Public Lands Watch: HR 5 and Land-Use Planning

Bill passed by house would increase burden on agency for land-use planning

HR 5 The Regulatory Accountability Act (RAA) Passed House 1/11 Received in the Senate 1/12 Referred to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs This post was co-authored by law student Emma Hamilton. On January 11th, the House passed HR 5, the Regulatory Accountability Act of 2017, which includes a provision mandating new procedural requirements for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) when rev...

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The Dangers of the New Executive Order on “Reducing Regulation”

The Order is Designed to Prevent Federal Agencies from Protecting Health, Safety, and the Environment

Dan Farber just posted an insightful, brief analysis of the executive order "Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory Costs" that was issued this morning. As Dan notes, the order is absurd and arbitrary - but more than that, it's extraordinary in its potential for doing harm to our country and its residents. It is meant to kneecap our federal regulatory agencies, without regard to those agencies' impact on our country's welfare. This post digs a little deepe...

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Watching over our public lands

Keeping track of what is happening with our federal public lands

There is a lot of discussion about possible changes in environmental law post-election.  One area that has received some attention is public lands.  The federal government owns a little less than one-third of the lands of the United States – many of those lands are ecologically valuable, and are components of our priceless national park system, and refuges for our wildlife and fish.  There have been proposals for large-scale transfers of those public lands to the st...

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Trump’s Anti-Regulation Executive Order

Trump hates environmental, health, and safety regs. But we knew that.

This morning, Trump issued an executive order intended to kill all new regulations by creating impossible obstacles. It requires that an agency repeal two old rules and offset the entire cost of the new rule before it can do anything to protect public health, safety, or the environment.  It's a terrible idea.  But at the end of the day, it won't make much difference.  Here's why. There are two categories of regulations.  There are regulations that an agency has di...

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Science Under Siege

There are troubling indications of a campaign to hide scientific information from the public.

On January 25, Reuters reported that EPA had been ordered to pull down its climate change page. That didn’t end up happening, but all use of social media was banned and some documents were axed, such as an FAQ about the scientific consensus. Meanwhile, data on international carbon emissions has vanished from the State Department page. For the past decade, the End of Term project has made an effort to create an archive of government information before presidential trans...

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California’s Best Investment in the Fight Against Climate Change

Trump is on a search-and-destroy mission against climate science & energy research. We need to fill the gap.

How can California best move the ball on the climate issue? Ann Carlson and I have just published an op. ed. in the Sacramento Bee making the case for a state climate-research fund and explaining how it could be implemented. Here’s why investing in new knowledge is such an important move for California. California can make the most impact if we get a multiplier effect, with our investments leading to further action by others. Knowledge is the most portable of all co...

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California Appellate Court Hears Arguments in Cap-and-Trade Program Challenge

Court of Appeal Justices Appear Inclined to Reject Industry's Constitutional Attack on State's Cap-and-Trade Auction System

On Tuesday, the California Court of Appeal in Sacramento heard oral arguments in the most formidable legal challenge to the State of California's ambitious, multifaceted efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That challenge takes the form of two cases, consolidated on appeal: California Chamber of Commerce v. California Air Resources Board and Morning Star Packing v. California Air Resources Board.  Both lawsuits attack the legality of California's cap-and-tr...

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Earth Day, 2017 Should Be The Next Massive Rally

The 47th Earth Day falls this year on April 22, a Saturday.  The fortuity of a weekend date makes Earth Day the perfect opportunity to marshall the energy of the wildly successful Women's marches around the world to demand that Congress and the Trump Administration protect our planet (hat tip to Emmett Fellow Julia Forgie for suggesting the idea). Perhaps no policy area has faced more immediate attack from the new Trump administration than the environment.  Today, h...

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Welcome to the World of “Alternative Facts”

Don't expect the idea of evidence-based policy to have much sway in this Adminstration

Kellyanne Conway, one of Trump's key advisors, has come up with a new term for deliberate falsehoods: "alternative facts."  It’s a concept that does not augur well for the next four years. And it hasn't gone unnoticed: the hashtag #alternativefacts is spreading like wildfire. Here's how the alternative facts concept surfaced. Upset by press reports that the inauguration crowd was smaller than Obama’s, the White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called the press i...

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President Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee & Murr-murs of Behind-the-Scenes Supreme Court Intrigue

Will Trump's Supreme Court Pick Prompt Long-Awaited Decision in Key Property Rights Case?

In his wide-ranging, long-awaited and (to put it mildly) colorful press conference last week, President Trump promised to announce his nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court within two weeks of taking the oath of office.  On this pledge, at least, I believe him.  Indeed, I'll be surprised if he waits that long. Senate Republicans refused to give President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland so much as a Judiciary Committee hearing over the last ten months.  B...

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