The Truth About Environmental Originalism
Scott Pruitt advocates environmental originalism. It means the direct opposite of what he thinks.
Scott Pruitt has taken to talking about environmental originalism – going back to the original intent of our environmental laws. But he’s got the original intent completely backwards. The statutes weren’t intended to protect jobs or grow the economy. They were intended to protect the environment, with cost at best a secondary consideration. This is exactly why economists have long criticized our environmental statutes. Obama has been constantly attacked by cons...
CONTINUE READINGWhen Trump’s Name is Forgotten, His Carbon Will Remain
Much of the carbon from his policies will remain in the atmosphere for centuries.
Given Trump's desire to increase the use of fossil fuels, it's no surprise that his presidency will result in increased carbon emissions. Some of the carbon will remain in the atmosphere for centuries, an enduring monument to his presidency and his rejection of scientific facts. Before the election, I took a stab at estimating that impact, based on EPA's projections in the Clean Power Plan: One of Trump’s pledges is to eliminate Obama’s Clean Power Plan. Th...
CONTINUE READINGPublic Lands Watch: BLM Methane Rule
BLM delays compliance date for certain provisions of the rule
As we reported earlier, the Obama Administration promulgated a regulation restricting the emissions of methane from oil and gas operations on federal public lands. Efforts to use the Congressional Review Act to overturn that regulation failed last month. Now the Interior Department is delaying compliance with certain provisions of the rule indefinitely, citing pending litigation over the rule. (The specific provision is The Federal Register notice with the proposal...
CONTINUE READINGTrump Administration Seeks Ninth Circuit Review in Pioneering “Atmospheric Trust” Case
U.S. District Judge Has Denied Government's Effort to Dismiss Cutting-Edge Public Trust/Climate Change Case
Back in August 2015, I blogged on a then newly-filed federal lawsuit in which a coalition of children and their legal guardians sued the federal government to challenge the government's proposed approval of a controversial liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal proposed to be located on the Oregon coast. That lawsuit contends that approval of the project would incrementally increase the nation's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and--more dramatically--that the childr...
CONTINUE READINGNational Monuments Update
Interior Department releases interim report, recommends changes to Bears Ears National Monument
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke released his interim report yesterday on Bears Ears National Monument, recommending that President Trump re-draw the monument's boundaries. Secretary Zinke's report misreads both the Antiquities Act and President Obama's 2016 Proclamation that created Bears Ears National Monument, and any move by President Trump to downsize the monument without an act of Congress would be unlawful. Under President Trump's Executive Order from April, Zink...
CONTINUE READINGBoosting Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure To Meet Demand
Free luncheon and report release event at UCLA Law on Thursday, June 29th, with keynote by Energy Commissioner Janea Scott
Few clean technologies are as central for meeting climate change goals as electric vehicles. Yet in places like California, which leads the U.S. with approximately 300,000 EVs on the road, the needed charging infrastructure is lagging. Analysts estimate that the state will need as many as 220,000 publicly accessible EV charging ports by 2020 to meet demand, well beyond the roughly 12,000 available in the state today. How will California meet this challenge? Join the...
CONTINUE READINGThe Dangerous Politics of Nostalgia
It's a good idea to look in the direction you're traveling, not backwards to your past.
In an airport, I recently saw a sign above the moving walkway advising us to face in the direction we were traveling. That's sound advice for life in general and policy making in particular. It's a recipe for failure to try to restore the past rather than looking toward the future. Unfortunately, rather than embracing the future, the Trump Administration has its eyes firmly locked on an imagined 1950s golden age. Trump notoriously favors the old energy secto...
CONTINUE READINGCalifornia Members of Congress Seek to Eviscerate State Water & Environmental Laws
H.R. 23 Would Preempt California State Water Law & Supersede Federal, State Environmental Statutes
Quite understandably, the attention of the media, environmental organizations and the general public has been focused on the myriad misadventures of the Trump Administration, now rumbling and stumbling through its fifth month. And, as recounted on Legal Planet since mid-January, those contretemps include a great deal of environmental mischief emanating from the Executive Branch. But it would be a mistake to focus just on (anti-) environmental policies being generat...
CONTINUE READINGVox Populi and the Environment
Is Trump's attack on environmental law riding a groundswell of public opinion? Apparently not.
Trump is pushing hard to rollback Obama's climate change regulations, expand the use of fossil fuels, and discourage renewables. Where does the public stand on all this? The answer is that the public is mostly on the other side, but more needs to be done to heighten public awareness. A recent survey conducted jointly by Politico and Harvard had some intriguing findings. Sixty percent of Americans favored staying in the Paris Agreement after it was explained them. ...
CONTINUE READINGTrump’s Radical Anti-Environmentalism
Trump's target isn't just Obama. His rejection of environmental protection goes much deeper.
We often hear about the Trump Administrations’s plans to “roll back Obama’s regulations.” But the Administration's goals go much deeper. Hyperbole is always a risk when discussing opposing policy views, but to call this Administration a profound threat to environmental regulation is only to echo their own words. When he announced the executive order directing EPA to reconsider the Clean Power Plan, Trump proclaimed that his quarrel was not just with a few ac...
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