? [Camera switches to Wheeler] W: Never even heard of the country until a couple of months ago. [chuc...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s Major Housing Bill, Take 3: New Amendments Announced For Local Flexibility
Will Governor Newsom now put his weight behind Sen. Wiener's SB 50?
California State Senator Scott Wiener launched his third legislative attempt today at boosting California's housing supply. SB 50 aims to address the state's massive housing shortage, which has resulted in high home prices and rents, gentrification, displacement, inequality, homelessness, and a mass middle-class exodus to high-emission states like Texas and Arizona. Because this housing undersupply is caused primarily by restrictive local land use polici...
CONTINUE READINGWe Can’t Count on Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions to Prevent Dangerous Climate Change
Although reducing emissions remains essential, it is time to focus on additional responses
Last month, representatives of all countries gathered for their annual meeting to prevent climate change. Despite the motto “Time for Action,” the New York Times described it as “one of the worst outcomes in a quarter-century of climate negotiations.” Should we be surprised? Disappointed? Despairing? I believe that insufficient cuts in greenhouse gas emissions — which is the consistent outcome of nearly three-decades of such climate negotiations — is to be ex...
CONTINUE READINGA Paper Tiger?
Trump is proposing big changes to CEQ regs. But they may not matter.
The Trump Administration is trying to gut the current White House rules on environmental impact statements. Some people view this move as a death blow to an important environmental tool. Here's what Trump is trying to do and why it may not matter as much as people fear. As to what Trump & Co. are trying to do, the same statute that created environmental impact statements also created a White House agency called the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). CEQ has...
CONTINUE READINGDrawdown Marin
How Does a Local Government Reduce GHG Emissions?
In November, Australia’s deputy Prime Minister described those making the link between climate change and bush fires as “inner-city raving lunatics.” We can report some progress. His boss, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, now acknowledges the link (although he wants to maintain current policies). As climate impacts become more extreme and obvious, more jurisdictions, from cities and townships to states and nations want to take greater action more quickly. Bu...
CONTINUE READINGA Continent on Fire Ignores Climate Change
Conditions in Australia keep getting worse. The government offers platitudes.
Australia is remarkably exposed to climate change and remarkably unwilling to do much about it. Conditions keep getting worse. Yet climate policy in Australia has been treading water or backpedalling for years, as I discussed in an earlier post. Let's start with the temperature. The Guardian reports that in the year up to July 2019, Alice Springs (in the interior) had 55 days above 104 °F. On New Year’s Eve of 2018, it set a new record of 113 °F. In December 2...
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