Will Renewable Energy Keep Getting Cheaper?
Technological and economic forces will continue to cut prices, regardless of Trump.
The Trump Administration is trying to save coal and stop the growth of renewables. Just this week Scott Pruitt issued a proposed repeal of Obama's Clean Power Plan. Whether or not the repeal succeeds, Pruitt & Co. are fighting against the economic tide. If the price of renewables continues to fall, it will be harder and harder to maintain the use of the high-pollution fuels they favor. Fortunately, there are strong reasons to think that the downward price trend...
CONTINUE READINGHow the filibuster shapes environmental law
Political structures affect how environmental law works
In case you haven’t noticed recently, there’s been some national attention paid to how the US Senate operates. In particular, a lot of attention has been focused on the filibuster, the requirement that for legislation (as opposed to judicial or executive nominees), 60 Senators must vote to close debate on the legislation for a vote to occur, effectively creating a supermajority requirement for legislation. Right now, it’s people like President Trump to call f...
CONTINUE READINGForeseeable Yet Lamentable: Pruitt’s Attack on Carbon Restrictions
As expected, the Trump Administration is trying to repeal Obama’s regulation.
Few things were more foreseeable than a repeal of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) by the Trump Administration. The Clean Power Plan had three strikes against it: (1) it addressed climate change; (2) it disfavored coal and promoted the use of renewable energy in electricity generation; and (3) it came from the Obama Administration. The only real questions were when and how it would be rolled back. Tomorrow, the Administration will take the initial step by the release of a prop...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia’s AB 313–A Solution in Search of a Problem
Governor Brown Should Veto Ill-Conceived Bill That Would Undermine State Water Board's Enforcement Authority
Overall, the California Legislature had a most productive year when it comes to environmental issues. It extended until 2030 the cap-and-trade program that's a centerpiece of the state's ongoing efforts to reduce California's aggregate greenhouse gas emissions. It passed the mis-named "gas tax" legislation, which not only provides funding to rebuild California's once-proud but now crumbling road and highway infrastructure but also makes available much-needed funding ...
CONTINUE READINGDisaster Insurance
States (for wind) and the Feds (for water) provide insurance for hurricane victims. Here's how.
Rebuilding takes money. That makes insurance a crucial part of the equation. Insured losses are expected to be in the $70 billion range for Harvey and Irma combined. This includes commercial insurance, but the payments for home owners will also be hefty. Those costs are generally covered by government-supported insurance markets. I've posted previously about the federal flood insurance system. Basically, the system has three problems. First, rates are unrealis...
CONTINUE READINGGuest Blogger Michael Wara: The Trump Administration Moves to Guarantee Profits for Coal-fired and Nuclear Power Plants
Finally, something anti-regulation conservatives and pro-environment progressives can agree on: dislike of the Sec. Perry’s Resilience and Reliability NOPR
The gloves came off last week when it comes to the Trump Administration’s attempts to subsidize coal in U.S. electricity markets. On Friday, Energy Secretary Rick Perry formally requested that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission guarantee profits for both new and existing coal fired and nuclear power plants. While Sec. Perry doesn’t have the power to take this extraordinary action on his own, FERC does. What happens next will be a true test of the professionalis...
CONTINUE READINGHow “Leakage” Will Undermine Trump’s War Against Renewables
Trying to stop renewables is like playing whack-a-mole.
When you try to reduce use of fossil fuels in one place, you can actually increase emissions elsewhere, because some of the same fuels may just move to another country. In a sense, the carbon that used to be emitted in your country has "leaked" outside your borders. This is a well-known headache for climate policies. But it's an equal problem in reverse for Trump's policies -- the solar panels or windmills that aren't sold in the U.S. can just pop up elsewhere. Th...
CONTINUE READINGRebuilding: Lessons from Katrina and Sandy
Recent experience shows that rebuilding is a slow, frustrating process.
We've had experience with the rebuilding process twice in the past dozen years, after Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. The storm destruction takes place in a matter of days, but rebuilding takes years -- just like the difference between the instant it takes to break a leg and the subsequent weeks of wearing a cast. Houston is going to face a huge task in rebuilding after Hurricane Harvey. So are many parts of Florida after Irma. These situations are roughly comparable to...
CONTINUE READINGPoliticizing Science
The Trump Administration is doubling down on its efforts to silence politically inconvenient science.
We knew about the Administration's disdain for scientific evidence from the beginning but the situation has only continued to deteriorate. The campaign against objective science is now becoming embedded within the government. Far more than its predecessors, the Administration has embarked on a campaign to impose political control on science within the government and in government funding, wherever the scientific evidence is at odds with Administration policy. Here...
CONTINUE READINGIs CEQA the problem?
Developing a better understanding of how land-use law and housing production interact in California
On Friday, the Governor signed a package of housing bills intended to help address the soaring costs of housing in many metro areas in California. Follow-up coverage of that bill package has (rightly) indicated that those bills are a drop in the bucket in terms of addressing California’s housing crisis. One theme that emerges in that coverage and also coverage of other CEQA legislation (as well as a recent op-ed by two economists) is an argument that the California Env...
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