Automation Leads To Efficiency Gains But Job Losses At Southern California Port
Controversial issue to be discussed at upcoming UCLA conference on zero-emission freight at Southern California's ports
Automation threatens to eliminate many manufacturing jobs around the world, as robots now perform factory line tasks that used to be done by humans. Now the technology is starting to be deployed through self-driving vehicles in places like ports, with similar results. It's an issue we'll discuss at the upcoming free UCLA/Berkeley Law conference on June 8th at UCLA on zero-emission freight at Southern California's ports (featuring a keynote presentation by Californ...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Supreme Court Ruling Represents Big Win for State Water Board–& California’s Environment
Justices Uphold Water Board's "User Pays" Fee System Against Constitutional Attack
The California Supreme Court has handed the State Water Resources Control Board a major legal win, rejecting an industry challenge to the "user pays"-based system of funding the Board's water pollution control system. In doing so, the Supreme Court has fended off yet another constitutional challenge to the manner in which environmental regulatory fees are set in California, in a decision that's likely to have broad applicability to a host of important regulatory pr...
CONTINUE READINGDisastrous Inequality
Puerto Rico was hit much harder than Houston. But help was much slower coming.
Texas and Puerto Rico both got hit very hard last year by major hurricanes. But the federal government moved a lot more quickly to get help to Texas. In a new paper, I document the difference and explore the reasons. Although I won't go into all the details here, this is a situation people need to know about. This table gives a sense of the difference, though there's a more extensive table in the paper. (Please go to the Legal-Planet website if you're an email subsc...
CONTINUE READINGEnergy Innovation and the Feds
Even under unified GOP rule, the federal government remains firmly committed to energy research.
Energy research is alive and well, notwithstanding Trump’s antipathy to research in general and climate/energy research in particular. We mostly associate energy research with the Department of Energy, its network of national labs, and its ARPA-E program. I’ve written previously about those programs and the importance of energy innovation. But it turns out that a lot of energy research takes place elsewhere in the federal government. The Defense Department is a bi...
CONTINUE READINGThe Hurricane Outlook
The journalists are sure about the 2018 hurricane season. The scientists? Not so much.
I'm actually in Puerto Rico today for a conference on the situation here after Hurricane Maria. Since hurricanes are on my mind, I wondered what the forecast for this year looks like. As it turns out, the headlines give significantly different takes on what to expect. Here is a sample of news stories, all issued within a few weeks of each other: “Near-Average 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season Expected” (weather.com) 13 named storms, 6 hurricanes, 2 at Cat 3 or above...
CONTINUE READINGThe Questionable Legal Basis of the “Transparency” Proposal
EPA seems unsure of the legal authority for its proposal — and for good reason.
“They sat at the Agency and said, ‘what can we do to reimagine authority under the statutes to regulate an area that we are unsure that we can but we’re going to do so anyway?’” When he said those words, Scott Pruitt was talking about the Obama Administration. But it seems to be a pretty accurate description of the “transparency” proposal he issued last week. Everyone agrees that it would be good to increase the public availability of scientific infor...
CONTINUE READINGThe New EPA Plan To Roll Back Auto Emissions Standards and “Supersede” the California Waiver is Legally Indefensible
It is also terrible for the planet
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that EPA will propose to roll back greenhouse gas emissions standards for automobiles to 2020 levels. EPA will also claim that the California waiver is superseded by fuel economy standards issued by NHTSA and therefor is not valid, according to the report: Administration lawyers argue that the law gives NHTSA [the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration] power to pre-empt California's authority to set its own rules. N...
CONTINUE READINGPruitt’s Utterly Opaque “Transparency” Proposal
Ironically, the proposal calling for greater transparency provides little clue into the agency's thinking.
EPA recently issued a notice of proposed rulemaking entitled “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science.” The proposal would prohibit the agency from considering studies of health risks unless enough data is made publicly available to allow EPA or industry to validate the results. That sounds fine, but these studies often involve either confidential health records or trade secrets of a chemical manufacturer. One example would be the test results and medical fi...
CONTINUE READINGEPA Should Not Repeal the Clean Power Plan
The writing may be on the wall, but it’s still a terrible idea
Coauthored with Nat Logar Today is the close of EPA’s public comment period on its proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan. Though EPA’s decision to backtrack from the rule hardly seems in doubt, it is still important to state that repealing the Clean Power Plan is a terrible idea. My colleagues Ann Carlson, Nat Logar and I, together with William Boyd, submitted a comment letter making this argument with and on behalf of a group of electricity grid experts from ar...
CONTINUE READINGAnalyzing a CAFE Rollback
Rolling back the CAFE standards is going to be a heavy analytic lift at best.
The Trump Administration has begun a review of the second phase of fuel efficiency standards adopted by the Obama Administration. Ann Carlson has already blogged about the harmful effects of such a rollback. A new paper by researchers at Resources for the Future sheds some additional light on the situation. Although the study does not support a rollback, it does suggest how the Administration might conceivably be able to cobble together a good enough explanation to ho...
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