Do Androids Dream of Endangered Sheep?
Imagine there were self-aware AIs. Would they care about the environment?
With the election behind us, I thought it might be a good time to take a step back and do some musing about less impending issues. Unlike most of my posts, this one is more on the speculative side. The title of this post is a riff on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, a novel by Philip K. Dick, which takes place in a world that has suffered mass extinctions. In the book, the remaining animals are now treasured, though many people can only afford robotic imitations. ...
CONTINUE READINGSessions Out, Whitaker In: What Might the DOJ Shakeup Mean for Environmental Enforcement?
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News broke this afternoon that Trump has forced Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III to resign -- naming Sessions’ chief of staff, the Marbury v. Madison critic and sports take tweeter Matthew Whitaker acting AG. This move obviously has some pretty horrifying implications for the country at large, but it’s worth thinking about how the AG can also impact environmental policy. The US Attorney General is our chief law enforcement officer, and heads...
CONTINUE READINGWhat The 2018 Election Results Mean For California Climate Policy
Big wins for state initiatives and pro-climate candidates, plus opportunities for high speed rail and cap and trade
Some big wins for California (and therefore national) climate policy last night: Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom is elected governor, which means the state will continue its climate leadership on various policy fronts Prop. 6 loses, which would have repealed the gas tax increase and meant less funding for transit going forward Prop. 1 wins, which could provide more money for affordable housing in infill areas, reducing driving miles as a result The Democrats win ...
CONTINUE READINGThe 2018 Elections: What’s the Upshot?
Overall, some very positive developments in terms of energy and environmental policy.
What happened on Tuesday? And what does it mean for the environment>? Going into Tuesday’s voting, there were three possible scenarios about the outcome: The Least Favorable Scenario for Environmental Regulation. In this scenario, the Republicans would hang on to control of the House by a smaller margin than today, and they gain several seats in the Senate. Split Control of Congress.Most forecasters thought the Democrats would take the House and that th...
CONTINUE READINGSurvey: What Are The Most Important Cases for Environmental Law?
I am writing to invite you to participate in a survey that I trust you will find interesting and fun. In 1999 and 2009, JB Ruhl (Vanderbilt Law School) and I surveyed environmental law practitioners and academics about which Supreme Court cases they thought were the most important to our field. The 1999 results were published in ABA’s Natural Resources & Environment, and the 2009 results were published in ELI’s The Environmental Forum. A decade later, we ...
CONTINUE READINGSolar Geoengineering and International Law
May states intentionally alter the entire planet's climate?
A couple weeks ago, I introduced solar geoengineering (see also 1, 2, 4 in the series). This is a set of proposed technologies that would reduce climate change by blocking or reflecting a small portion of incoming sunlight. It appears that it would be effective in reducing climate change, inexpensive, rapid, and technically feasible. It would also pose environmental risks and social challenges. Here, I offer a brief overview of the relevant legal landscape. In contr...
CONTINUE READINGSAFE From Kavanaugh?
Would the newest Justice uphold the Trump administration’s fuel economy standards rollback?
A little over a week ago, my colleagues and I submitted comments to EPA and NHTSA urging the withdrawal of the Trump administration’s so-called “SAFE” rule, which would roll back the federal fuel economy standards for model year 2021-2026 passenger cars and light trucks and revoke California’s waiver for its Advanced Clean Cars program. The Advanced Clean Cars program, among other things, includes California’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate. The ZEV ma...
CONTINUE READINGMajor Policy Attacks on California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and Why They’re Off-Target
Second in a Series About California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard Program
[Post co-authored by Ted Parson and Sean Hecht] In this post, we continue our discussion of California’s Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), which we introduced in our post on October 4, 2018. Because it’s a prominent and ambitious policy that will reduce California’s reliance on petroleum-based transport fuels, it is unsurprising the Low-Carbon Fuel Standard has attracted forceful attacks. Opponents of the LCFS have advanced various critiques of the policy, ...
CONTINUE READINGWhat’s New Under the Sun?
New Book Demonstrates the Hidden History of Climate Science
It's a great regret of mine that I did not study the history of science either as an undergraduate or in graduate school. Then, it seemed to me like an arcane, recondite field -- almost bizarre. Boy, was I wrong. Now in my rapidly advancing dotage, I recognize how it touches on so many of the essential aspects not only of human civilization as well as the fundamental nature of truth, and combines qualitative and quantitative investigation in often profound ways. What ...
CONTINUE READINGElection Scenarios
Here are three ways things could play out from now to 2020.
We should know within the next 48 hours who will control the House and Senate, though if races are very tight it might take longer. I don't want to make election predictions -- that's Nate Silver's job, not mine. But I do want to sketch out some scenarios for the next two years, depending on the election results. I'm assessing them by whether they favor environmental regulation -- so if you're anti-regulatory, you'll need to modify the labels. The Least Favorable Scen...
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