Region: National
200 Days and Counting: Legislation
What are the prospects for major environmental legislation in the near future?
From the perspective of environmental law, one of the most important questions is whether full Republican control of Congress and the White House would lead to fundamental changes to significant environmental laws. These are the kinds of changes that would be most important over the long-run, from a legal perspective. Laws are hard to pass …
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CONTINUE READING200 Days and Counting: Intro
The start of a series on the future of environmental law after 200 days of the Trump Administration
As of August 6, President Trump has been in office for 200 days. When he was elected and inaugurated, there was a great deal of concern about what his Presidency might mean for environmental law. We’ve now gone about 1/8 through his first-term, so we have a little better sense of what the future might …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: Proposed repeal of BLM fracking rule
BLM Proposes to Rescind 2015 Rule on Hydraulic Fracturing
On July 25, 2017 the Bureau of Land Management published in the Federal Register a proposed rule that would rescind the Obama Administration’s 2015 Rule titled “Oil and Gas; Hydraulic Fracturing on Federal and Indian Lands.” This proposal has been anticipated since the Interior Department announced in March earlier this year that the Department intended …
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CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: HR 218
Bill would authorize road through wilderness in Alaska national wildlife refuge
On July 20th the House passed H.R. 218 (248-179). The bill was then sent to the Senate where it was referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The King Cove Road Land Exchange Act would transfer 206 acres of federal land—including 131 acres in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge—to the state of Alaska …
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CONTINUE READINGNational Monuments: a Rebuttal to Commentators who Support Trump’s Actions to Undo Public Lands Protections
This post is co-authored with Sean Hecht. For the past three months, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has been reviewing some of the national monuments designated under the Antiquities Act by Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton. Since the end of last year, we and others at Legal Planet have been writing on the scope …
CONTINUE READINGRick Perry At the Helm of the Department of . . . What Was That One Again?
Compared to other members of the Trump Administration, he’s actually not that bad.
Expectations for Perry were about as low as you can get. He advocated closing the Department of Energy but then forgot the name during a televised debate. He was appointed by Trump, whose fondness for fossil fuels knows no limits, and at the time Perry was selected had little idea of what DOE actually does. …
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CONTINUE READINGObsolete Arguments Against Climate Action
Conservatives keep repeating the same arguments, even though the world has changed.
There used to be some fairly plausible arguments against fighting climate change. I don’t mean crackpot theories about hoaxes or the “I’m not a scientist” hokum. Instead, the arguments I have in mind could be made with a straight face by serious people. I don’t think these arguments were ever truly persuasive, but they weren’t …
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CONTINUE READINGIndustry’s Hostile Takeover of EPA
When you’re Scott Pruitt, who you gonna call? Industry reps.
When there are hard decisions to make, who does EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt turns to? Not, as you might naively think, the experts on the staff of his own agency. Instead, he turns to industry lobbyists and lawyers, and to politicians like the Republican state attorneys general who used to be his colleagues. As the …
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CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Gregory Dotson: Is Scott Pruitt Calling for an Amendment to the Clean Air Act?
EPA Administrator Resorts to Misleading Rhetoric in Possible Prelude to Revisiting Massachusetts v. EPA
Since he was confirmed to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency six months ago, Administrator Scott Pruitt has relied on three points when discussing the issue of climate change. He has cast doubt on the science by claiming it’s difficult to know the human role “with precision.” He has questioned the ability of the agency …
CONTINUE READINGThe Case of the Missing Philanthropy
In light of Trump’s actions, foundations and donors need to step up.
If we learned nothing else from Trump’s disavowal of the Paris Agreement, it’s that we can’t count solely on the federal government to deal with the problem of climate change. It’s not a matter of whether we need state government or municipalities or corporations or non-profits – we need all of the above. But private …
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